Professor Stephen de Mora was the Chief Executive of both PML and its wholly owned subsidiary, PML Applications Ltd, as well as an Honorary Visiting Professor in Biosciences at the University of Exeter. Educated in chemistry and oceanography, he obtained a BSc from the University College of Swansea and a PhD from the University of British Columbia, Vancouver.
He has taught chemistry, environmental science, and oceanography at universities in the United Kingdom (University of Lancaster), New Zealand (University of Auckland) and Canada (Université du Québec à Rimouski). After a 20-year career in academia, he joined the International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA) Marine Environment Laboratory in Monaco. Through the IAEA, he worked with several Regional Seas Programmes and Global Environment Facility (GEF) projects around the world.
Stephen was presented with a Distinguished Service Award in the year that the IAEA was a co-recipient of the Nobel Prize in 2005. Before returning to the UK to take up the position at PML in 2008, he had established an environmental consultancy based in Canada working for various UN bodies and the World Bank on assignment mostly in Eastern Europe, Western Asia and Central Africa. He assisted UNEP in formulating a Caspian Action Plan under the auspices of the Tehran Convention.
His areas of research expertise include environmental analytical chemistry, marine pollution monitoring and assessment, chemical oceanography, biogeochemistry, and polar science. Stephen has undertaken research missions at sea, and in both the Arctic region and Antarctica.