David Middleton

David is a fisheries scientist who has been Chief Executive of Trident Systems since it was established in 2012. He is committed to supporting credible fisheries management decisions by providing sound analyses and works to make fisheries information accessible to a range of audiences.

After completing a degree in Ecology at the University of York, David decided to focus on population modelling and quantitative biology. He completed his PhD under the supervision of Roger Nisbet and Bill Gurney at the University of Strathclyde, initially as part of the Department of Physics and subsequently in the newly-formed Department of Statistics & Modelling Science.

Post-docs at the University of Strathclyde and in the Department of Fisheries & Wildlife at the University of Minnesota led to a growing focus on modelling aquatic organisms, culminating in a move to the Falkland Islands to take up the role of stock assessment scientist with the Falkland Islands Government Fisheries Department. Here David discovered the joys of working with the copious data available from well-managed fisheries.

Attracted to New Zealand in 2004 by it’s reputation for fisheries science, David initially worked as a Fisheries Modeller, then as Chief Scientist, for the New Zealand Seafood Industry Council and it’s successor Seafood New Zealand. The consolidation of a series of ideas for industry investment in innovative fisheries research led to the establishment of Trident Systems.

“Good information is key to good fisheries management. Maintaining the long term value of investments in quota requires quota owners to pursue appropriate information for management, and incentivises the collection of the necessary data”