SEAFDEC welcomes its new Secretary-General, Dr. Chumnarn Pongsri replacing Dr. Siri Ekmaharaj, who completed his four-year term of office as SEAFDEC Secretary-General on 30 September 2009.

Prior to the nomination of Dr. Chumnarn Pongsri as the Chief of the SEAFDEC Training Department and concurrently Secretary-General of SEAFDEC starting 1^st October 2009, he worked as Expert in Ecology at the Department of Fisheries (DOF) of Thailand. Dr. Chumnarn completed his Bachelor of Science Degree in Fisheries from the Faculty of Fisheries, Kasetsart University in 1981, Master of Science in Aquaculture from the Asian Institute of Technology (Thailand) in 1985, Bachelor of Arts in Public Administration from Sukhothai Thammathiraj (Thailand) in 1993, and Ph.D. from the University of Wales, UK in 1994. At the start of his fisheries career, he worked as Fisheries Biologist in several provinces in the northeastern part of Thailand. From 2000 to 2003, he worked as Director of the Environment Division of the Mekong River Commission (MRC) Secretariat and also served as Member of the Board of Advisors for the Greater Mekong Sub-region Academic Research Network (GMSARN), after which he returned to the DOF and continued working as a Senior Fisheries Biologist and Expert in Ecology. Dr. Chumnarn also served as Secretary to the Permanent Secretary of the Ministry of Agriculture and Cooperatives.