Shirley Sorokin is Communications Officer at the Centre for Marine Bioproducts Development, Flinders University and Secretary of the Australia New Zealand Marine Biotechnology Society (ANZMBS). She organised the 2012 Asia Pacific Conference on Algal Biotechnology in Adelaide and the ANZMBS’s first conference in Adelaide in 2016. She has previously worked at SARDI Aquatic Sciences, the Australian Institute of Marine Science and the Queensland Museum. She is a specialist in the identification of temperate and tropical benthic invertebrates, especially sponges.