Claude Payri
Phychologist
Bio
Claude Payri earned master degree in botany and oceanography in 1981 and the Doctorat ès Sciences in marine ecology in 1987 from Montpellier University France. She held a faculty position as Professor Assistant and Professor at the University of French Polynesia, in the period 1989-2003. In the early 2004 she moved to the Institut de Recherche pour le Développement (IRD) as Director of research as well as Head of the coral reef team “COREUS” at IRD center in Nouméa, New Caledonia.
Her research activities are mainly focused on the ecology, the taxonomy and the phylogeny of the marine flora associated to coral reefs in the IndoPacific region. Part of her research activity is also dedicated to paleoecology using coralline algae to describe paleoenvironment in Holocene reefs and to interpreting the recent history of the barrier reefs.
Claude’s on-going research interests in phycology include the cataloguing of benthic marine algae of tropical and subtropical Indo-Pacific; describing the algae composition of various areas such French Polynesia, Clipperton, Fiji, Wallis, Vanuatu, Solomon, PNG, Maldives, La Reunion. Abundant collections of herbarium specimens from all the scientific expeditions are housed and curate at the University of French Polynesia (UPF) and IRD (IRD-NOU).
