Thanks to Dr Raphael Lemaitre, Chair of the Department of Invertebrate Zoology, the COMARGE Steering Committee met in the National Museum of Natural History, Smithsonian Institution in Washington D.C., almost among the jars of the collections.

This meeting was the first of the new expanded committee:

Joëlle Galéron (France), Baban Ingole (India), Hiroshi Kitazato (Japan), Elena Krylova (Russia), Gary Poore (Australia), Javier Sellanes (Chile) and Ann Vanreusel (Belgium) have joined the Steering Committee, which now count 14 members from 10 countries and all continents except Africa. The cosmopolitanism of COMARGE SC highlights the worldwide interests and concerns on continental margin ecosystems.