Brigitta Ine van Tussenbroek is principal research scientist at the Seagrass Research lab at the facilities on the Mexican Caribbean coast of the Reef Systems Unit, Marine Science Institute of the Mexican National Autonomous University (UNAM). For over 30 years, she has studied processes and functions of seagrass meadows in maintaining the ecological balance of thecoastlines of Caribbean Sea; services that are undervalued to date. She has published works and educated students on tropical seagrass ecology, population genetics, reproduction, and management. Since 2015, she has also dedicated efforts to the study of the impacts of the massive influxes of holopelagic Sargassum spp. on the Caribbean coastal ecosystems.