Nicolae Dumitrescu, aquaculture research specialist at the Ecofish Project, Bucharest

Nicolae Dumitrescu

Aquaculture Research Specialist and Sustainable Production Analyst

MSc in Aquatic Sciences and Aquaculture from University of Bucharest • Senior Research Associate at Ecofish Project • 12 years in Aquaculture and Sustainable Food Systems

With over a decade of fieldwork across Romanian carp farms, Spanish sea bass operations, and recirculating aquaculture facilities in the United States, Nicolae has developed a research practice grounded in the operational realities of farm-level transition — not in theoretical frameworks alone.

What I Write About

Featured Writing

My Approach

"The data from a single production cycle tells you very little. What matters is what changes — and what doesn't — across three or four cycles in a row."

Nicolae approaches each research question by spending time inside operating farms before drawing conclusions. His analysis is built on longitudinal data collected across multiple production cycles, and he is particularly interested in the intersection of certification governance, analytical modelling, and the practical constraints that determine whether sustainable aquaculture transitions actually happen.

Currently Working On

Comparative analysis of organic certification uptake rates across ECOFISH pilot regions, with a focus on identifying the institutional and financial barriers that most reliably predict transition failure at the farm level.