The program director of the Coastal and Marine Management program is Dagný Arnarsdóttir. She holds a master's degree from the Environment and Natural Resources (ENR) program at the University of Iceland (UI). In her master's thesis, Dagný studied the Corporate Social Responsibility discourse in Iceland and based her methodology on similar researches on climate change discourses in neighboring countries. Parallel with her masters studies 2006-2009, Dagný worked as a freelance assistant for Iceland's Specialist Committee for the Reduction of Greenhouse Gas Emissions, did an internship for the Environmental Agency of Iceland where she proposed a national sustainability indicator set, worked project based for the Icelandic Association of Environmental Scientists (FUMÍ), taught ethics at Reykjavik's Adult Education Center and, for two years, was the coordinator for the ENR masters program at UI.
Extracurricular activities: In the winter of 2007-2008, Dagný was the chairman of Gaia - ENR master's program student community. From April of 2011, she will be chairing the Icelandic Association of Environmental Scientists (FUMÍ).

Dagný has been the program director of the CMM masters program at the University Centre of the Westfjords since December 2009.

 

The role of the program director is the following:

• Academic director of the CMM program, oversees and coordinates the curriculum
• Contact person between the Master's program committee, UW staff and students at the program
• Suggests recruitment of new teachers, advisors and external readers to the Master‘s program committee
• Networks for the program, facilitates cooperation, virtual faculty
• Answers or delegates all questions related to academic matters at the program
• Oversees study progress and whether students stay on track, both during courses and thesis phase
• Organizes and directs the master‘s thesis examination process, chairs master's thesis lectures and defenses