Elliott Norse, Ph.D.

Each month, RJD will be honoring a scientist or ocean conservationist whose lifetime of achievements has significantly impacted the field of marine conservation.

This month, we honor Dr. Elliott Norse – Ichthyologist, marine conservationist, author, and photographer. Over the last four decades, Dr. Norse has become one of the most influential shark scientists, often bridging the gap between conservation science and policy.

Below is an excerpt from the Marine Conservation Institute website, describing some of Dr. Norse’s career highlights:

Dr. Norse has worked at the conservation science-policy interface for his entire career. After earning his B.S. in Biology from Brooklyn College, he studied the ecology of blue crabs in the Caribbean and the tropical East Pacific during his doctoral years at University of Southern California and his postdoctoral fellowship years at University of Iowa. Starting in 1978 he worked at the US Environmental Protection Agency, White House Council on Environmental Quality (where he defined biological diversity as conservation’s overarching goal), Ecological Society of America, The Wilderness Society and Ocean Conservancy before founding Marine Conservation Institute in 1996. Dr. Norse’s 150+ publications include Global Marine Biological Diversity: A Strategy for Building Conservation into Decision Making (1993) and Marine Conservation Biology: The Science of Maintaining the Sea’s Biodiversity (2005). He is a Pew Fellow in Marine Conservation, was President of the Society for Conservation Biology’s Marine Section, received the Nancy Foster Award for Habitat Conservation from the National Marine Fisheries Service, was named Brooklyn College 2008 Distinguished Alumnus and winner of the 2012 Chairman’s Medal from the Seattle Aquarium.

For more information on Dr. Norse’s current work with the Marine Conservation Institute, please visit: http://www.marine-conservation.org/

Feel free to also download a podcast by Dr. Elliott Norse on “The Evolution of Marine Protected Areas” from our EduMedia section of the website.