Sylvia Alice Earle is an American marine biologist, oceanographer, explorer, author, and lecturer. She has been a National Geographic Explorer at Large since 1998. Earle was the first female chief scientist of the U.S. National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration, and was named by Time Magazine as its first Hero for the Planet in 1998.
John Stanley Gardiner (1872–1946) was a British zoologist.
John Edward Norwood Veron, credited in research as J. E. N. Veron, and in other writing as Charlie Veron, is an Australian biologist, taxonomist, and specialist in the study of corals and reefs. He is believed to have discovered more than 20% of the world's coral species.
Reef Life Survey is a marine life monitoring programme based in Hobart, Tasmania. It is international in scope, but predominantly Australian, as a large proportion of the volunteers are Australian. Most of the surveys are done by volunteer recreational divers, collecting biodiversity data for marine conservation. The database is available to marine ecology researchers, and is used by several marine protected area managements in Australia, New Zealand, American Samoa and the eastern Pacific.
Emma Letitia Johnston is the Deputy Vice Chancellor (Research) at the University of Sydney. She was former, Dean of Science at the University of New South Wales and President of Science & Technology Australia. She is an authority in marine ecology and a former Pro Vice-Chancellor (Research) at UNSW.
Carrie Manfrino is an American oceanographer who is president and director of research of the Central Caribbean Marine Institute. She also holds an associate professorship at Kean University. Her research concerns coral and climate change.
Jessica Melbourne-Thomas is a marine, Antarctic, and climate change scientist with the Commonwealth Scientific and Industrial Research Organisation, Australia. Her research focuses on climate change, its effects on the marine environment, and how to adapt and response to these changes.
Endozoicomonas is a genus of Gram-negative, aerobic or facultatively anaerobic, chemoorganotrophic, rod-shaped, marine bacteria from the family of Endozoicomonadaceae. Endozoicomonas are symbionts of marine animals.
Ruth Deborah Gates was the Director of the Hawaiʻi Institute of Marine Biology and the first woman to be President of the International Society for Reef Studies. Her research was dedicated to understanding coral reef ecosystems, specifically coral-algal symbiosis and the capacity for corals to acclimatize under future climate change conditions. Doctor Gates is most accredited with looking at coral biology and human-assisted coral evolution, known as super corals, as notably seen in the documentary Chasing Coral, available on Netflix.
The environmental impact of recreational diving is the effects of recreational scuba diving on the underwater environment, which is largely the effects of diving tourism on the marine environment. It is not uncommon for highly trafficked dive destinations to have more adverse effects with visible signs of diving's negative impacts due in large part to divers who have not been trained to sufficient competence in the skills required for the local environment, an inadequate pre-dive orientation, or lack of a basic understanding of biodiversity and the delicate balance of aquatic ecosystems. There may also be indirect positive effects as the environment is recognised by the local communities to be worth more in good condition than degraded by inappropriate use, and conservation efforts get support from dive communities who promote environmental awareness, and teach low impact diving and the importance of respecting marine life. There are also global coral reef monitoring networks in place which include local volunteer divers assisting in the collection of data for scientific monitoring of coral reef systems, which may eventually have a net positive impact on the environment.
Valerie May Taylor AM is an Australian conservationist, photographer, and filmmaker, and an inaugural member of the diving hall of fame. With her husband Ron Taylor, she made documentaries about sharks, and filmed sequences for films including Jaws (1975).
Nyawira A. Muthiga is an African conservation zoologist who is Director of the Western Indian Ocean Marine Science Association Marine Programme in Kenya. She is a conservation scientist for the Wildlife Conservation Society.
Pamela Hallock Muller is a scientist, oceanographer and professor at the University of South Florida in the College of Marine Science.
Andia Chaves Fonnegra is a Colombian marine biologist known for her research on the marine sponge Cliona delitrix.
Nora Goreau, born Nora Isabel Arango de Urriola, also known as “Mother of Coral Reef Science” was Panama's first marine biologist.
Claire Beatrix Paris-Limouzy, also known as Claire Paris, is marine scientist known for her research on fish larvae and tracking particles in the ocean. She also holds United States national records in freediving.
Tracy Ainsworth is a marine biologist and Scientia Professor at the University of New South Wales, working on coral reefs, and the biology of the Great Barrier Reef. Her research covers the biology of stresses, cells, disease, immunity and symbiosis. She was awarded the Dorothy Hill Medal for science, from the Australian Academy of Science, for research on coral reef, stresses and impacts of temperature on coral health.
Janice Lough is a climate scientist at the Australian Institute of Marine Science (AIMS) at James Cook University, researching climate change, and impacts of temperature and elevated CO2 on coral reefs. She was elected to the Australian Academy of Science in 2022 for her research in climate change, coral reefs, and developing high resolution environmental and growth histories from corals, particularly the Great Barrier Reef.
Mónica Medina is a professor of organismal biology at the Pennsylvania State University. She is known for environmental activism, such as fighting to protect Varadero Reef, and her research on the ecology and evolution of symbiosis by studying the relationships between cnidarian, endosymbiotic dinoflagellates, and other microbes.
Shimrit Perkol-Finkel was an Israeli marine biologist. She researched artificial coral reefs and developed ecological concrete products, green construction and CleanTech. She was a co-founder of two companies in the field of marine ecology, and also served as the CEO of one of them, "ECOncrete". Perkol-Finkel authored over 20 scientific articles. Her work was awarded prizes by the United Nations and the European Union. In 2019 she was chosen by "Forbes" as one of the top 50 women-led Startups that are crushing tech. In the same year, the patent she developed, together with her partner Ido Sella, was chosen as one of the 100 best inventions in the world by Time magazine.
