Lisa Levin

Now Emerita, Dr. Lisa Levin served from 1992-2022 as Professor of Biological Oceanography at the Scripps Institution of Oceanography, University of California, San Diego and from 2011-2017 as Director of the Center for Marine Biodiversity and Conservation at Scripps. Prior to working at Scripps, she was a professor for 9 years at North Carolina State University in Raleigh. Dr. Levin’s research interests include biodiversity of deep-sea continental margin ecosystems including chemosynthetic habitats and oxygen minimum zones, the influence of ocean deoxygenation and ocean acidification on upwelling ecosystems, wetland structure and function in the context of invasion, restoration and water re-use, and connectivity in coastal ecosystems. Her recent work has addressed ocean ecosystem vulnerability to climate change and to human resource extraction, with a focus on the deep sea. Over the past 40 years she has led or participated in over 50 deep-sea expeditions to the Pacific, Indian and Atlantic Oceans, using ships, submersibles, ROVs and AUVs to sample and conduct experiments. To help advance science in service of society and to bring deep-sea science to ocean policy making Dr. Levin helped found and presently co-leads both the Deep-Ocean Stewardship Initiative and the Deep-Ocean Observing Strategy.  She actively contributes to IPCC Reports and the World Ocean Assessments. Dr. Levin is a Fellow of both the American Geophysical Union and the American Association for the Advancement of Science, was awarded lifetime achievement awards from ALSO the Western Society of Naturalists, and received the Prince Albert 1 Grand Medal in Science in 2019.