Ben Halpern,

Director, National Center for Ecological Analysis and Synthesis (NCEAS); Professor, Bren School of Environmental Science and Management, University of California at Santa Barbara, Santa Barbara, USA

Dr. Ben Halpern is the Director of the National Center for Ecological Analysis and Synthesis (NCEAS) and Professor in the Bren School of Environmental Science and Management at UC Santa Barbara. He received his Ph.D. in marine ecology in 2003 from UC Santa Barbara and then held a joint post-doctoral fellowship at NCEAS and the Smith Fellowship Program.  He was a Research Associate at NCEAS for the decade following that until joining the faculty at the Bren School. He is also Chair in Marine Conservation at Imperial College London and serves as the Director of the Center for Marine Assessment and Planning (CMAP) at UC Santa Barbara.

In the past 15 years Dr. Halpern has published nearly 150 peer-reviewed articles and was recently named one of the World’s Most Influential Scientific Minds by Thompson-Reuters. He is passionate about teaching and mentoring and last year was selected by the Bren School student body as the Best Teacher of the Year. The year before he was selected to give the Anton Bruun Memorial Lecture at IOC/UNESCO.

       

Dr. Halpern focuses his research at the interface between marine ecology and conservation planning.  He has led and participated in several key synthetic research projects that have advanced our understanding of the state of the world’s oceans and the potential for marine reserves to improve ocean condition. In particular he has led the development and mapping of cumulative impact assessments at global and regional scales in marine and freshwater systems and has been the lead scientist for the Ocean Health Index project. He also leads the SNAPP working group on Sustainable Offshore Aquaculture.