DEEP OCEAN EXPEDITIONS - TEAM MEMBERS

Dr John McCosker

Since 1994, Dr. McCosker has been a Senior Scientist and the first occupant of the Research Chair of Aquatic Biology at the California Academy of Sciences. Prior to that, he was Director of the Steinhart Aquarium for 22 years.

Born in Los Angeles in 1945, he received his PhD in Marine Biology from the Scripps Institution of Oceanography in 1973.

Although trained as an evolutionary biologist, his research activities have subsequently broadened to include such diverse topics as the fishes of the Galapagos Islands, the symbiotic behavior of bioluminescent fishes, the behavior of venomous sea snakes, the biology of the coelacanth, and dispersed and renewable energy sources as alternatives to national vulnerability and war.

His research has also concerned attacks upon humans by great white sharks and involves the formulation of public safety plans. His work was summarized in BBC and NOVA programs entitled Jaws: the True Story and in Great White Shark, coauthored with Richard Ellis and copublished by Harper Collins and Stanford University Press. His fish studies in the Galapagos were the first to involve deep sea research submersibles and has resulted in numerous scientific publications and his participation in an award-winning Discovery Channel 1996 special and the Smithsonian Institution's first IMAX film. More recently his research has concerned the husbandry of endangered salmon and the cause of their decline in the north Pacific Ocean.

He is the author of more than 200 popular and scientific articles and books and serves on the boards of several non-profit philanthropic, educational, and research organizations. He and his wife live in Mill Valley and have fished and explored underwater in all of the world's oceans and seas.