Center for Health and the Global Environment

Oceans of Change: Lecturer Biographies

Ocean Warming and Coral Reefs
Ray Hayes, PhD, Howard University

Dr. Hayes received his education at Amherst College and the University of Michigan. He has taught on the faculty of several medical schools, including the Harvard Medical School, the University of Pittsburgh, Morehouse Medical School, Howard University, and the University of the West Indies (Jamaica).He is the immediate past Vice President of the Association of Marine Laboratories of the Caribbean, a Corporation Member of the Marine Biological Laboratory (Woods Hole), and a fellow of the American Association for the Advancement of Science. He is also a certified SCUBA instructor, an Associate Member of the Advisory Council on Underwater Archaeology, and a member of the Board of Directors of two international maritime archaeological groups. For many years, he has been an affiliate of the Undersea Hyperbaric Medical Society and Physicians for Social Responsibility. He is the co-founder the Human Health and Climate Change Symposium of the International Conference on Global Warming and serves as a member of its Planning Committee. His research interest focuses upon the cell biology of skeletal formation in stony corals and the significance of coral bleaching and emerging infectious diseases upon reef ecosystem degradation and their potential impacts upon human health.

Coral Reefs: Canaries in the Environmental Coal Mine
Nancy Knowlton, PhD, Scripps Institution of Oceanography

Dr. Nancy Knowlton is founder and Director of the Center for Marine Biodiversity and Conservation (CMBC), and holds the John Dove Isaacs Chair in Natural Philosophy at the Scripps Institution of Oceanography of the University of California at San Diego. Her research focuses on the ecology and evolution of coral reef organisms using a variety of techniques, including molecular genetics, field studies, and mathematical modeling. Her analyses have led to the now widespread recognition that estimates of marine diversity are probably too low by a factor of ten. Dr. Knowlton received her undergraduate degree at Harvard University and her PhD at the University of California at Berkeley, and was a professor at Yale University prior to moving to the Smithsonian Tropical Research Institute, where she continues to maintain a part-time position. She currently serves on the National Geographic Society’s Committee on Research and Exploration and Conservation Trust Committee, chairs the World Bank’s Targeted Research Program for Coral Reefs, and is principle investigator of the Census of Marine Life’s Coral Reef Initiative. She is an elected fellow of the American Association for the Advancement of Science and an Aldo Leopold Fellow.

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Oceans of Change: Lecturer Biographies