Terry Hughes (scientist)

In December 2016, Professor Terry Hughes, was recognized by Nature as one of the "10 people who mattered this year" for his leadership in responding to the global coral bleaching event caused by climate change. Nature's 10 dubbed him "Reef sentinel", for the global role he plays in applying multi-disciplinary science to securing reef sustainability. Terry (born 1956, in Dublin, Ireland) is a Distinguished Professor of Marine Biology at James Cook University in Queensland, Australia. He is currently an Australian Research Council Laureate Fellow and Director of the Australian Research Council (ARC) Centre of Excellence for Coral Reef Studies. His research interests encompass coral reef ecology, macroecology and evolution, as well as social-ecological interactions. His recent work has focused on marine ecology, macroecology, climate change, identifying safe planetary boundaries for human development, and on transformative governance of the sea in Australia, Chile, China, the Galapagos Islands, Gulf of Maine and the Coral Triangle. His career citations in Google Scholar exceed 43,000.

Hughes was awarded a PhD in Ecology and Evolution from The Johns Hopkins University, Baltimore, USA, in 1984, for his groundbreaking research on coral life histories, phase-shifts and the resilience of Caribbean coral reefs. Following his PhD, he was an NSF Postdoctoral Research Fellow and Lecturer at the University of California, Santa Barbara (1984-1990) before moving to James Cook University in Townsville, Australia. He was appointed Professor in 2000 and established the ARC Centre of Excellence for Coral Reef Studies in 2005. Hughes has published in excess of 130 peer reviewed publications, so far. His work receives extensive media coverage and he actively communicates his findings to a broader audience through popular articles, radio and television. Under the direction of Hughes, the ARC Centre has grown to become the world’s foremost authority on coral reef science and is a hub for world-leading research and graduate training. The ARC Centre produces greater than 350 publications annually and was recently awarded further funding until 2020.

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