Ben Halpern is Director of the National Center for Ecological Analysis and Synthesis (NCEAS) and professor at the Bren School of Environmental Science & Management at the University of California, Santa Barbara (UCSB). He also holds a position as Chair in Marine Conservation at Imperial College London and is the Director of the Center for Marine Assessment and Planning (CMAP) at UCSB. Ben’s research interests are primarily in marine ecology and conservation planning but span a wide range of disciplines. He has led several broad research programs addressing different aspects of managing ocean ecosystems, including the development and global application of the Ocean Health Index. He was a contributing author to the fifth International Panel on Climate Change (IPPC) report and was recently designated as one of the world’s most influential scientific minds by Thomson Reuters. He is also a Senior Fellow at the United Nations Environment Programme World Conservation Monitoring Centre. He earned his B.A. in Biology from Carleton College in 1995 and his Ph.D. in Marine Ecology from the University of California Santa Barbara in 2003.