Jeremy Bradford Cook Jackson (born November 13, 1942) is an American ecologist, paleobiologist, and conservationist. He is an emeritus professor at the

Scripps Institution of Oceanography The Scripps Institution of Oceanography (sometimes referred to as SIO, Scripps Oceanography, or Scripps) in San Diego, California, US founded in 1903, is one of the oldest and largest centers for oceanography, ocean and Earth science research ...

, senior scientist emeritus at the

Smithsonian Institution The Smithsonian Institution ( ), or simply the Smithsonian, is a group of museums and education and research centers, the largest such complex in the world, created by the U.S. government "for the increase and diffusion of knowledge". Founded ...

, and visiting scientist at the

American Museum of Natural History The American Museum of Natural History (abbreviated as AMNH) is a natural history museum on the Upper West Side of Manhattan in New York City. In Theodore Roosevelt Park, across the street from Central Park, the museum complex comprises 26 inter ...

Center for Biodiversity and Conservation. He studies threats and solutions to human impacts on the environment and the ecology and evolution of tropical seas. Jackson has more than 170 scientific publications and 11 books, with nearly 40,000 citations listed on Google Scholar. He is a powerfully engaging public speaker and has lectured widely about the environmental crisis, including his TED talk “How we wrecked the oceans’ that has been viewed over half a million times. Jackson is a Fellow of the

American Association for the Advancement of Science The American Association for the Advancement of Science (AAAS) is an American international non-profit organization with the stated goals of promoting cooperation among scientists, defending scientific freedom, encouraging scientific respons ...

and the

American Academy of Arts and Sciences The American Academy of Arts and Sciences (abbreviation: AAA&S) is one of the oldest learned societies in the United States. It was founded in 1780 during the American Revolution by John Adams, John Hancock, James Bowdoin, Andrew Oliver, and ...

. He has received more than a dozen prizes and awards including the

BBVA Banco Bilbao Vizcaya Argentaria, S.A. (), better known by its initialism BBVA, is a Spanish multinational financial services company based in Madrid and Bilbao, Spain. It is one of the largest financial institutions in the world, and is present ...

International Prize in Ecology and Conservation, the Paleontological Medal, and the Darwin Medal of the

International Society for Reef Studies The International Coral Reef Society (ICRS; previously the International Society for Reef Studies) is an international, not-for profit, scientific society dedicated to the conservation of coral reefs through science and understanding. Founded in 19 ...

. Jackson’s work on the collapse of coastal ecosystems was chosen by Discover magazine as the outstanding scientific achievement of 2001. His new book Breakpoint: Tending to America’s Environmental Crises, released by

Yale Yale University is a private research university in New Haven, Connecticut. Established in 1701 as the Collegiate School, it is the third-oldest institution of higher education in the United States and among the most prestigious in the wor ...

in April 2018.

Biography

Jackson was born in

Louisville, Kentucky Louisville ( , , ) is the largest city in the Commonwealth of Kentucky and the 28th most-populous city in the United States. Louisville is the historical seat and, since 2003, the nominal seat of Jefferson County, on the Indiana border ...

but had moved to

New York City New York, often called New York City or NYC, is the List of United States cities by population, most populous city in the United States. With a 2020 population of 8,804,190 distributed over , New York City is also the L ...

by the age of one. He grew up in

Miami, Florida Miami ( ), officially the City of Miami, known as "the 305", "The Magic City", and "Gateway to the Americas", is a East Coast of the United States, coastal metropolis and the County seat, county seat of Miami-Dade County, Florida, Miami-Dade C ...

and

Washington, D.C. ) , image_skyline = , image_caption = Clockwise from top left: the Washington Monument and Lincoln Memorial on the National Mall, United States Capitol, Logan Circle, Jefferson Memorial, White House, Adams Morgan, ...

He completed his bachelor in zoology at

George Washington University , mottoeng = "God is Our Trust" , established = , type = Private federally chartered research university , academic_affiliations = , endowment = $2.8 billion (2022) , preside ...

. He received his Ph.D. in geology from

Yale University Yale University is a private research university in New Haven, Connecticut. Established in 1701 as the Collegiate School, it is the third-oldest institution of higher education in the United States and among the most prestigious in the wo ...

in 1971. Jeremy Jackson is married to

Nancy Knowlton Nancy Knowlton is a coral reef biologist and a former Sant Chair for Marine Science at the Smithsonian National Museum of Natural History. Life She graduated from Harvard University, and from the University of California, Berkeley, with a PhD. ...

. They met in the

Caribbean The Caribbean (, ) ( es, El Caribe; french: la Caraïbe; ht, Karayib; nl, De Caraïben) is a region of the Americas that consists of the Caribbean Sea, its islands (some surrounded by the Caribbean Sea and some bordering both the Caribbean Se ...

and married in 1983. They have one daughter, Rebecca. Jackson also has a son, Stephen, from a previous marriage. Jackson lives in

and Brooksville, Maine where he guest reads to elementary school students about environmental issues in Maine.

Career

Dr. Jackson started his career as a marine biologist studying the distribution of bryozoans and their behavior. His work on marine bryozoans provided some of the strongest evidence to date for the controversial

punctuated equilibrium In evolutionary biology, punctuated equilibrium (also called punctuated equilibria) is a Scientific theory, theory that proposes that once a species appears in the fossil record, the population will become stable, showing little evolution, evol ...

model of evolutionary change. In addition to the bryozoan work, Jackson produced influential studies on coral reef communities and served as a central figure in a

investigation of ecosystems in Panama and the surrounding regions. Jackson also studied the impact of

Hurricane Allen Hurricane Allen was a rare and extremely powerful Cape Verde hurricane that affected the Caribbean, eastern and northern Mexico, and southern Texas in August 1980. The first named storm and second tropical cyclone of the 1980 Atlantic hurricane ...

on reefs in

Jamaica Jamaica (; ) is an island country situated in the Caribbean Sea. Spanning in area, it is the third-largest island of the Greater Antilles and the Caribbean (after Cuba and Hispaniola). Jamaica lies about south of Cuba, and west of His ...

. The resulting paper confidently predicted recovery of the reef. A few years later, in Jamaica Jackson led a study concerning the impact of an oil spill on the nearshore regions affected. The result: corals affected by the spill died, but so did others, outside the stressed region. The reason for lack of recovery inside impacted regions and deterioration outside such regions, Jackson decided, was human activity. Concerned about the increasing effect of human impacts on marine ecosystems, Jackson created what is now known as "historical ecology" of marine ecosystems. Using historical and ecological sources, Jackson demonstrated that

green sea turtles The green sea turtle (''Chelonia mydas''), also known as the green turtle, black (sea) turtle or Pacific green turtle, is a species of large sea turtle of the family Cheloniidae. It is the only species in the genus ''Chelonia''. Its range exten ...

in the pre-Columbian Caribbean used to exist by the tens of millions, greater than current populations. After that first attempt at understanding what pristine marine ecosystems looked like, Jackson assembled an international team of ecologists, anthropologists, archeologists, and historians, to reconstruct marine ecosystem dynamics from the last several hundred years. The first result of this interdisciplinary working group was a paper led by Jackson showing that fishing predated any other major disturbance to marine ecosystems in the Holocene. This paper was chosen as the most important contribution of the year 2001 by Discover Magazine. It is, so far, the most cited paper coming out of the

National Center for Ecological Analysis and Synthesis The National Center for Ecological Analysis and Synthesis (NCEAS) is a research center at the University of California, Santa Barbara, in Santa Barbara, California, Santa Barbara, California. Better known by its acronym, NCEAS (pronounced “n-seas� ...

(NCEAS) in Santa Barbara, and one of the most cited papers in marine ecology. Jackson also led the definitive assessment for the International Coral Reef Initiative of the declining status and trends of Caribbean coral reef ecosystems over last 50 years. Jeremy B.C. Jackson is also the founder of the Panama Paleontology Project which uses paleontology and geology to unravel the evolution of Caribbean marine ecosystems over the past 10 million years, in response to the emergence of the

Central American Isthmus Central America ( es, América Central or ) is a subregion of the Americas. Its boundaries are defined as bordering the United States to the north, Colombia to the south, the Caribbean Sea to the east, and the Pacific Ocean to the west. Ce ...

which isolated the Caribbean from the Pacific and changed global climate. He was also the Ocean Biology Deputy Editor for the journal

Science Advances ''Science Advances'' is a peer-reviewed multidisciplinary open-access scientific journal established in early 2015 and published by the American Association for the Advancement of Science. The journal's scope includes all areas of science, incl ...

, served on the

NOAA The National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration (abbreviated as NOAA ) is an United States scientific and regulatory agency within the United States Department of Commerce that forecasts weather, monitors oceanic and atmospheric conditio ...

Scientific Advisory Board and the

World Wildlife Fund The World Wide Fund for Nature Inc. (WWF) is an international non-governmental organization founded in 1961 that works in the field of wilderness preservation and the reduction of human impact on the environment. It was formerly named the Wo ...

USA National Board, and currently serves on Board of the

Institute of Biospheric Studies.

Public Lectures and Media

In addition to his positions as a researcher and educator, as a public lecturer Jackson has spoken in regards to the "brave new ocean," where clear and productive coastal seas turn into oxygen-starved dead zones, and thriving food webs degrade to seas of slime and disease. He has spoken to the

United States Senate The United States Senate is the upper chamber of the United States Congress, with the House of Representatives being the lower chamber. Together they compose the national bicameral legislature of the United States. The composition and pow ...

about ocean issues and held conference at the U.S.

Naval War College The Naval War College (NWC or NAVWARCOL) is the staff college and "Home of Thought" for the United States Navy at Naval Station Newport in Newport, Rhode Island. The NWC educates and develops leaders, supports defining the future Navy and associat ...

on the degradation of the ocean environment and its implications for human wellbeing and US national security. He is also a proponent of the

shifting baseline A shifting baseline (also known as a sliding baseline) is a type of change to how a system is measured, usually against previous reference points (baselines), which themselves may represent significant changes from an even earlier state of the syst ...

concept and spoke at the Shifting Baselines Ocean Media Project's Hollywood Ocean Night in 2004. Jeremy B.C. Jackson was also a featured scientist in the Leonardo DiCaprio film '' The 11th Hour'' and

Fisher Stevens Fisher Stevens (born Steven Fisher; November 27, 1963) is an American actor, director, producer and writer. As an actor, he is best known for his portrayals of Ben in ''Short Circuit'' and ''Short Circuit 2'', Chuck Fishman on the 1990s televis ...

's '' Before the Flood''.

Select Publications

Publications by Jeremy Jackson
*Jackson JBC (2008) Evolution and extinction in the brave new ocean. Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences USA 105 (Suppl. 1):11458-11465 *Knowlton N & Jackson JBC (2008) Shifting baselines, local impacts, and climate change on coral reefs. PLOS Biology 6:215-220 *Worm B, Barbier EB, Baumont N, Duffy JE, Foke C, Halpern BS, Jackson JBC, Lotze HK, Micheli F, Palumbi SR, Sala E, Selkoe KA, Stochowicz JJ & Watson R (2006) Impacts of biodiversity loss on ocean ecosystem services. Science 314:787-790 *McClenachan L, Jackson JBC & Newman MJH (2006) Conservation implications of historic sea turtle nesting loss. Frontiers in Ecology and Environment 4:290-296 *Jackson JBC & Erwin DH (2006) What can we learn about ecology and evolution from the fossil record? Trends in Ecology and Evolution 21:322-328 *Newman MJH, Paredes GA, Sala E & Jackson JBC (2006) Structure of Caribbean coral reef communities across a large gradient of fish biomass. Ecology Letters 9:1216-1227 *Lotze HK, Lenihan HS, Bourque BJ, Bradbury RH, Cooke RG, Kay MC, Kidewell SM, Kirby MX, Peterson CH & Jackson JBC (2006) Depletion, degradation, and recovery potential of estuaries and coastal seas. Science 312:1806-1809 *Jackson JBC, Ogden JC, Pandolfi JM, Baron N, Bradbury RH, Guzman HM, Hughes TP, Kappel CV, Micheli F, Possingham HP, Sala E (2005) Reassessing U. S. coral reefs. Science 308:1741-1742 *Eldredge N, Thompson JN, Brakefield PM, Gavrilets S, Jablonski D, Jackson JBC, Lenski RE, Lieberman BS, McPeek, MA, & Miller, W (2005) The dynamics of evolutionary stasis. Paleobiology 31 (Supplement S):133-145 *Pandolfi JM, Jackson JBC., Baron N, Bradbury RH, Guzman H., Hughes TP, Micheli F, Ogden J, Possingham H, Kappel CV, & Sala E (2005) Are US coral reefs on the slippery slope to slime? Science 307:1725-1726. *Jackson JBC et al. (2001) Historical overfishing and the recent collapse of coastal ecosystems. Science 293:629-638 *Jackson, Jeremy B. C. and Johnson, Kenneth G. 2001. Measuring past biodiversity. Science 293:2401-2403. *Jackson JBC (1997) Reefs since Columbus. Coral Reefs 16:S23-S32 *Jackson JBC (1977) Competition on marine hard substrata: the adaptive significance of solitary and colonial strategies. American Naturalist 111:743-767 *Jackson JBC & Buss LW (1975) Allelopathy and spatial competition among coral reef invertebrates. Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences USA 72:5160-5163

References

External links

Homepage @ SCRIPPS InstituteJackson's profile @ Smithsonian Tropical Research Institute
* ttp://www.ted.com/talks/jeremy_jackson.html TED Talk: How we wrecked the ocean (2010)br>Talk: Sea Level Rise is Dangerous @ U.S. Naval War College (2015)
{{DEFAULTSORT:Jackson, Jeremy 1942 births Living people American marine biologists Scripps Institution of Oceanography faculty People from Louisville, Kentucky George Washington University alumni Yale University alumni Members of the United States National Academy of Sciences