Les Kaufman is an evolutionary

ecologist Ecology () is the natural science of the relationships among living organisms and their environment. Ecology considers organisms at the individual, population, community, ecosystem, and biosphere levels. Ecology overlaps with the closely re ...

specializing in the biology and conservation of

aquatic ecosystems An aquatic ecosystem is an ecosystem found in and around a body of water, in contrast to land-based terrestrial ecosystems. Aquatic ecosystems contain communities of organisms—aquatic life—that are dependent on each other and on their environm ...

. He has special expertise in

coral reef A coral reef is an underwater ecosystem characterized by reef-building corals. Reefs are formed of colonies of coral polyps held together by calcium carbonate. Most coral reefs are built from stony corals, whose polyps cluster in group ...

biology, the evolution and ecology of tropical great lakes fishes, and

ecosystem-based management Ecosystem-based management is an environmental management approach that recognizes the full array of interactions within an ecosystem, including humans, rather than considering single issues, species, or ecosystem services in isolation. It can be ...

of marine resources. Kaufman received his

Bachelor of Science A Bachelor of Science (BS, BSc, B.S., B.Sc., SB, or ScB; from the Latin ') is a bachelor's degree that is awarded for programs that generally last three to five years. The first university to admit a student to the degree of Bachelor of Scienc ...

and Ph.D. degrees in

evolutionary ecology Evolutionary ecology lies at the intersection of ecology and evolutionary biology. It approaches the study of ecology in a way that explicitly considers the evolutionary histories of species and the interactions between them. Conversely, it can ...

from

Johns Hopkins University The Johns Hopkins University (often abbreviated as Johns Hopkins, Hopkins, or JHU) is a private university, private research university in Baltimore, Maryland, United States. Founded in 1876 based on the European research institution model, J ...

, receiving his Ph.D. in 1980. He is based in Boston as a Professor of Biology in the

Boston University Boston University (BU) is a Private university, private research university in Boston, Massachusetts, United States. BU was founded in 1839 by a group of Boston Methodism, Methodists with its original campus in Newbury (town), Vermont, Newbur ...

Marine Program, and a Faculty Fellow in the Pardee Center for the Study of the Longer-Range Future, where he leads interdisciplinary work on Coupled Human and Natural Systems (CHANS). He conducted post-doctoral research at the Harvard

Museum of Comparative Zoology The Museum of Comparative Zoology (formally the Agassiz Museum of Comparative Zoology and often abbreviated to MCZ) is a zoology museum located on the grounds of Harvard University in Cambridge, Massachusetts. It is one of three natural-history r ...

from 1980 to 1983, where he remains an Associate in Ichthyology. Kaufman worked full-time with the

New England Aquarium The New England Aquarium is a nonprofit organization located in Boston, Massachusetts. The species exhibited include Harbor seal, harbor and northern fur seals, California sea lions, African penguin, African and southern rockhopper penguins, gia ...

from 1983 through 1994, serving as Curator of Education, Curator of Exhibit Research and Development, and Chief Scientist. Since 2005 he has worked as a senior marine scientist and PI for the Marine Management Areas Science Program (www.science2action.org), and since 2012 as Marine Conservation Fellow in the Betty and Gordon Moore Center for Science. Since 2010, he has also served on the advisory board of Healthy Reefs for Healthy People. Kaufman has conducted research on coral reefs all over the world, including in the

Caribbean The Caribbean ( , ; ; ; ) is a region in the middle of the Americas centered around the Caribbean Sea in the Atlantic Ocean, North Atlantic Ocean, mostly overlapping with the West Indies. Bordered by North America to the north, Central America ...

, the

Indo-Pacific The Indo-Pacific is a vast biogeographic region of Earth. In a narrow sense, sometimes known as the Indo-West Pacific or Indo-Pacific Asia, it comprises the tropical waters of the Indian Ocean, the western and central Pacific Ocean, and the ...

, and the

Red Sea The Red Sea is a sea inlet of the Indian Ocean, lying between Africa and Asia. Its connection to the ocean is in the south, through the Bab-el-Mandeb Strait and the Gulf of Aden. To its north lie the Sinai Peninsula, the Gulf of Aqaba, and th ...

. He has published numerous scientific papers on the ecology of coral reefs, as well as on the conservation of marine

biodiversity Biodiversity is the variability of life, life on Earth. It can be measured on various levels. There is for example genetic variability, species diversity, ecosystem diversity and Phylogenetics, phylogenetic diversity. Diversity is not distribut ...

. In addition to his research, Kaufman has been involved in numerous conservation initiatives, including working to establish marine protected areas and to reduce the impact of

overfishing Overfishing is the removal of a species of fish (i.e. fishing) from a body of water at a rate greater than that the species can replenish its population naturally (i.e. the overexploitation of the fishery's existing Fish stocks, fish stock), resu ...

on coral reef ecosystems. He has received many honors and awards for his work, including a Pew Marine Conservation Fellowship and a MacArthur Fellowship. He is a Fellow of the American Association for the Advancement of Science and has served as President 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 ...

. Kaufman is active in public education and outreach, occasionally involved in the production of popular articles, television, and radio for venues such as National Geographic, Ranger Rick, and the National Public Broadcasting System. He has taken part in four

saturation diving Saturation diving is an ambient pressure diving technique which allows a diver to remain at working depth for extended periods during which the body tissues become solubility, saturated with metabolically inert gas from the breathing gas mixture ...

missions at the Aquarius underwater laboratory, where he has also performed underwater surgery on fish to implant electronic acoustic tags inside them.

References

External links

Boston University faculty profile
Living people American marine biologists Aquanauts Boston University faculty Johns Hopkins University alumni Place of birth missing (living people) Year of birth missing (living people) New England Complex Systems Institute 20th-century births American ecologists {{US-biologist-stub