Phillip Dustan

 

Biography

Dr. Phillip Dustan is a marine ecologist specializing in the ecology, vitality, and remote sensing of corals and coral reef communities. He has worked in the Florida Keys, Bahamas, and throughout the Caribbean Sea, with much of his work being centered on detecting change and the impact of urbanization on watershed ecology of coastal waters, particularly in the Florida Keys.

Dr. Dustan was a founding Principal Investigator on the US EPA Florida Keys Coral Reef / Hardbottom Monitoring Project, responsible for developing sampling design, software, and digital video image analysis. Dr. Dustan recently pioneered new remote sensing techniques for coral reef change analysis using Landsat imagery and collaborated on developing molecular stress markers for assessing coral health.

Dr. Dustan’s notable research experiences include being Principal Scientist onboard Calypso during the Cousteau Society Amazon Expedition (1982-1983), piloting a submersible to explore deep reefs in the Florida Keys during the Sustainable Seas Program, and mapping the distribution of marine mammal habitats in the California Current using satellite imagery. In 1988-1989, Dr. Dustan was among the first US scientists to work in the Indian Ocean with Russian scientists from the USSR Academy of Sciences Far East Branch aboard the Academic Alexander Nesmeyanov.

From 1998-2003, Dr. Dustan was the Science Advisor for the Cousteau Society. His work has appeared in numerous publications and he has been active with the Education and Outreach Committee of the U.S. Coral Reef Task Force. He is also a member of the Technical Advisory Committee for the Southeast Florida Coral Reef Initiative and a member of the City of Charleston Green Committee.

Dr. Dustan is a member of the Linnean Society of London, the Royal Geographical Society, the American Association for the Advancement of Science, the American Society of Limnology and Oceanography, the International Coral Reef Society, and the American Geophysical Union. He is also part of the Biosphere Foundation Science Community and a science advisor to the Planetary Coral Reef Foundation.

Education

Ph. D. in Biology Sciences, SUNY

Bachelor of Arts in Biology, Adelphi University