Sam Spade's San Francisco

Barbara Block studies how tuna, billfish and sharks stay warm as they move around in the open ocean. Her work will help us understand how these large predators travel through pelagic waters — with larger implications for understanding the ocean ecosystem and for managing the world’s supply of important food fish.

Dee Boersma considers penguins ocean sentinels, helping her understand the effects of pollution, overfishing and climate change on the marine environment.

Jackson Browne has written some of the most literate and moving songs in popular music. Inducted into both the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame and the Songwriter’s Hall of Fame, he’s defined a genre of songwriting charged with honesty, emotion and personal politics.

Explorer. Environmentalist. Educator. Film Producer. For more than four decades, Jean-Michel Cousteau has dedicated himself and his vast experience to communicate to people of all nations and generations his love and concern for our water planet.

Mike deGruy has been filming in and on the ocean for three decades. And he’s almost as famous for his storytelling as he is for his glorious, intimate visions of the sea and the creatures who live in it.

John Delaney studies deep-sea volcanic activity along the Juan de Fuca Ridge in the northeast Pacific Ocean. Starting in 2010, he and his lab are converting a sector of the Juan de Fuca tectonic plate and the overlying ocean into an internationally accessible, interactive laboratory for broadband ocean science.

Rob Dunbar studies global environmental change, looking deeply at ancient corals and sediments to figure out how the climate and the ocean have shifted over the past 50 to 12,000 years — and how the Antarctic ecosystem is changing right now.

Sylvia Earle has been at the frontier of deep ocean exploration for four decades. She’s led more than 50 undersea expeditions, as a tireless advocate for our oceans and the creatures who live in them.

Film producer Jake Eberts has worked with some of the world’s greatest directors on many award-winning films. Now, he’s turned his attention to Jacques Perrin’s film about the oceans.

Kristina Gjerde is an expert on the law of the high seas — the vast areas of the sea and seabed that exist beyond any national jurisdiction. These places belong to the world; Gjerde’s work aims to help the world work together to protect them.

Researcher and legendary educator Fred Grassle studies the world at the bottom of the ocean — the benthic zone. His research joins biology, geology, chemistry and climate research.

A leader in the study of the ecology and evolution of marine organisms, Jeremy Jackson is known for his deep understanding of geological time. Jeremy’s current work focuses on the future of the world’s oceans, given the threats of overfishing, habitat destruction and ocean warming.

Daniel Pauly is the principal investigator at the Sea Around Us Project, which studies the impact of the world’s fisheris on marine ecosystems. The software he’s helped develop is used around the world to model and track the ocean.

An artist with a singular vision, Damien Rice has released two solo studio albums of intense, intimate songs.

Callum Roberts is a marine conservation biologist whose studies reveal both the huge scale of human impacts on the sea, and the means of protecting marine ecosystems from such effects.

Working at the intersection of science and policy, Enric Sala searches for the last pristine marine environments on earth — and brings back data to help governments protect them.

Fearless ocean rower Roz Savage gave up her life as a management consultant to row across the Atlantic in 2005. Her mission now is to row across the Pacific, from the West Coast to Australia, raising awareness of the world’s top environmental issues along the way.

Chef Barton Seaver is an advocate of sustainable seafood and chef in Washington DC. His work tells the story of our common resources through the communion we all share – dinner.

Brian Skerry is a photojournalist who captures images that not only celebrate the mystery and beauty of the sea but also bring attention to the pressing issue which endanger our oceans.

Greg Stone was a key driver in the establishment of the Phoenix Island Protected Area in Kiribati, the largest such area in the world. One of the richest and most pristine marine areas in the world, PIPA is a laboratory for exploring and monitoring the recovery of coral reefs from previous bleaching events.

For the past 17 years, Jim Toomey has been writing and drawing the daily comic strip Sherman’s Lagoon, about a daffy family of ocean dwellers.

Peter Tyack studies the the social behavior and acoustic communication in whales and dolphins, learning how these animals use sound to perform critical activities, such as mating and locating food.

Edith Widder studies bioluminescence, the light chemically produced by many ocean organisms. She’s helped to design groundbreaking cameras for viewing this glowing world — and uses the startling results to help raise awareness of our marine environment.