Alex Tilley PhD

Director & Principle Scientist

Alex is a founding director of Talking Oceans, and has been working tropical marine conservation and research since 2006, though his passion for marine biology was ignited in Fiji in 1998, while working as a volunteer, mapping coral cover and fish diversity.

Alex develops and leads Talking Oceans projects in the eastern tropical Pacific, and is a research fellow with the Smithsonian Institution, currently working on a project to enhance small scale fisheries sustainability in Myanmar.

In the past decade Alex he has taught marine resource management to undergraduates in the Turks & Caicos Islands; studied whale shark population dynamics in southern Mozambique; and directed the Wildlife Conservation Society’s Research Station in Belize for 3 years, where he also carried out his PhD research on the abundant yet little studied southern stingray.

Alex’s primary research interests are in the application of species and community ecology to marine conservation and fisheries management. His current research projects focus on identifying critical habitat and conservation priorities for sharks and rays in the eastern tropical Pacific, and combining analysis of fisheries and scoio-economic data to guide management decision making in small scale fisheries.

A huge part of Talking Oceans is the capacity building of local stakeholders through research and participation, and Alex uses his multidisciplinary experience in community based conservation and marine science to further the local impact and longevity of our projects.