Larry Mayer

Prof. Larry Mayer is a Professor at, and the Director of, the School of Marine Science and Ocean Engineering and The Center for Coastal and Ocean Mapping (CCOM) at the University of New Hampshire (UNH), USA. His current research deals with sonar imaging and remote characterization of the seafloor as well as advanced applications of 3-D visualization to ocean mapping problems and applications of mapping to Law of the Sea issues, particularly in the Arctic.

Larry has participated in more than 90 cruises and has been chief or co-chief scientist of numerous expeditions including two legs of the Ocean Drilling Program and eight mapping expeditions in the ice-covered regions of the high Arctic. He is the recipient of the Keen Medal for Marine Geology and an Honorary Doctorate from the University of Stockholm. He was a member of the President's Panel on Ocean Exploration, National Science Foundation's Advisory Committee for the Geosciences, and chaired a National Academy of Science Committee on national needs for coastal mapping and charting as well as the recently completed National Academies report on the impact of the Deepwater Horizon Spill on ecosystem services in the Gulf of Mexico.

He was co-chair of NOAA's Ocean Exploration Advisory Working Group, and Vice-Chair of the Consortium of Ocean Leadership's Board of Trustees, and is currently a member of the State Department's Extended Continental Shelf Task Force and the Navy's SCICEX Advisory Committee. In 2016, he was appointed by President Obama to the Arctic Research Commission, in 2017 he was elected to the Hydrographic Society of America's Hall of Fame, and in 2018 he was elected as a member of The National Academy of Engineering.

He graduated magna cum laude with an Honors degree in Geology from the University of Rhode Island in 1973 and received a PhD from the Scripps Institution of Oceanography in Marine Geophysics in 1979. Larry went on to a postdoctoral position at the School of Oceanography at the University of Rhode Island where he worked on the early development of the Chirp Sonar and problems of deep-sea sediment transport and paleoceanography.

In 2000, Larry became the founding director of the Center for Coastal and Ocean Mapping at the University of New Hampshire and the co-director of the NOAA/UNH Joint Hydrographic Center.

Contact the Arctic and North Pacific Regional Center: arctic-pacific@seabed2030.org