Professor and the Director
Larry Mayer
Larry Mayer is a Professor and the Director of the School of Marine Science and Ocean Engineering at the University of New Hampshire. He received a Ph.D. from the Scripps Institution of Oceanography in Marine Geophysics in 1979 and was selected as an astronaut candidate finalist for NASA’s first class of mission specialists. Larry has participated in more than 95 cruises (over 75 months at sea!) 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 and chaired a National Academy of Science Committee on the impact of the Deepwater Horizon Spill on ecosystem services in the Gulf of Mexico. He is currently the Chair of the National Academies of Science’s Oceans Studies Board, a member of the State Dept.’s Extended Continental Shelf Task Force and in 2016 was appointed by President Obama to the Arctic Research Commission. Larry’s 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.