Jeremy Jackson led the quiet life of a scientist until one of his studies was published in Science Magazine in 2001, arousing such a response that he began speaking all over the world.

‘It had kind of an electric reaction and response,’ Jackson said. ‘It was actually on the front page of practically every English language newspaper in the world. It was even on the free newspaper in the subway in London.’

Jackson, a coral reef ecologist and professor of oceanography at the Scripps Institution of Oceanography, found with a team of scientists that overfishing plays a significant role in altering the behavior of marine ecosystems. Now Jackson said he travels the world speaking about the negative effects of pollution, global climate change and overfishing.

Jackson will be the guest speaker at Syracuse University for the 2011 Chauncey D. Holmes Lecture and Award Ceremony, which honors students who have earned high achievement in introductory earth science classes. The ceremony will be held Thursday at 7 p.m. in Heroy Auditorium and will honor 12 SU students, according to an April 5 SU news release.

The annual Holmes speaker is chosen by a group of professors through the Department of Earth Sciences at SU. The idea of the event is to bring in a speaker who has a compelling message with a scientific meaning. The event was scheduled during Earth Week to highlight its importance.

Even though the overfishing study gained acclaim in the world of marine ecology, Jackson said he and his team of scientists didn’t originally plan to focus on overfishing. They had set out looking at all the different kinds of historical changes in the ocean, but discovered that the story of fishing was so big that they changed the focus of their study, he said.

Jackson said his study was based off other scientists’ findings, and he noticed the decline of the oceans doing his research in the library and online.

‘Here was all that stuff that had been published for decades, and it wasn’t that we had done new research and collected new data, but what we did was think about the information available and tell a story,’ Jackson said.

Jackson’s speech for the Holmes lecture is titled ‘The Future of the Oceans Past.’ When the audience walks away from his lecture, Jackson said he wants students to know one essential idea and act upon it.

‘The world we live in is extremely threaded, and our whole way of life is threaded, and this is something that especially young people just can’t imagine,’ he said. ‘I am hoping that the new generation will wake up and realize that unless you take action, the world you grow up in will not be a very nice place.’

Cathryn Newton, a professor of interdisciplinary sciences and the dean emerita of the College of Arts and Sciences, said she believes Jackson stands apart from other scientists.

‘He is that rare individual who can take a complex system like reefs or overfishing in the oceans and translate that to observations and images that people can really grasp and really comprehend,’ she said.

Newton said this will be a special opportunity students should engage in, not only because of Jackson’s knowledge on the subject, but also because of his personality.

Said Newton: ‘This is an exceptional opportunity for students to meet, see and talk with someone who has done the cutting-edge work on reefs, but who is accessible, funny and lively as a speaker.’

cjsunde@syr.edu

 

Published on April 20, 2011 at 12:00 pm