Laurence McCook, PhD

Laurence specialises in conservation and environmental sustainability, including the science-based management and conservation of marine ecosystems. He was most recently Director of Oceans Conservation at WWF; prior to that, he was a President’s International Visiting Professorial Fellow at the Chinese Academy of Sciences, South China Sea Institute of Oceanology, and Senior Advisor to the Marine Program of Conservation International in Indonesia. He is also Professorial Research Fellow at the Australian Research Council Centre of Excellence for Coral Reef Studies and Visiting Professor at Hasanuddin University, Indonesia.

Laurence has more than 30 years’ experience, including coral reefs in Australia, Indonesia and the “Coral Triangle” and the Caribbean, working with government, academic, non-government, corporate and industry sectors and international bodies. Laurence worked for the Great Barrier Reef Marine Park Authority from 2003 to 2014, where he was responsible for the scientific basis of management.

Before that, he spent 12 years at the Australian Institute of Marine Science, researching the ecology of coral reef resilience and degradation, the effects of water pollution, climate change and over-fishing. In 2005, Laurence was awarded a Pew Fellowship in Marine Conservation. He graduated from Dalhousie University in Canada with a PhD in Marine and Disturbance/Resilience Ecology.