Dr. Frank E. Muller-Karger is a Professor at the USF College of Marine Science. As a biological oceanographer, Dr. Muller-Karger's research focuses on how marine ecosystems change over time. Using time series of observations to study changes in water quality, primary production, and biodiversity in coastal marine environments, he is advancing a broader understating of the impacts of large-scale phenomena such as climate change and human activities on ecosystems, and how these changes in turn affect society. Dr. Muller-Karger has made several significant contributions to science. He pioneered efforts to map the dispersal of water from large rivers in the ocean and led a team to establish the Carbon Retention in a Colored Ocean (CARIACO) Time Series Program in the Cariaco Basin off the coast of Venezuela to document the links between ocean changes, biodiversity of the plankton, changes in fisheries in the region, and the fine sediments that settle to the bottom of the anoxic Cariaco Basin; these sediments are used to calibrate past climate records around the world. Dr. Muller-Karger is also internationally recognized for his work using satellites, including work to measure and interpret ocean color. Among other impactful outcomes, his team at USF contributed the first high resolution global map of shallow tropical coral reefs using Landsat data. This work led to a new "coastal/aerosol" Landsat band, starting with Landsat 8. Dr. Muller-Karger continues to use satellites to assess the importance of continental margins in the global carbon budget, and how the sinking flux of particulate carbon affects marine life, including on mid-ocean ridges. Dr. Muller-Karger was nominated and appointed Commissioner to the U.S. Commission on Ocean Policy by former President George W. Bush. He has served on the Ocean Studies Board of the National Research Council/National Academies. He previously received the NASA Jet Propulsion Laboratory Award for Outstanding Contributions and the NASA Administrator Award for Exceptional Contribution and Service for supporting the development of satellite technologies for ocean observation. He serves as an expert on panels for NASA, the Intergovernmental Oceanographic Commission, and other professional science groups including as Co-lead for the Marine Biodiversity Observation Network (MBON) and Co-lead of the Marine Life 2030 Program under the UN Decade of Ocean Science for Sustainable Development (2021-2030). Over the course of his career, he has published more than 340 peer-reviewed articles and book chapters, and also many influential reports. Dr. Muller-Karger speaks Spanish, German, and English. He received a B.S. in biological oceanography from Florida Institute of Technology; an M.S. in oceanography at the University of Alaska, and a Ph.D. in marine and estuarine sciences at the University of Maryland. He also holds a M.S. in management from the University of South Florida.