James Carlton is Professor of Marine Sciences at Williams College (Williamstown, Massachusetts) and Director, Williams-Mystic, The Maritime Studies Program of Williams College and Mystic Seaport (Mystic, Connecticut).

He was an undergraduate at the University of California, Berkeley, took his PhD at UC Davis in Ecology and was a postdoctoral scholar at the Woods Hole Oceanographic Institution. His research is on global marine bioinvasions (their ecosystem impacts, dispersal and management strategies) and on marine extinctions in modern times. He is the founding Editor-in-Chief of the international journal "Biological Invasions."

He is a 1996 Pew Fellow in the Environment and Conservation, a Fellow of the American Association for the Advancement of Science and a Distinguished Research Fellow of the University of California. In 1999 he was the first scientist to receive the US Government's interagency "Recognition Award for Significant and Sustained Contributions to the Prevention and Control of Nonindigenous Species in America's Aquatic Ecosystems."

He was Co-Chair of the Marine Biodiversity Committee of the National Academy of Sciences, which produced Understanding Marine Biodiversity: A Research Agenda for the Nation (1995). He has testified seven times on invasive species issues before the United States Congress (Senate and House subcommittees).

Jim's current research on marine bioinvasions focuses on the waters of the northwest Atlantic Ocean (Bay of Fundy to mid-Atlantic), the northeast Pacific (San Francisco Bay to British Columbia) and the Hawaiian Islands. Jim became interested in exotic species invasions when he accidentally stepped on Australian tubeworms in San Francisco Bay in 1962.

Relevant Publications

National Research Council. (1995). Understanding marine biodiversity: A research agenda for a nation. National Academy Press, Washington D.C.

Cohen, A. N. and Carlton, J. T. (1998). Accelerating invasion rate in a highly invaded estuary. Science, 279: 555-558.