He is a founding co-editor of the Annual Review of Marine Science and a recipient of the 2015 G. Evelyn Hutchinson Award.
[3] He then attended the University of Maryland for a PhD in marine science, graduating in 1994 under the advisorship of Hugh Ducklow.
[4][1] He completed a postdoctoral appointment at the Bermuda Institute of Ocean Sciences (BIOS) where he researched the biogeochemical cycling of dissolved organic carbon in marine systems.
In 2001, he joined the University of California, Santa Barbara in the Department of Ecology, Evolution, and Marine Biology.
[5][6] In 2002, he was the first recipient of the Ocean Sciences Early Career Award from the American Geophysical Union.