Steve O'Shea (born 14 December 1965 in Auckland, New Zealand)[1] is a marine biologist and environmentalist known for his research on giant squid.

[4] The title of his 1998 doctoral thesis was New Zealand Octopoda (Mollusca: Cephalopoda) : systematics.

[4] He became the Director of the Earth and Oceanic Sciences Research Institute at the Auckland University of Technology in 2005,[6] and was a Discovery Channel Quest Scholar.

[4] In 2009 he resigned from his Discovery Quest position to focus his research on coastal conservation, environmental matters and postgraduate supervision and teaching; despite this he has remained active in squid research, but is best known (in the popular press) for his involvement with large cephalopod taxa, particularly giant and colossal squids, and their preservation.

O'Shea has published extensively on cephalopods, fisheries, whale diet and shallow subtidal coastal ecology.