He studied marine biology in the early 1990s, before completing his PhD at the University of Arizona, Tucson, where he specialized in turtle genetics, migration and conservation.
He and his colleagues famously tagged a loggerhead turtle named Adelita, and tracked it by satellite as it swam from California to Japan – this was the first animal to be recorded crossing an entire ocean basin.
He became a Fulbright Fellow and later received a Marshall Fellowship while studying at the University of Arizona, Tucson.
[2] As of July 2024[update], Google Scholar lists 8,143 citations to his work, and calculates his h-index as 43.
But in 2020, the family's home for 20 years, just off Swanton Road, was destroyed in the CZU Lightning Complex fires.