Stephen Swearer is Professor of Marine Biology and Deputy Head in the School of BioSciences and Director of the National Centre for Coasts and Climate (NCCC) at the University of Melbourne (Australia). He also holds a Research Associate position in the School of Biological Sciences at Victoria University of Wellington (New Zealand). He presently is a member of the College of Assessors for the New Zealand Endeavour Fund and is a past member of the College of Experts for the Australian Research Council. He provides marine and coastal science advice to both Australian state and federal governments through his deputy leadership of the Victorian node of the Integrated Marine Observing System (VIC-IMOS), and membership on the science panels of the Victorian Marine and Coastal Council and the Phillip Island Nature Park. Stephen is an internationally recognized population ecologist. His research provides significant and important insights into how larval dispersal, settlement, and recruitment influence population replenishment and connectivity in marine ecosystems and the ecological (e.g., population distribution and abundance, phenology, larval behaviour) and environmental (e.g. ocean circulation and productivity, pollution, habitat quality) factors that influence these processes. He has been Principal Investigator or Co-investigator of >40 national and international research projects, and (co)-supervisor of 15 MSc students (1 current), 26 PhD students (7 current) and 11 post-doctoral researchers (2 current). As a PI, Stephen has attracted >13.2 M€ in competitive funding. His research outputs include 142 papers published in leading international journals and 2 book chapters, as well as 11 keynote/invited presentations at conferences. Stephen has been an organizing committee member for 3 international conferences and a symposium organizer at 5 international conferences. He has acted as a tenure/promotion panel member at the following 9 institutions: University of Queensland, James Cook University and Deakin University (Australia), Victoria University of Wellington and Massey University (New Zealand), University of North Carolina, University of Miami and Bard College (USA), and KAUST (Saudi Arabia). He has reviewed grant proposals submitted to the Australian Marine National Facility RV Southern Surveyor, Australian Research Council, California Sea Grant, Dutch Research Council, Earthwatch, Great Lakes Fisheries Commission (USA), National Geographic Society, US National Science Foundation, and the Royal Society of London, and routinely reviews over 12 manuscripts/year for over 30 leading journals in the general, marine and ecological sciences.