Dr. Watling received his Ph.D. in Marine Science from the University of Delaware in 1974. He is currently Professor of Oceanography at the University of Maine. He served on the U.S. National Research Council's Committee on Marine Biodiversity and he is a Past President of the Crustacean Society. He also serves on the International Council for the Exploration of the Sea's Working Group on Benthic Ecology. His research interests have spanned two disparate topics, crustacean taxonomy and phylogeny on the one hand and benthic oceanography on the other. His crustacean interests center on amphipods and cumaceans, but he has studied a variety of other groups, including spelaeogriphaceans and syncarids. The latter two groups are southern hemisphere phylogenetic relicts about which little is known. The cumacean studies are currently funded by NSF-PEET and center on: 1) the description of new species and higher taxa from the South Pacific Ocean (both east and west sides) and the Gulf of Mexico and 2), developing molecular techniques for resolving phylogenetic relationships among cumacean families.