A Global Mission

The Ocean Census is a global mission to discover, document and share the diversity of life in our ocean — before it’s lost.

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We are an Alliance of scientists, governments, marine research institutes, museums, philanthropy, technology, media and civil society partners.

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Dr Michelle Taylor

Head of Science

Dr. Michelle Taylor’s work has, so far, centred on deep-sea corals; which was a natural progression from her years spent studying shallow water coral reefs. However, her recent work also include hydrothermal vent organisms, polychaetes (scale worms), brittlestars (ophiuroids) and sea cucumbers (holothurians). Genetics are her tool of choice for targeting questions about evolution and speciation. Her work so far has involved phylogenetics and barcoding and current work involves population genomics and phylogenomics using next-generation sequencing (RAD-seq, RNA-seq and UCEs).

Join the census

An Alliance of scientists, governments, marine research institutes, museums, philanthropy, technology, media and civil society partners.