Drew Harvell is Professor Emerita of Ecology and Evolutionary Biology at Cornell University and Affiliate Faculty in the School of Aquatic and Fishery Science, University of Washington. Her research on the health and sustainability of marine ecosystems has taken her from the reefs of Mexico, Indonesia, Palau and Hawaii to the cold waters of the Pacific Northwest and resulted in over 190 academic articles in journals such as Science, Nature, and Ecology. She is a long-time research diver, including four saturation diving missions. Her current research, based at the University of Washington Friday Harbor Laboratories, is focused on the health of foundation and keystone species in the Salish Sea. Read more.
Books
Release date: Earth Day 2025! Preorder now.
An elegant cutting-edge exploration of the strangest and most remarkable creatures on our planet. The Ocean’s Menagerie tells of biological marvels, a story of a woman’s passionate and adventurous career in science, and a call to arms to protect the world’s most ancient ecosystems. As our planet changes fast, the biomedical, engineering, and energy innovations of these wondrous creatures hold ever more important secrets and inspirations for our own survival. Learn more.
Ocean Outbreak explores the four biggest ocean epidemics, taking the reader to the front lines of our confrontations with infectious diseases to investigate how four iconic marine animals have been devastated: starfish, abalone, salmon and coral reefs. The stories of these outbreaks reveal how we are tipping the balance in favor of pathogens, how detective work sleuths out the infectious agents and how environmental change amplifies their impact. Ocean Outbreak concludes by showing how we can find our way back to healthier seas, combating infection with nature’s own pathogen-fighting weapons. Learn more.
It started with a glass octopus. Dusty, broken, and all but forgotten, it caught Drew Harvell’s eye. Fashioned in intricate detail by the father-son glassmaking team of Leopold and Rudolf Blaschka, the octopus belonged to a menagerie of unusual marine creatures that had been packed away for decades in a storage unit. More than 150 years earlier, the Blaschkas had been captivated by marine invertebrates and spun their likenesses into glass, documenting the life of oceans untouched by climate change and human impacts. Learn more.
Books: OCEAN OUTBREAK
Winner of the Prose Award and ESA Award!
Drew’s second book, Ocean Outbreak, investigates four major marine disease epidemics and her teams international underwater adventures to study them, how the consequent changes reverberate through the interactions of the ocean organisms themselves and even come back to threaten our livelihood and health. It exposes the raging challenges facing our oceans and proposes nature-based solutions, making it a compelling and topical read. It won the Prose Award for Biological Sciences, the Ecological Sustainability Award from The Ecological Society of America and is a top pick of Science Friday for Summer Science Reading!
Check out Science Friday’s Top Picks for Best Summer Science Books!
WINNER of the 2020 Prose Award in the Biological Sciences!
Highlights
