Alan is a Professor at the University of Western Australia. He recently moved to Perth from the UK to become the founding Director of the Minderoo-UWA Deep Sea Research Centre.
He has over 20 years of experience in deep-sea science, technology and exploration. His research is focused on the deepest places in the oceans known as the ‘hadal zone’, meaning depths between 6 and 11 kilometres.
He has published over 100 scientific papers and book chapters, and is the author of The Hadal Zone: Life In The Deepest Oceans.
He has participated in nearly 70 deep-sea expeditions on over 26 research vessels spanning every ocean.
Since 2018 he has been the Chief Scientist of the DSSV Pressure Drop, notably during the round-the-world Five Deeps Expedition (2018-19) and the follow-on Ring of Fire expeditions (2020-present). During that time, he completed 12 submersible dives in the DSV Limiting Factor including 7 deeper than 6 km and 2 deeper than 10 km.
He was the first British person to reach hadal depths, and at the time was the 8th deepest diving person in history.
He is motivated by exploring the unknown corners of our planet and bringing new discoveries to the surface for everyone to enjoy.
