Professor Mark Hindell’s leadership in professional and academic circles and considerable involvement in scientific organisational roles has enabled him to establish a global network of marine animal tracking scientists.Being able to unobtrusively track these marine species around the world has been one of the biggest revolutions in biology in the last two decades, and the information collected through this network has informed national and international policy on evidence-based locations of Marine Protected Areas (MPAs).

Professor Hindell is one of the leading researchers at the Institute for Marine and Antarctic Studies (IMAS), which brings together fisheries scientists, oceanographers, climate scientists, ecologists, and glaciologists from around the world.Using his expertise in connecting large groups of multi-disciplinary researchers, Professor Hindell is also leading the Global Ocean Tracking Synthesis for Marine Management and Conservation project (OTS) – a massive marine survey conducted by an international team of biologists to pinpoint the richest ecological pockets in our oceans.He is the chair of several national and international bodies, including a bio-logging committee in the Integrated Marine Observing System (IMOS) group, where he’s led efforts to raise more than AU$3 million in funding, and he coordinated the deployment of oceanographic satellite tags on more than 400 seals to provide 80,000 oceanographic profiles to the global ocean community.

As a mentor, Professor Hindell is enthusiastic about developing the next generation of marine species researchers, and has supervised more than 45 completed PHDs, and is currently overseeing 18 more.Professor Hindell’s work to date has been focused on conducting the high quality science and making it available to policy-makers so they can inform practical environmental solutions.Over the past three decades, he has made major contributions to the study of ecological processes and the marine ecosystem, including new hypotheses about how physical processes shape population trajectories; innovative data-acquisition methodologies to tackle the unique challenges of Antarctic environments; and significant advances in knowledge regarding specific species and the ecosystems the sustain.