Will Greene

Will Greene is a Research Scientist at the Perry Institute for Marine Science (PIMS) and a PhD candidate in the Li Lab at Arizona State University’s Center for Global Discovery and Conservation Science. He studies Caribbean reef ecology and restoration using underwater and aerial photogrammetry and remote sensing. His goal is to use imaging technology to advance reef science and conservation, and to inspire the public to care about the ocean.

Will began working with PIMS in early 2019 and joined full-time in 2020. He helped build the institute’s photogrammetry program, which uses thousands of overlapping underwater photos to create ultra-high-resolution 3D maps of reefs. He is lead author of ReefShape, the published method behind those maps, and collected the repeat surveys that tracked individual corals through the 2023 heatwave, the dataset at the heart of this project. In the field, he spends most of his time behind an underwater camera or flying multispectral drones. He is based in Vermont and travels to The Bahamas for fieldwork.

Will grew up on Mount Desert Island in Downeast Maine, exploring Acadia National Park and working summers for Friends of Acadia as a biological field technician, science communicator and photographer. He learned to dive at age 10, but it was a coral reef ecology course at Middlebury College, co-taught by PIMS Executive Director Dr. Craig Dahlgren, that turned him toward marine science. He earned a BA in biology and environmental science from Middlebury in 2019 and helped teach GIS courses there as an assistant science instructor the following year. Alongside his PIMS work, he began his PhD in 2023 and expects to graduate in 2027. In 2023 he was awarded a NSF Graduate Research Fellowship to fund his studies. Outside work, you’ll find him hiking, running, biking or skiing.

November 2024