Profile
Professor Alan Jamieson
Started at UWA: 2021
BSc (hons) Design for Industry, PhD Zoology
Founding Professor of the Minderoo-UWA Deep-Sea Research centre
I am a deep-sea scientist and explorer. I specialize in what, where and why organisms live in the very deepest parts of the oceans. I use some pretty unique technologies to record these data including diving in a full ocean depth submersible.
I record the biodiversity, habitats and genetic connectivity of the deepest living animals. I am currently working on expanding this work into the Indian Ocean. My team works on everything from described many new species, molecular adaptation to high pressure, technologies for exploring these depths and how all these deep species are related to one another and their shallower counterparts.
I am most passionate about going to sea, diving in submersibles, and seeing all these wonderful things first hand and for the first time.
My first activity as a UWA professor was to do multiple dives in a submersible to over 6 kilometres deep in the Wallaby Zenith Fracture Zone off WA.
I wrote the book The Hadal Zone: Life in the Deepest Oceans that documents everything we know about life greater than 6km underwater. I have also published about 120 scientific papers on deep-sea biology and technology.
My current work at UWA is support by a multi-million dollar award from the Minderoo Foundation.
Achievements and awards
Awards include the Eurythenes plasticus plastic project “Call it plastic” in collaboration with BBDO Dusseldorf, GmbH and WWF-Germany that won a series of high-profile awards at:
Cannes Lions Festival for Creativity 2021
1 gold, 2 silver and 2 bronze
German Advertising Industry Gala 2021
3 gold, 8 silver and 5 bronze
2020 EPICA awards for creativity judged by the press
2 gold and 1 bronze
2020 EuroBest awards for creative and effective branded communications
Grand Prix, 2 gold, 3 silver and 1 bronze
In the media
- Geib, C. (2021) Going Deep With Hadal Zone Expert Alan Jamieson
- Jul 2021 – Nautilus
- World’s deepest octopus captured on camera.
- May 2020 – BBC
- Victor Vescovo: Adventurer reaches deepest ocean locations.
- Sep 2019 – BBC
- Microplastics found in stomachs of deep-sea creatures – study.
- Mar 2019 – Sky News
- Scientists discover 3 new species of snailfish in oceans deepest depths.
- Sep 2018 – Sky News
- The last of the great explorers
- Sep 2019 – The Economist
- The World’s deepest ocean trenches are packed with pollution.
- Feb 2017 – The Economist
- Creatures in the deepest trenches of the sea are eating plastic
- Feb 2019 – National Geographic