Mark Peter Simmonds is the Senior Marine Scientist for Humane Society International and a marine biologist and environmental scientist who has spent the better part of his career looking at the factors impacting marine mammals in the modern world.

He is the author/co-author of over 200 scientific papers, reports, articles and reviews, and a number of books, including “Whales and Dolphins: Cognition, Culture, Conservation and Human Impacts” (first published by Earthscan in 2011).

Mark has helped to raise the alarm about the impacts of chemical pollution and marine debris on seals and cetaceans, the growing significance of marine noise and the threat posed by climate change to marine life. He has been employed in the university sector (as a researcher, lecturer and Reader and currently as a visiting research fellow at the University of Bristol) and by Greenpeace International and Whale and Dolphin Conservation (as their International Director of Science for some 17 years).

In the 2013 Birthday Honours of HRH Queen Elizabeth II, he was appointed as an OBE in recognition of his work in marine mammal conservation and environmental sciences.