Alex Rogers is a Professor of Conservation Biology at the Department of Zoology and a Fellow of Somerville College, University of Oxford. He obtained his first degree in Marine Biology at the University of Liverpool and a Ph.D. in the genetics and taxonomy of marine invertebrates also at Liverpool. In his early career Alex held Research Fellowships at the Marine Biological Association, Plymouth and at the University of Southampton’s National Oceanography Centre. Since then he has lead the Core Programme on Biodiversity at British Antarctic Survey and then moved to the Institute of Zoology, Zoological Society of London, where he became a reader in marine ecology.

Alex's research focuses on the diversity, ecology, conservation and evolution of marine species. He has special interests in the deep sea, particularly seamounts, cold-water corals and chemosynthetic ecosystems. He employs molecular tools and traditional methods of taxonomy to study the evolution of marine organisms at a range of temporal and spatial scales. These encompass current environmental factors influencing genetic structure of populations, to historical events associated with past climate change that have shaped the current biota of the oceans. He also works on marine policy and has undertaken projects for the UN International Seabed Authority, UN Division of Oceans and Law of the Sea, the IUCN, the G8+5 Global Legislators Organisation for a Balanced Environment (GLOBE) and with the Global Ocean Commission as a Scientific Advisor. He is also Scientific Director of the NGO the International Programme on State of the Ocean (http://www.stateoftheocean.org) and has worked for other NGOs including the WWF, Greenpeace and the Deep-Sea Conservation Coalition.