Juan Mayorga is a marine scientist working to leverage emerging Earth monitoring technologies and datasets to catalyze ocean conservation. His work combines data science, marine ecology, economics, and conservation planning to distill actionable insights and support the creation of marine protected areas. Mayorga leads Pristine Seas’ partnership with Global Fishing Watch and the Environmental Markets Lab (EmLab) at the University of California, Santa Barbara, where he is an associate researcher. This collaboration has been instrumental in accelerating ocean protection by producing novel scientific research including the first high-resolution analysis of industrial fishing worldwide. His most recent work involves developing a state-of-the-art conservation prioritization framework to identify the most critical places in the ocean to protect biodiversity, safeguard carbon stocks, and improve fisheries yields. Mayorga manages Pristine Seas’ scientific database which brings together a wide array of scientific methods used by the team to explore and assess ocean life during our expeditions. At sea, he also leads our work exploring the twilight zone with mesophotic baited remote underwater video stations. Mayorga holds a BEng in environmental engineering from Universidad de Los Andes in Colombia and a master’s in environmental science and management from UC Santa Barbara. He’s a member of the National Ocean Protection Council scientific advisory team, the Ocean Panel Expert Network, and Global Fishing Watch’s Science Advisory Committee.