Professor Jason Hall-Spencer is a marine biologist whose research addresses the major stressors affecting the health of the world's Ocean, including ocean acidification, fisheries, aquaculture and marine ecology. In addition to his role at Cyprus University of Technology, he is a Visiting Professor at the University of Tsukuba in Japan, and was an Adjunct Professor at Xiamen University in China (2017-2022), and he serves as a marine scientific advisor to the United Nations as a UK representative.

Professor Hall-Spencer is known for pioneering the use of underwater volcanic CO2 seeps as natural analogues for studying future ocean acidification, a technique that has become adopted in the Mediterranean Sea and the Atlantic and Pacific Ocean basins. His work, carried out largely in coastal waters of the Mediterranean and Japan, has shown how elevated CO2 can weaken the skeletons of marine organisms and reduce biodiversity, and how ocean acidification affects fish reproduction as well as ecosystem services. His recent fieldwork includes investigating the lionfish invasion in the Mediterranean and studying the effects of warming and ocean acidification at volcanic CO2 seeps in the Azores and Japan, alongside work on the biosecurity threat posed by the Suez Canal and projects improving coastal management in Brazil.

He completed his BSc in Marine Biology at Heriot-Watt University in 1990 and his PhD at the University of London in 1994, with research based at the Millport Marine Station in Scotland and the Swire Institute of Marine Science in Hong Kong. Earlier in his career he held positions as a benthic ecologist at the Institute of Offshore Engineering in Edinburgh, worked with the Marine Nature Conservation Review Team at the UK's Joint Nature Conservation Committee, and served as a firefighter with Strathclyde Fire Brigade. He was subsequently a lecturer at the University of Glasgow before joining the University of Plymouth, where he brought with him a Royal Society University Research Fellowship in 2003, becoming Professor of Marine Biology 2012. He served as President of the British Phycological Society and is on the Council of the Federation of European Phycological Societies.

With over 25,000 citations to his work and over 200 peer-reviewed publications spanning marine ecology, deep-sea biology, ocean acidification and phycology, Professor Hall-Spencer continues to combine international science collaborations with policy advice and training, plus hands-on fieldwork including diving in a two-man submarine to document a previously unknown coral reef in the Arctic.

Google Scholar H-index: 82: https://scholar.google.com/citations?user=VUX0siQAAAAJ&hl=en
ResearchGate profile: https://www.researchgate.net/profile/Jason-Hall-Spencer