Richard Norris is a Distinguished Professor at Scripps Institution of Oceanography, UC San Diego. His work focuses on micropaleontology, warm climate dynamics, and human impacts on marine ecosystems. He leads a program at MERS studying the history of Mediterranean fisheries over 10,000 years. Norris co-led the "Empire Expedition," collecting cores in the Aegean and Adriatic oceans to study fisheries' impact on Europe's first settled societies. His research contrasts past fisheries productivity during the "Green Sahara" with today's "Mediterranean Climate," informing future oceanographic changes. Norris has a BS from UC Santa Cruz, an MS from the University of Arizona, and a Ph.D. from Harvard University.