ROBERT B. GAGOSIAN, PH.D. - Oceanographer
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Robert B. Gagosian is president and director of the Woods Hole Oceanographic Institution (WHOI), a leading oceanographic research and education institution. He was appointed director in 1994 and president and director in 2002 following a career as a marine geochemist that included six years as WHOI director of research and two as senior associate director.

He joined WHOI in 1972 as an assistant scientist, studying substances produced by marine organisms and their transformation as they disperse through the water column to the seafloor. His research led to the discovery of the importance of the atmosphere as a transport mechanism for land-derived material to the open ocean. He is the author or co-author of some 85 scientific papers and several technical reports.

Dr. Gagosian holds a bachelor’s degree in chemistry from the Massachusetts Institute of Technology, and a PhD degree in organic chemistry from Columbia University. From 1970 to 1972, he was a National Institutes of Health Postdoctoral Fellow at the University of California, Berkeley. In 2000 he received honorary Doctor of Science degrees from Long Island University and Northeastern University.
He is a Fellow of the American Academy of Arts & Sciences, and has served on a variety of visiting committees and research panels for the National Science Foundation, the Office of Naval Research, and universities and research organizations in the US and internationally. A native of Medford, Massachusetts, he and his wife, Susan, and their two sons, Travis and Alex, live in Falmouth, MA.