James W. Porter

James W. Porter is the Josiah Meigs Distinguished Professor of Ecology, Emeritus at the University of Georgia. Dr. Porter received both his Bachelor’s and Ph.D. degrees from Yale. He has testified before Congress three times about the effects of climate change on coral reefs, underwater munitions contamination on Puerto Rican coral reefs, and, most recently, the global biodiversity crisis. Dr. Porter has published more than 130 papers in peer review scientific journals, ten percent of which are in either Science, Nature, or the Proceedings of the National Academy of Science. He has authored three books. The National Science Foundation funds his current research on the long-term survival of coral reefs. In 2005, he received the Eugene P. Odum Environmental educator of the Year Award from the Ecological Society of America. In 2022 in Bremen, Germany, he received the International Coral Reef Society’s top Eminence in Research Award. Dr. Porter's award winning photographs have appeared in Life Magazine and the New York Times. His work has been featured on the ABC World News, NBC Nightly News, and CNN. His documentary film, Chasing Coral, to which he contributed as the Chief Scientific Advisor and a Principal Cast Member, won the Audience Choice Award at the 2017 Sundance Film Festival, and then went on to win a 2017 Peabody Award and the 2017 Emmy for Best Nature Documentary. Based on his long and storied career in coral reef conservation, a coral reef in the Florida Keys has been named after him: Porter Patch ( 25o 06’ 11.5200” N; 80o 19’ 27.4800” W ).