Dan Costa is a distinguished professor of ecology and evolutionary biology and director of the Institute of Marine Science at UC Santa Cruz. His research focuses on the ecology and physiology of marine mammals and seabirds. He has worked with a broad range of animals including turtles, penguins’ albatross, seals, sea lions, sirenians, whales and dolphins and has published over 400 scientific papers. His current work is aimed at recording the movement and distribution patterns of marine mammals and seabirds in order to understand their habitat needs and help identify biodiversity hotspots and that factors that create them. Recently, he has been developing tools to identify and create viable Marine Protected Areas for the conservation of highly migratory species.