Kerry Howell

Kerry Howell is professor of deep-sea ecology at the Plymouth Marine Laboratory and the University of Plymouth. She has expertise in use of ROVs and AUVs, seafloor imagery acquisition and analysis, predictive modelling of species distributions, and the application of deep-learning to image analysis.

Throughout her career Kerry’s research has been focused on sustainable management of the deep-sea ecosystem. Her research has supported the design of national and international marine protected area networks, including the creation of reliable habitat maps, and models of population connectivity that under-pin the design. Her current research is focused on the automation of biological observations using image-based methods to generate the big data needed to construct more reliable models of biodiversity distributions in time and space.

Kerry has published more than 80 peer reviewed publications, and over 20 advisory reports. She is co-lead of the UN Ocean Decade Programme Challenger 150, a global initiative to map life in the deep ocean in support of UN Sustainable Development Goals. In this role, Kerry is working with the global deep-sea research community in efforts to standardise data collection, processing, and management, which includes the development of AI approaches to image-based data analysis.