Ryan is a field oriented physical oceanographer whose research focuses on processes occurring in coastal regions, with particular interests in issues relevant to ecosystems. He earned his BS degree in Physics at the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill, and his MS and PhD degrees in Oceanography at the University of Washington. He then completed a postdoctoral appointment at the University of New South Wales, Australia, and a second postdoctoral appointment back at the University of Washington before joining CICOES as a Research Scientist in 2014. Since then he has collaborated with both the PMEL Carbon and EcoFOCI programs, most recently as the UW lead PI for the North Pacific Research Board’s Arctic Program. In the last few years, Ryan has also been leading a project aimed at providing predictions and risk assessments of certain harmful algal blooms (HABs) for shellfish managers in the Pacific Northwest.