Dr. Richard Smith is a marine biologist and conservation expert, an award-winning underwater photographer and videographer, a public speaker, and the leader of diving expeditions around the world; he’s been on more than thirty-five hundred dives since 1996. Dr. Smith has written hundreds of articles, published internationally, with a primary focus on conservation, marine life, and travel. His photographs have also been featured around the world, including on dozens of magazine covers and in exhibitions, and he’s won several awards for them. His narrated documentary video Raja Ampat: Diving the World’s Richest Reefs premiered at the Australia International Dive Expo in 2015. In 2016, he was invited to the Datai Langkawi in Malaysia to film a natural history documentary series about local reefs. Dr. Smith has a bachelor’s degree in Zoology from the University of Southampton, England, a master’s degree in Marine Ecology and Evolution from the University of Queensland, Australia, and a PhD, also from the University of Queensland, which he received for his pioneering research on the biology and conservation of pygmy seahorses; it was the first PhD ever awarded for this subject. Dr. Smith is part of a small group of syngnathid researchers and conservationists who make up the IUCN Seahorse, Pipefish and Stickleback Specialist Group. The group is the recognized world authority on these fishes and is dedicated to their conservation through the World Conservation Union. He was also recently appointed as the Global Pygmy Seahorse Expert for iSeahorse.org, which uses citizen science to further the research and conservation of seahorses. As a public speaker, Dr. Smith has been invited to speak on marine life at conferences and events around the world for the last decade. He lives in England.