40. Christopher Gobler

This Stony Brook University professor, co-founder of the Long Island Coastal Conservation and Research Alliance (LICCRA), and founder of The Gobler Laboratory, has dedicated his life to researching and investigating the functioning of aquatic ecosystems and their relationships to humans, climate change, and coastal ocean acidification, as well as understanding shallow marine ecosystems. His work is on the frontlines of the battle to interpret and prevent harmful green and red algae tides and blooms, and help solve Long Island’s disastrous toxic nitrogen dilemma, which has historically and recently decimated local bays and waterways and resulted in the suffocation of hundreds of thousands of fish, turtles, and various other marine life. His power resides in his perseverance and dedication to studying these issues and perhaps one day remedying them, as well as his work’s undeniable influence. The Gobler Lab has a slew of projects toward this end, besides the aforementioned: the Shinnecock Bay Restoration Program. It also provides a weekly Water Quality Index to local media outlets in an attempt to better inform the public and help spread the word about dangerous water conditions. Gobler was also part of the team that first cracked the genome code of the brown tide algal bloom. Long Island’s future is a lot greener, and healthier, with Gobler.