Simon is Director of Seascape Analytics and Project Seascape and a Research Associate at the Oxford Seascape Ecology Lab, University of Oxford. He has been instrumental in building the foundations for the newly emerging field of seascape ecology and is the editor of the first book dedicated to the subject.

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Simon has been working in and around MPAs for 25 years, providing ecological information, training and decision-support tools to reserve managers and marine spatial planners. He has trained park rangers to monitor MPAs in Kenya, the Seychelles and the Caribbean. He worked with NOAA as a consultant for 15 years providing cross-disciplinary science to government agencies, conservation NGOs and community groups. He lived in the USVI for several years, providing science to support coastal management and mentoring graduate researchers. 

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Simon has contributed to marine spatial planning in Hawaii, the Gulf of Maine and Oregon to help guide environmentally-informed decision-making, including planning for offshore renewable energy operations. Recent work has focused on blue urbanism and the concept of community-led marine parks for coastal cities as a spatial nexus to address multiple sustainable development targets.

He serves as a science advisor to the World Commission on Protected Areas’ Specialist Working Group on Marine Connectivity Conservation and Blue Parks. Simon mentors graduate researchers globally and lectures on seascape ecology and co-leads a graduate course at the University of Oxford. He serves as an editor for Marine Ecology Progress Series.