John Veron


John Veron, complete name John Edward Norwood Veron, credited in research as J. E. N. Veron, and in other writing as Charlie Veron, is a biologist, taxonomist and specialist in the study of corals and reefs. He is believed to have discovered more than twenty percent of the world's coral species.

Early life

John Edward Norwood Veron was born in 1945 in Sydney. He attended Barker College in Sydney. He won a Commonwealth scholarship as a gifted child and went on study at the University of New England. His main interests were in the natural world, especially marine life. He participated in the scuba club while at university.
His honours thesis was on the behaviour of gliding possums. He took his M.Sc. with a study on the temperature regulation of lizards. Veron completed his PhD with a study on the neurophysiology of dragonflies.

Career

After taking his PhD in 1971, Veron was offered a postdoctoral position at James Cook University to study corals. Veron was the first full-time researcher on the Great Barrier Reef and the first scientist employed by the Australian Institute of Marine Science. He participated in 67 expeditions to all the major reef provinces in the world. He credited "Red" Gilmartin and John W. Wells from Cornell University as key figures in clarifying his interest in taxonomy in the 1970's.
Veron named about 20% of reef corals and built a taxonomic framework for corals that is used throughout the world.
He founded the Orpheus Island Marine Station.
He discovered and delineated the Coral Triangle.
He introduced the concept of reticulate evolution to the marine world.

Recognition

He has many professional awards including:
Veron has written many books and monographs about corals and coral reefs, including:

Later life

Since 2008 he together with colleagues have been producing an open access website about coral taxonomy, biogeography and identification, Corals of The World. The website includes a mapping program called Coral Geographic and an identification program called CoralID. He has campaigned extensively on climate change, mass bleaching of coral reefs, ocean acidification and related environmental issues.
In 2009, Sir David Attenborough introduced Veron's lecture to the Royal Society.
He was featured in the 2017 documentary Chasing Coral.