FELS Inaugural Lecture with Professor Clive Trueman Event
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- Time:
- 3:30pm
- Date:
- 2025-06-18 15:30:00
- Venue:
- National Oceanography Centre, Southampton
Event details
This was the second Faculty of Environmental and Life Sciences Inaugural Lecture in a series that celebrates the careers of our newly appointed Professors. At our event on Wednesday 18 June 2025, Professor Clive Trueman from the School of Ocean and Earth Science and Professor Dianna Smith from the School of Geography and Environmental Science presented their research.
Watch the lecture video
Professor Clive Trueman -Â Using chemistry to unveil the hidden lives of fishes
See Professor Dianna Smith's lecture here
Watch all the Inaugural Lecture videos from 2025
Professor Clive Trueman
Using chemistry to unveil the hidden lives of fishes
Marine animals captivate us, in part, because their lives remain hidden beneath the waves. Yet, understanding these enigmatic creatures is crucial for making informed decisions about exploiting and managing the ecosystems they inhabit.
In his inaugural lecture, Professor Trueman will explore how the chemical composition of animal tissues serves as a natural archive of behaviour, illuminating the secretive lives of marine species. He will demonstrate how chemical tracers can guide the creation of more effective marine protected areas, quantify the ecosystem services that fish provide, and forecast the impacts of ongoing climate change on marine life.
Professor Trueman’s lecture is a tale of innovation and discovery—a journey into measuring the seemingly unmeasurable through a blend of scientific imagination and detective work.
Biography
Professor Trueman specialises in developing and using natural tracers to reconstruct aspects of animal behaviour and ecology. He started his academic life as a geologist with a PhD from Bristol studying dinosaurs, then briefly worked in human evolution at the Smithsonian Institution in the US, scientific archaeology at the Weizmann Institute in Israel and forensics before taking up a lectureship in Southampton in 2007. Based in the School of Ocean and Earth Science, he now focuses mostly on applying geochemical methods to marine animal ecology.
Professor Trueman regularly contributes to international working groups on fish and fisheries science and the use of natural tracers in ecological research. He has given evidence supporting fisheries policy to the UK parliament and EU commission.