Dr. Stewart has studied the population biology, foraging and physiological ecology, and behavior of marine mammals, sea birds, sea turtles, and whale sharks for over 35 years. His research expeditions have ranged from Greenland and Iceland in the North Atlantic south to Marion Island in the South Atlantic and Kenya, the Philippines, West Papua, the Maldives and Western Australia in the Indian Ocean, in Russia’s Lake Baikal and along the coast of Kamchatka, from the Beaufort and Bering Seas south through temperate, tropical and equatorial waters in the North Pacific Ocean, and in the Weddell, Amundsen, and Ross Seas of the Antarctic’s Southern Ocean and in China’s Yangtze River. Dr. Stewart’s focus in these comparative studies has been discovering and understanding what habitats are important to these various large marine vertebrates, how they navigate and mitigate over vast areas to find and use those habitats, how they hunt and capture prey necessary to sustain breeding and fasting periods and successfully reproduce, how they interact with each other (populations and species) while sharing habitats and resources, and how they respond to and adjust to short and long term natural and anthropogenic changes in those key habitats. The application of remote sensing and telemetry is a key tool in many of these studies. The overall objectives of his scientific studies are to contribute his findings to the peer reviewed scientific literature and to education, conservation, and management authorities to promote science-based conservation of life.

Dr. Stewart holds a Bachelor of Arts degree in Biology from the University of California at Los Angeles, a Master of Science degree in Ecology from California State University at San Diego, a Ph.D. in Biology from the University of California at Los Angeles, and a Juris Doctorate from Boalt Hall School of Law, University of California at Berkeley. Dr. Stewart served as a Science and Diplomacy Fellow in the Bureau of Oceans at the U.S. State Department from 1999 to 2001.

Dr. Stewart served as a Science and Diplomacy Fellow in the Bureau of Oceans at the U.S. State Department from 1999 to 2001.

In 2011, Dr. Stewart was awarded the prestigious Lowell Thomas Medal by The Explorers Club for his career efforts to explore, understand, and conserve Earth’s ocean wildlife, and in 2012 was recognized as one of forty of the world’s leading conservation biologists.