Biography
Chris Fischer
OCEARCH Founding Chairman and Expedition Leader
An explorer and disruptor, Chris has led 39 global expeditions focused on accelerating the ocean’s return to balance and abundance, by unlocking the life history puzzle of white sharks and other keystone species through expeditions aboard the OCEARCH.
A serial entrepreneur, Fischer’s collaborative vision for OCEARCH connects the practical (expert fishermen) with the academic (researchers). By connecting multi-disciplinary experts, OCEARCH is able to gather information about a white shark’s migrations, reproductive condition and cycle, genetic status, diet, inorganic and organic contaminant loads, fecundity, parasite species presence, abundance, and infection sites, all in a short 15 minutes. Since founding OCEARCH in 2007, Fischer’s team has: engaged with more than 190 researchers from global institutions; safely tagged more than 400 animals; advanced science through 54 peer reviewed papers; and, worked globally with partners across varying sectors.
In the spirit of including a global audience in his work, the OCEARCH TRACKER launched in 2013, allowing nearly 2 million annual users to learn about sharks while tracking them across the planet in near-real-time. Further, a STEM curriculum based on the Tracker contains more than 100 lesson plans is made available through ocearch.org.
Fischer began his career as an explorer as host of the four-time Emmy Award-winning “Offshore Adventures” from 2001 to 2009. It was the #1 watched outdoor TV series and had the goal of pouring the oceans back into people’s lives. From 2009 to 2012, Fischer hosted 20 hours of TV episodes on National Geographic Channel and 10 hours on the History Channel, chronicling the research on the white shark.
Fischer has received numerous prestigious recognitions, including The Explorers Club Lowell Thomas Medal for Imagination in Exploration and the Nominee Trust 100 Award for top social innovators list. Further, OCEARCH has been featured in more than 10,000 outlets including The New York Times, CNN, CBS Morning News, The Wall Street Journal, USA Today, 60 Minutes and most major news media organizations worldwide.
A graduate of Indiana University, Fischer continually explores the world alongside his wonderful family and crew.
