Stuart Sandin is a community ecologist with interests in understanding differences in the structure and functioning of ecosystems across space and through time. Much of his work has built upon observations from coral reef islands spanning distinct geographic gradients. With this perspective, Sandin founded the 100 Island Challenge (100IslandChallenge.org), a natural experiment aimed at defining the interacting effects of oceanographic context, island geomorphology, and human impacts on the composition and growth within coral reef communities.
Sandin is the Oliver Chair in Marine Biodiversity and Conservation Science and professor of marine ecology at Scripps Institution of Oceanography, UC San Diego. He serves as the director of the Center for Marine Biodiversity and Conservation, a program based at Scripps promoting interdisciplinary research and educational approaches to maintain the integrity of ocean ecosystems and manage their use in the face of rapid and inevitable global change.