Daniel Distel

Daniel Distel is a prominent marine scientist currently serving as the Director of the Ocean Genome Legacy Center at Northeastern University since January 2014, where responsibilities include overseeing the nation's first marine-dedicated public access DNA bank and research laboratory. As the founding CEO and Chief Scientific Officer of Ocean Genome Legacy, Inc. since March 2008, Distel has been instrumental in developing a nonprofit organization focused on biodiversity and public genome archiving. Prior to these roles, Distel was the Executive Director of the Ocean Genome Legacy Foundation and held several academic positions at The University of Maine, achieving tenure as an Associate Professor in the Department of Biochemistry, Microbiology, and Molecular Biology and a joint appointment in the School of Marine Sciences. Distel earned a PhD in Marine Biology from the Scripps Institution of Oceanography, UCSD, and a BS in Biology from Rutgers University.