Mike Reeve grew up and was educated in the UK, getting his Ph.D. under
John Raymont at the University of Southampton,
long before that institution achieved its current status at the forefront of oceanography. He did a two-year "post-doc" in Miami (to
see the world) and returned to the UK to work for the Ministry of Agriculture, Fisheries and Food in Conwy, North Wales, following
a few months in Plymouth. After two years as a civil servant, he returned to what is now known as the Rosenstiel School of
Marine and Atmospheric Sciences of the University of Miami, where he stayed until the mid-eighties. He worked on most aspects
of zooplankton food chain ecology, particularly carnivores such as ctenophores and chaetognaths, and with very large mesocosms
(up to 2000 m3 experimental containers floating at the sea surface).
Since then he has spent the last decade at the National Science Foundation as a civil servant again, as Head of the Ocean Sciences Research Section. The NSF is the government agency that provides funds for research in universities, but it does not operate research laboratories of its own. Along with many other people, he has spent a lot of time over the past few years shepherding the Global Change programs through birth, adolescence, and in some cases now senescence. Although showing up at ICES meetings occasionally and coming away bemused in the seventies, he became formally involved in the mid-eighties. He has been chair of the Biological Oceanography Committee and a member of the Advisory Committee on the Marine Environment (ACME), and most recently became co-chair of the ICES/GLOBEC North Atlantic Regional Coordination Group and a US Delegate.
Although Mike hoped to have sailing as a hobby, it turned out to be boat building, maintenance, and repair. A couple of months ago he finally got rid of the "hole in the water into which sailors throw money". His two young children are happy that he may now be able to start saving for their college education.