DR LEONARD COMPAGNO Summary CV

Leonard Joseph Victor Compagno, A.A., B.A., Ph.D, FRSSaf.
CURRICULUM VITAE 2010, October 5, 2010

Current Position: Director, AfriOceans Conservation Alliance, Cape Town, South Africa; Director, Shark Research Institute, Princeton, New Jersey. Retired from Iziko – South African Museum, Cape Town, December 2008.
Address and contact details: PO Box 22436, Fish Hoek, 7974, South Africa;, Email: ljvctora@gmail.com,

Education: City College of San Francisco (A.A. in Zoology); San Francisco State University (B.A. in Zoology, magna cum laude); Awards to Stanford University (Ph.D. in Biological Sciences), thesis: Carcharhinoid sharks: morphology, systematics and phylogeny, 932 pp. and award for doctoral research at Harvard University (not accepted).
Postdoctoral academic status: Adjunct professorship, Tiburon Center for Environmental Studies, San Francisco State University, Tiburon, California (1979 to 1985). Research associateship, via J.L.B. Smith Institute of Ichthyology; and membership of computation committee of Rhodes University, ca. 1985-1989, founded Shark Research Center in 1986. Honorary research associateship, Department of Zoology, University of Cape Town, ca. 2000 to present. B+ rating, South African National Research Foundation, 2007-present; Ordinary Fellow of the Royal Society of South Africa, 2004-present; director, Shark Research Institute; a Director of AfriOceans Conservation Alliance; a regional-vice chair and executive board, IUCN Shark Specialist Group; Gilchrist Medal, SANCOR, 2008, Gibbs Award, American Society of Ichthyologists and Herpetologists, 2009 (Equivalent to a Nobel Prize in systematic ichthyology without the dynamite), senior research associate, California Academy of Sciences (2009), research associate, South African Institute for Aquatic Biodiversity (2010).

Academic Specialities and Interests: Systematics, morphology, evolution, paleontology, zoogeography, diversity, natural history (including behavior), and conservation of sharklike fishes (sharks, rays and chimaeras or cartilaginous fishes, Class Chondrichthyes). General interest and academic background in systematic ichthyology, fish morphology and evolution, and curation of fish collections. Interest in natural history, morphology, and paleontology of vertebrates with particular emphasis on vertebrate biology and behaviour (including shark ecology and cognizance). Broad university training in the sciences and humanities, with particular aptitude for chemistry and physics and biology, with outside interests in wildlife observation including bird-watching and wildlife photography: microcomputers, aviation, flight simulation, space exploration, philosophical science fiction (including writing nine currently unpublished novels, several novellas and numerous shorter fiction pieces), essay-writing (hundreds of critical and analytical essays on numerous subjects, currently unpublished), poetry, philosophy, politics, psychology, history, Japanese and Mesoamerican culture, and numerous other subjects. Self-taught as a biological illustrator, photographer, craftperson, diver, martial artist, and automobile mechanic, skilled as a high speed and off road driver (with a perfect drive record in the United States, Belize, Namibia, South Africa, including even Cape Town) and flew a light plane over Grahamstown after learning flight skills from PC flight simulators (several, with preference for fast jets although having flown numerous aircraft from the Wright Brother’s Flier to the Hughes Hercules and the Antonov Mirya as well as numerous helicopters and airships). Not religious but has studied Zen Buddhism and became a roshi.

Publications: 600 +++ items published or in press, including abstracts, papers, popular articles, reports, web site reports, books and book chapters, plus numerous reports and presentations as well as numerous publications by LJVC’s students at the Shark Research Center. Major books by LJVC include Sharks of the Order Carcharhiniformes (based on Ph.D. thesis, 1988, 2003, and in press in 2010 with his former student Dave Ebert as coauthor); the FAO Catalog of World Sharks (1984); the revised FAO Catalog of World Sharks (2001 and ongoing), the Guide to the sharks and rays of Southern Africa (1989), several versions of the Harper-Collins/Princeton Field guide to Sharks of the World (published 2005-2006), and the derivative Collins gem Sharks (2006). A revised version of the shark guide is in progress, with an A4 format, to be published in 2010.

Advisory Role: LJVC has given advise to innumerable governments, research organizations, NGOs, scientists, students of all ages, and media including being technical advisor to the first Jaws film (including advising the director and building the Jaws shark) and more recently numerous screen and television videos including Great White Shark and Jurassic Shark. He spearheaded the construction of a 14 meter skeleton of an adult Carcharodon megalodon at Calvert Maritime Museum in Maryland (1973) and is currently advising Mr. Piet Pretorius (Taxidermy Kaap), on a 18 meter reconstruction of the same animal.
New Taxa of Cartilaginous Fishes described: 6 family-group taxa, 10 genus-group taxa, and 31 species to date, plus descriptions of several taxa in preparation and several species published by SRC students and their own students. Strategic partnership in 2009 developed with former students Dave Ebert (Ph.D.) and Mark Marks., for shark taxonomy and shark behaviour.

Students: 7 Ph.Ds. and 2 M.Scs completed or finishing (2010), at Rhodes University, University of Cape Town, and University of Stellenbosch, plus students at Moss Landing Marine Laboratories and University of Tasmania. One postdoctoral student to be inducted on a world survey of pollutants collecting and affecting the health of sharks.