Dr James Clark

Dr James Clark – who is affectionately known as ‘Jim’ at the laboratory – joined PML in 2013 as a Marine Ecosystem Modeller. He became Head of Group for Environmental Intelligence in June 2026. In his current role, Jim provides strategic leadership to a team of digital scientists with skills in AI and Machine Learning, Ocean Modelling, Data Systems Design and Software Engineering. Jim’s team are using these skills to help address the Triple Planetary Crisis of Climate Change, Pollution and Biodiversity Loss in the context of the marine environment.

Originally trained in astrophysics, Jim was drawn to environmental science by the opportunity to tackle some of society’s most important scientific questions. Combining expertise in physics, biology and computing, Jim has built a research career at the intersection of data science and marine science, using big data and cutting-edge modelling approaches to reveal how ocean ecosystems function and respond to change.

Over the past 13 years at PML, his multidisciplinary research has spanned areas including; ecosystem modelling, marine pollution, ocean observations and environmental forecasting, and the application of artificial intelligence to environmental science.

Jim is an internationally recognised expert in marine plastic pollution, leading the way in the development of cutting-edge ocean modelling techniques to track the movement of plastic through the marine environment and predict where it may accumulate under the influence of currents, winds and other environmental factors. His early collaborative work on the impact of microplastics on marine invertebrates, and the role these organisms play in redistributing microplastic in the ocean, informed UK legislation banning the use of microplastic beads in wash-off cosmetics. More recently, he has worked with social scientists and economists to better understand the social and economic costs of marine plastic pollution, including the conditions under which countries are incentivised to reduce plastic inputs into the ocean.

In recent years, Jim’s priority focus has been on harnessing the power of AI and machine learning to understand how human activities are changing our ocean – and what that means for the ecosystems that depend on it. Jim is the project lead for PML’s Automated Plankton Imaging and Classification System (APICS), which uses advanced autonomous sampling and imaging of plankton, and an autonomous classifier, to transform plankton monitoring. Following the success of APICS, Jim secured further funding to lead the DEcentrAlised Learning for automated image analysis and biodiversity monitoring (DEAL) project.

Jim has collaborated with researchers from around the world and has published a wide range of articles relating to climate change, marine plastic pollution and plankton ecology and diversity.

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Key Projects

PML PI and Work Package 5 Lead for the Horizon Europe New Copernicus Capability for Trophic Ocean Networks (NECCTON) project (2023 – 2027).

PI for the NERC Automated Plankton Imaging and Classification System (APICS) project (2022 – 2024),

PML PI for UK Regional Environmental Prediction project (2017 – ).

PI for the Copernicus Climate Change Marine, Coastal and Fisheries Sectoral Information System project (2018 – 2019).

PML PI for the Economics of Marine Plastic Pollution: What are the benefits of International Cooperation project (2019 – 2023)

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Selected Publications

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