Jeffrey Shima grew up in southern California and have always had a strong connection with the sea. I completed my undergraduate degree with honours in Integrative Biology at UC Berkeley in 1994, and a PhD in Ecology, Evolution, and Marine Biology at UC Santa Barbara in 1999. I then split appointments as a Postdoctoral Fellow with the Partnership for Interdisciplinary Study of Coastal Oceans (PISCO) and CSULA, and as the first Research and Outreach Coordinator for the Santa Barbara Coastal Ecosystem LTER. I moved from Santa Barbara to New Zealand to 2002 to work at Victoria University of Wellington. I have served on the editorial boards for Oecologia (2007-2015) and Frontiers of Marine Science (2014-2016). Presently, I serve on the editorial boards for Ecology and Ecological Monographs. I am a quantitative ecologist, a mentor to my graduate students, an affiliate Faculty Member at the UC Berkeley Gump Research Station, a Professor in the School of Biological Sciences at Victoria University of Wellington, and the Director of the Victoria University Coastal Ecology Lab.

My research seeks to understand the drivers of change in ecological systems. I am a population ecologist. I use a wide range of quantitative methods to understand how and why populations of organisms fluctuate, increase or decline. My work helps to inform the management of harvested marine species, and predicts how populations will respond to natural perturbations, climate change, and degradation of natural ecosystems. External funding from Marsden, the Ministry of Business, Innovation, and Employment, and the US National Science Foundation has enabled me to maintain active research programmes in New Zealand and French Polynesia, and supports a talented group of graduate students.