Carole Baldwin

Dr. Carole Baldwin is a well-respected authority on marine biology, especially tropical-marine and deep-sea fishes. Her face is instantly recognizable as the star of the Smithsonian 3-D IMAX film, "Galapagos," for which she was a scientific advisor and on-air talent. She grew up in coastal South Carolina and studied at James Madison University, the College of Charleston and the College of William and Mary.

Baldwin has published over four dozen scientific articles, and her work includes the discovery of new species of fishes in Belize, Tobago, Cook Islands, Australia, El Salvador and the Galápagos Islands. She is on the advisory board for the Caribbean Coral Reef Ecosystems Program, the story committee for the NPR syndicated radio spot Our Ocean World, and is a lead scientist developing a new permanent ocean exhibit at the Smithsonian’s Natural History Museum. Carole has been featured in National Geographic, Smithsonian, Rodale Scuba Diving, and More magazines, The Washington Post, The Los Angeles Times, The International Herald Tribune, and on CNN, the ABC television special "Planet Earth 2000," and the PBS documentary "State of the Ocean’s Animals" (2007).

In 2003, she was inducted into the Women Divers Hall of Fame, and in 2006 she received the Ronald E. Carrier Distinguished Alumni Award from James Madison University. She has devoted much time to sharing her experiences as a marine biologist with school students and the general public, and she is on the advisory board for the Smithsonian Institution’s Future Female Scientists program.

Dr. Baldwin is senior author of "One Fish, Two Fish, Crawfish, Bluefish" -- The Smithsonian Sustainable Seafood Cookbook (Smithsonian Books, 2003), a marine conservation project featuring educational information and recipes from professional chefs for U.S. seafood species fished or farmed in an ecologically sound manner.

AT A GLANCE: Dr. Baldwin resides in the Division of Fishes at the Smithsonian Institution’s National Museum of Natural History, where she has worked as a research zoologist since 1992.