RICHARD PYLE
MARINE BIOLOGIST
KAILUA – HAWAII
Born in Hawaii, Richard’s fascination for fishes stretches back to his very earliest memories, when as a toddler he found the family aquarium much more interesting to watch than the television. He grew up an avid snorkeler, and learned to SCUBA dive at age 13; driven by his passion for seeking out unusual denizens of coral reefs. When he was 18, he moved to the tropical islands of Palau, where his enthusiasm for ichthyological discovery drew him down into dangerous depths, and he suffered a crippling case of decompression sickness. During his year-long recovery from the bends, he read up as much as he could about diving physiology, and was determined to make a career out of exploring deep coral-reef habitats with proper gear and breathing gas mixtures.

During the late 1980s, he developed an effective system for open-circuit trimix diving, and was a active contributor to various meetings, workshops, and to the pages of pioneering magazines like aquaCorps and DeepTech at the dawn of Technical Diving. In 1994 he became a test diver for the prototype Cis-Lunar MK-4P rebreather, and contributed to the design and development of the MK-5P rebreather, which he continues to use to this day.

Earning his Ph.D. in fish systematics under the direction of the legendary Dr. John “Jack” Randall, his pursuit of scientific discovery has led him across the Indo-Pacific, participating on more than forty expeditions and dive trips, and discovering more than 100 new species of fishes. He has authored more than a hundred articles and book chapters on ichthyology and technical diving, and is particularly well known for his contributions on rebreather diving, decompression strategies, active lava diving, and in-water recompression. He has been involved with dozens of documentary film projects (working variously on both sides of the camera lens), including the IMAX® film, Coral Reef Adventure; and has given public lectures to divers, scientific colleagues, school children, and the general public all around the world.

Richard has received a number of awards, including selection by Esquire magazine to be among America’s “Best and Brightest” in 2004, the 2004 “GEnius” Award from General Electric, and the 2005 NOGI award for science diving from the American Academy of Underwater Arts and Sciences (AUAS). He is a member of the International Board of Advisors for IANTD, and was a founding Director of the Association for Marine Exploration, a non-profit organization dedicated to innovative scientific exploration of undersea environments using advanced diving equipment and techniques.

Richard has been working for the Bishop Museum in Honolulu for twenty years, where he is currently Database Coordinator for Natural Sciences, developing and managing database systems for the Museum’s natural history data in conjunction with the Pacific Basin Information Node (PBIN) of the U.S. National Biological Information Infrastructure (NBII).

Ichthyology, Bishop Museum
1525 Bernice St., Honolulu HI 96817
(808) 848-4115
http://hbs.bishopmuseum.org/staff/pylerichard.html

Photos: H. Gert De Couet, Cat Holloway, Jack Randall, Ken Corben, Gordon Tribble, Mark Mader, and Bishop Museum.
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