Robert Fletcher is a Visiting Reader at the Institute of Marine Sciences, University of Portsmouth, UK, where he has worked since 1971. He has published widely on aspects of the ecology, life histories, molecular biology, taxonomy and applied aspects of marine algae, with particular respect to the brown algae. He is a member of both the British Society of Phycology and the International Society of Phycology. He received his PhD in Marine Botany from the University of London, UK in 1974.