Rick Keil is the director of the School of Oceanography and is interested in applying organic geochemistry to some of the most pressing environmental issues of our time, most especially climate change. He studies the fate of organic matter in aquatic environments, as well as the causes and consequences of oxygen minimum zones throughout the world. In addition to his research, in 2008 Keil started SoundCitizen, a citizen science project that sends Puget Sound residents out to sample the water from various sites throughout the region. The SoundCitizen lab then analyzes the samples to look at the links between urban settings and aquatic systems—documenting everything from the cooking spices that make their way to the waterways, to emerging pollutants. Rick holds the Lowell A. and Frankie L. Wakefield Endowed Professorship of Ocean and Fishery Sciences.