Javier Arístegui is Full Professor of Ecology at ULPGC (University of Las Palmas de Gran Canaria) and the Coordinator of the Biological Oceanography Group at the Institute of Oceanography and Global Change (IOCAG), where he served as the director in its early stages (2011). He has also been the director of the "Marine Technology Service (SITMA)" at ULPGC (2015-2018) and, since 2020, the director of the Canary Islands Observatory for Harmful Algae (OC-HABs). Since 1985, he has been involved in the dynamics of marine ecosystems, including studies on biological oceanography and climate change. He has been a pioneer in research on mesoscale processes in islands and upwellings regions, and organic matter remineralization in the dark ocean. In recent years, he has participated in international experiments with large mesocosms, focusing on the impact of climate multi-stressors (acidification and fertilization) on planktonic communities and ocean-based solutions for biomass production and accelerating CO2 sequestration (artificial upwelling and ocean alkalinity).
 

Under his supervision 17 PhD students and numerous Master students successfully completed their degrees in biological oceanography at the Faculty of Marine Sciences. He has authored about 170 scientific articles in high-impact journals, including Science and Nature, (h-index, Scopus id: 47), and presented over 160 scientific communications at conferences. He has obtained recognition of six 6-year research periods + one 6-year period of scientific transfer. He has coordinated 37 research projects (national and European) and participated in nearly 40 oceanographic campaigns from polar to tropical waters (five in the Southern Ocean) He is co-Editor in Chief of "Deep-Sea Research Part II," Associate Editor of "Frontiers in Marine Sciences: Biogeochemistry," and Guest Editor of "Progress in Oceanography" (2004 and 2009), "Scientia Marina" (2001), Biogeosciences (2020-22), and "Frontiers in Marine Sciences: Ocean solutions" (2021). He is reviewer of about 40 scientific journals, and research projects in 12 national and international agencies.
 

He was a member of the European Network of Excellence "Eur-OCEANS" and Vice-President of the international Global Change program IMBER (Integrated Marine Biosphere Research) of the IGBP (International Geosphere and Biosphere Program) (2008-2013). He participated in the first "Implementation Plan of the JGOFS-Time Series Stations" and the "Implementation Plan of the Joint SOLAS_IMBER Ocean Carbon Research Carbon Cycle" of the IGBP. He was an author and reviewer of the chapter on "The Oceans" in the "5th Assessment Report (AR5) of the IPCC - Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change" (2014) and Lead Author of the "IPCC Special Report on the Ocean and Cryosphere in a Changing Climate (SROCC)" (2017-2019). He is an associated member of the Scientific Committee on Oceanic Research working group SCOR WG155 ("Eastern Boundary Upwelling System (EBUS): diversity, coupled dynamics and sensitivity to climate change") and Co-chair of SCOR WG 161 ("Respiration in the mesopelagic ocean (ReMO): reconciling ecological, biogeochemical and model estimates").
 

In December 2015, he received the prestigious "Helmholtz International Fellow Award," granted by the German Association of Centres for Excellence (Helmholtz Association). Recently (September 2021), he has been appointed as the holder of the UNESCO Chair on "Environmental Management and Marine Resource Management.