James J. McCarthy, Ph.D., is Alexander Agassiz Professor of Biological Oceanography, and from 1982 until 2002 he was the Director of Harvard University's Museum of Comparative Zoology. He holds faculty appointments in the Department of Organismic and Evolutionary Biology and the Department of Earth and Planetary Sciences, and he is the Head Tutor for degrees in Environmental Science and Public Policy.

McCarthy received his undergraduate degree in biology from Gonzaga University in Spokane, Washington, and his Ph.D. from Scripps Institution of Oceanography in La Jolla, California. His research interests relate to regulation of plankton productivity in the sea, and in recent years he has focused on regions that are strongly affected by seasonal and inter-annual variation in climate. He is an author of many scientific papers, and he currently teaches courses on biological oceanography and biogeochemical cycles, marine ecosystems, and global change and human health.

McCarthy has served and serves on many national and international planning committees, advisory panels, and commissions relating to oceanography, polar science, and the study of climate and global change. From 1986 to 1993, he chaired the international committee that establishes research priorities and oversees implementation of the International Geosphere - Biosphere Program. He was the founding editor of the American Geophysical Union's Global Biogeochemical Cycles. He served as co-chair of the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC), Working Group II, which had responsibilities for assessing impacts of and vulnerabilities to global climate change for the Third IPCC Assessment. He has been elected a Fellow of the American Association for the Advancement of Science, a Fellow of the American Academy of Arts and Sciences, and a Foreign Member of the Royal Swedish Academy of Sciences.