He received his BS in Biology and Marine Science from the University of Miami and his PhD in Oceanography from the Scripps Institution of Oceanography. Ryan is a fisheries oceanographer with an interest in understanding the responses of marine ecosystems and fisheries production to changing ocean and climate properties, and his research investigates long-term changes in physical, biogeochemical, and planktonic characteristics that are evident in observational records and simulated by atmosphere-ocean general circulation models. The goal of this work is to improve understanding of the influence of regional and basin-scale processes on the composition and production of plankton and fish communities. He is a member of the CLIVAR Research Focus group on eastern boundary upwelling systems.