John Woods

John David Woods, CBE (born 1939) is a British oceanographer.

He studied physics at Imperial College, London (1958–66), after which he was appointed principal research fellow at the Meteorological Office (1966–72), while leading the RN Operation Thermocline in which he pioneered underwater flow visualisation. Later he joined NERC as Director of Marine and Atmospheric Science (1986-1994), where he created the National Oceanography Centre at Southampton. He held professorships at Southampton University (1972–77), Kiel University (1977-86) and Imperial College London (1994- ), carrying out research into the seasonal boundary layer of the ocean and plankton ecosystem models, and modelling global container freight.

Books 1971 Underwater science [with J.N.Lythgoe] 1976 Underwater Research [E.Drew & J.N.Lythgoe) 2002 Ocean forecasting [with N.Pinardi ] 2006 Benguela: Predicting a Large Marine Ecosystem [with V.Shannon, G.Hempel, P.Malanotte-Rizzoli, C.Moloney]