Ross was born and raised in the Pacific Northwest and has always had an abiding love for the waterways of the Salish Sea. Originally a theatre technician, Ross returned to school later in life for his undergraduate degree at the University of Washington in Aquatic and Fishery Sciences (2011), a Masters at the University of British Columbia in Zoology (2013), and a PhD currently in-progress at the University of Oregon. He has worked as a dive technician for the Hakai Institute and as the central technician for the Smithsonian Institution's MarineGEO Program. Currently, he is studying food webs in the seaweed communities of Antarctica and the Salish Sea using diving, behavior experimentation, fatty-acid analysis, and CT scan visualizations as tools. 

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