PHILIPPE
PIERRE COUSTEAU www.cousteaufoundation.org
Philippe Cousteau is the twenty two year old son of Jan and Philippe Cousteau and the grandson of Captain Jacques-Yves Cousteau. As a member of the now legendary family, Philippe is continuing the work of his father and grandfather by educating the public about environmental and conservation issues with a special focus on reaching out to young people as the future caretakers of our planet.
Raised between France and the United States, Philippe speaks, French, English and Spanish and is fascinated by history and languages. His secondary education was spent at Cardigan Mountain Prep School in New Hampshire and St. George's Prep School in Newport, Rhode Island. He has been scuba diving since he was twelve years old and is a certified advanced Padi diver, as well as holding specialized certifications in Nitrox, Rebreathers and Red Cross CPR and advanced first aid.
At the age of sixteen Philippe traveled to Papua New Guinea, where he served as a field research assistant to Dr. Eugenie Clark participating in an ongoing study of a new species of sand diver fish. Philippe was credited in her publication with having first observed and documented the mating habits of Trichinotus or more commonly known as the Pacific Sand Diver. He traveled to the interior of the island to photograph and document the customs and lifestyle of the Huli people, an indigenous tribe in the Highlands.
That same year another expedition took him to Bonaire in the Netherlands Antilles as a field research assistant to Dr. George C. Buckley, director of the Marine Ecology Project in Bonaire and a Professor at Harvard. In the following years Philippe lectured in tandem with Dr. Buckley on Coral Reef Management both in the establishment of the Bonaire Marine Park and the work of preserving marine environments around the world at one of his classes at Harvard.
He is also a regular speaker to high school students and teachers participating in the annual Boston Sea Rovers Marine Careers Day. The Boston Sea Rovers are one of the oldest diving and conservation societies in the United States.
At 18 years old he spent two weeks working in Sarajevo with a small humanitarian organization. That October he attended an Environmental Awareness Conference in Cartagena, Colombia at the invitation of the city of Cartagena.
Several months later Philippe hosted a dive adventure TV documentary series on environmental issues "Dive Explore with Philippe Cousteau" in 1999 for the Outdoor Life Network.
Recently Philippe has been in demand to lecture at such institutions as Harvard University, Truckee College in Lake Tahoe Nevada, and several television and radio programs around the country.
Philippe is President of the Philippe Cousteau Foundation and serves on the board of the Philippe Cousteau Foundation. In his spare time, he is finishing his degree at the University of St. Andrews in Scotland. He shares his time between Scotland and Florida.