Timothy M. Shank is an assistant scientist in the Department of Biology at the Woods Hole Oceanographic Institution. He received his Ph.D. in marine ecology and evolution from Rutgers in 1998 and has made more than 35 deep-submersible dives. He is currently pursuing the use of seafloor observatories to conduct in situ time-series studies of faunal succession and examine the forces that control the structure and diversity of chemosynthetic communities.