Eric D’Asaro is an oceanographer whose work reaches from the upper layers of the ocean to its deepest abysses, and from fjords to nearshore coastal fronts. In each, he studies the role of turbulence in ocean mixing, and how it can affect biological productivity. He searches for novel ways to deploy Lagrangian Floats, a type of drifter that can record the motion of the ocean in three dimensions—measurements formerly possible only in a lab. He has been elected a Fellow of both the American Geophysical Union and the American Meteorological Society, and in 2011 was awarded the Sverdrup Gold Medal from the latter organization. In 2014, he was elected to the National Academy of Sciences, recognized for his innovative observations of the ocean.