Dr Barry Russell is a former Senior Curator and Assistant Director of the Museum & Art Gallery of the Northern Territory (MAGNT), Darwin, and was also Principal Scientist (Marine Biodiversity) with the Northern Territory Department of Natural Resources, and Environment.  He is a fish taxonomist with over 50 years research experience on the systematics, ecology and behaviour of tropical demersal fishes of the Indo-West Pacific, and has published more than 150 papers on the taxonomy, ecology and systematics of fishes.

He has worked extensively in the N. Australia - SE Asian region, including Timor Leste and Indonesia, and has undertaken collaborative scientific projects with the United Nations Food and Agriculture Organisation (FAO), German Agency for Technical Co-operation (GTZ), the International Union for the Conservation of Nature (IUCN), The Nature Conservancy (TNC), and CSIRO. His current research interests include:

• Underwater rapid biodiversity assessment
• Taxonomy and phylogenetics of lizardfishes (Synodontidae) and threadfin breams (Nemipteridae).
• History of early natural history in northern Australia

He is currently Curator Emeritus of Fishes at the MAGNT and is a Research Fellow at Charles Darwin University in Darwin, Australia. He Co-chairs the IUCN Snapper, Seabream and Grunt Specialist Group.