Tommy D. Dickey

Tommy Dickey is a Professor Emeritus at the University of California, Santa Barbara (UCSB). Previously, he served in the U.S. Coast Guard, earned his PhD at Princeton University, and taught at the University of Southern California. As a professor, Tommy has co-authored a textbook on oceanography (Exploring the World Ocean, Sean Chamberlin as co-author) and over 180 research papers. He is a Secretary of the Navy/Chief of Naval Operations Chair in Ocean Sciences, a Fellow of the American Geophysical Union, and was a Distinguished Teacher awardee at UCSB in 2015. He was also named an American Kennel Club Sportsman of the Year by the Ventura County Dog Fanciers Association in 2016.

Tommy has written the children's books entitled 'The Therapy Dog Adventures of the Great Pyrenees Ted E. Bear and Friends', 'Rocky and Splash's First Lighthouse Dog Adventure!', "Summer the Therapy Dog", and "Rocky and Splash's Christmas Lighthouse Dog Adventure". These books are in all 250 children’s hospitals in the US. There are presently two Great Pyrenees dogs in Tommy’s home: Roxy and Summer. His dogs have received numerous awards from the American Kennel Club and the Great Pyrenees Club of America. They have done over 3100 therapy visits. The dogs are also helping to teach children and adults about dog safety and to recruit new therapy dog teams. Tommy has recently written two papers with Heather Junqueira published in the Journal of Osteopathic Medicine on medical scent detection dogs being trained to test for COVID-19. For more, please see www.opl.ucsb.edu