After a career working on traditional sailing craft, Leavenworth obtained his Ph.D. in History at the University of New Hampshire. He joined the Census of Marine Life’s interdisciplinary History of Marine Animal Populations Project (HMAP) in 2001 and since then has documented the astonishing changes that have taken place in the Gulf of Maine over the last several centuries, particularly in estuaries and near shore ecosystems, and in coastal villages that depend upon fishing for their livelihood.
Historical papers include “From Wealth to Poverty, the Rise and Fall of Cod around Mount Desert Island” [forthcoming Chebacco] and “The Changing Landscape of Marine Resources in Seventeenth-Century New England” [2008 IJMH 20(1): 33-62]. He has contributed to books, published articles and short stories in Cruising World and Downeast magazines, and one of his poems appeared on Gordon Bok’s album Apples in the Basket (2005). Leavenworth has also given numerous public lectures in small towns and historical societies on the Downeast coast.