THE PROFESSOR AND THE PIRATE

How a quietly brilliant Malaysian marine scientist became the unlikely face of Luminox's bold new Pirate Watch.

- ANANDHI GOPINATH

THERE IS A particular kind of charisma that belongs only to scientists who spend much of their lives underwater. It's calm, deliberate, quietly fearless. And when you meet Prof. James Tan—marine biologist, diver, researcher, and the face of Luminox’s latest partnership with Universiti Malaysia Terengganu—you notice that quality immediately. There are no theatrics, no grand speeches. Just clarity of purpose and a fluency in the language of the ocean that comes only from years spent listening to it.

Luminox calls its latest creation, the Pirate Watch, a celebration of courage and resilience. Most watch brands mean that metaphorically. For Tan, those words are lived experience.

The partnership began with a simple call. Luminox wanted to support genuine marine science in Malaysia—something measurable, something with impact. “They were looking for a partner with strong scientific work and active field projects,” Tan recalls. “UMT’s coral programme immediately stood out.”

The story goes back to Tropical Storm Pabuk in 2019, which devastated reefs around Pulau Bidong. Tan and his team responded not with despair, but with innovation, scaling up restoration using their One-For-All method, which secures multiple coral fragments onto a single structure for faster recovery.

It was science born out of necessity— precisely the kind of ingenuity that caught Luminox's attention. “When it learned about our ongoing efforts at Pulau Bidong... the brand felt it aligned with the values behind its Pirate Watch, which highlights courage and resilience,” he says. “These qualities are also needed in coral conservation.”