The Southwest Fisheries Science Center is one of six fisheries research centers in NOAA's National Marine Fisheries Service (NOAA Fisheries). The Center conducts fisheries and marine mammal research at three laboratories in California in support of the Pacific Fishery Management Council. In addition to providing scientific advice and technical support for the council, the Center also provides research results in support of many international fisheries commissions and conventions. About 170 scientists and support personnel are distributed among the Center's laboratories.

The La Jolla Laboratory is the Center's headquarters and home to three divisions that conduct research on Pacific and Antarctic fish, marine mammals, sea turtles, and marine habitats. The Santa Cruz Laboratory in central California is a state-of-the art facility for Pacific salmon and ground fish research and home of the new National Science Center for Marine Protected Areas. The Pacific Fisheries Environmental Laboratory emphasizes the study of environmental influences on marine resources and provides environmental information to fishery researchers and managers.

Sullivan, via a contract with the General Services Administration (GSA), currently supports a number of activities that includes processing and archiving satellite data for easy access via the internet, and collaboration on cooperative research with SWFSC scientists on applications of satellite imagery for scientific studies and the development of new image processing algorithms. Most recently, Sullivan produced and distributed (via a web interface, fax, and U.S. Mail), a monthly el niño report, detailing Sea Surface Temperature (SST) Anomalies and climatic factors relevant to currently-developing el niño conditions. In addition, we helped produce, distribute, and analyze daily SST images collected from NOAA's Polar-Orbiting Satellites. Analysis of these images has helped identify an unusual warm water eddy located WSW of Monterey Bay, and the images were transmitted to a CalCOFI-research cruise which was sampling near the area.