Research

H. Thomas Rossby, a professor at the Graduate School of Oceanography, is leading an effort to partner with the global shipping industry to systematically collect detailed data about the world’s oceans by installing equipment on commercial vessels.

The Inner Space Center at the URI Graduate School of Oceanography is featured in "New Frontiers in Ocean Exploration: The E/V Nautilus and NOAA Ship Okeanos Explorer 2011 Field Season," a supplement to the March 2012 issue of Oceanography, the official magazine of the Oceanography Society.

From February 20- 24 2012, over 4,000 people will attend the 2012 Ocean Sciences meeting in Salt Lake City, Utah. This biennial event is an important venue for international scientific exchange across broad marine science disciplines, including physical, biological, chemical and geological oceanography, as well as multidisciplinary topics. Presentations will include emerging research on the global ocean and society, including science education, outreach and public policy.

Prof. Brad Moran has been selected to spend the next two years at the National Science Foundation to serve in the Division of Ocean Sciences.  He will help guide the merit review process for grant proposals dealing with chemical oceanography.  He was selected after a national search for a program director.

A University of Rhode Island Graduate School of Oceanography marine scientist has returned from a six-week research cruise to the Bering Sea and Chukchi Sea, the first time oceanographers have studied this Arctic region in winter during modern times.

The Graduate School of Oceanography at the University of Rhode Island celebrated the recent retirement of one of its longest serving and most distinguished professors last week with a day-long symposium in his honor.

URI GSO alumnus Dr. Jeffrey Book (M.S. 1998, Ph.D. 2007) has been awarded the highest honor bestowed by the U.S. government on scientists and engineering professionals in the early stages of their independent research careers, the Presidential Early Career Award for Scientists and Engineers.     

As an honoree, Dr. Book traveled to Washington, D.C., in October to attend a recognition ceremony led by the White House Office of Science and Technology Policy.

The University of Rhode Island's R/V Endeavor has commenced its 500th research cruise, carrying a group of faculty members, graduate and undergraduate students south across the Gulf Stream and into the Sargasso Sea on a seven-day expedition. The students and scientists will conduct measurements of the current in the Gulf Stream, sample for air and water pollutants, and collect samples of phytoplankton in the Sargasso Sea. The cruise is part research, and part training for students, who will learn about data collection and conducting science at sea by hands-on participation. 

GSO graduate student Victoria Paris Sacks was awarded 1st place by the Montgomery-Watson-Harza Consulting Engineers/Association of Environmental Engineering and Science Professors for her Master's Thesis "Validation of Polyethylene Passive Samplers for the Detection of Emerging Contaminants" in the Master's Thesis category.  Her research, advised by Dr. Rainer Lohmann, focused on using a novel, low-tech method of measuring waterborne contaminants from personal care products, pharmaceutical, and industrial processes not previously known as pollutants (e.g. polybrominated diphenylethers, nonylphenols, and triclosan).  

University of Rhode Island volcanologist Steven Carey is participating in a scientific investigation of hydrothermal vents in the crater of an ancient underwater volcano off the coast of Greece. He is helping to direct remotely operated vehicles deployed from the exploration ship Nautilus to collect water and sediment samples, and he is discussing the findings with shipboard scientists.

But Carey isn’t aboard the Nautilus. He’s not even in Greece or elsewhere in Europe. He is sitting in the Inner Space Center at URI, where he can participate in the research expedition from thousands of miles away without having to spend weeks at sea.