#URIGSO recently hosted an Ocean Workforce Career Fair with URI Ocean Engineering, bringing 21 employers to the Bay Campus. Students from GSO, Ocean Engineering, & Marine Affairs connected directly with orgs across ocean science, engineering, & the blue economy to explore internships & careers!
Ballard is widely known for discovering the final resting place of the RMS Titanic and for his role in the discovery of hydrothermal vents in the Galápagos Islands. The selection follows the tradition of naming survey ships after explorers, oceanographers, and distinguished marine surveyors.
🚢 Congratulations to #URIGSO alum & Professor Emeritus Robert Ballard, Ph.D. ’74, on the christening of the USNS Robert Ballard (T-AGS 67) over the weekend at Bollinger Shipyards in Pascagoula, Mississippi. The ship will support the U.S. Navy’s oceanographic survey mission for years to come. 🌊 🚢
The similarities in health effects from PFAS exposure across humans, animals, and birds underscore the interconnectedness of environmental and human health. On #WorldWildlifeDay, we reflect on that interconnectedness, and the unique roles and contributions of wildlife to people and the planet! 🌎 🦑
Research led by #URIGSO's Rainer Lohmann has documented alarming levels of PFAS in Arctic wildlife. Another study, co-led by #URIGSO alum Anna Robuck, has detected PFAS in the baleen of six whale species.
PFAS travel long distances by air and sea, accumulating over time in animals and people. 🦑 🌊
What do Arctic polar bears and endangered blue whales have in common? Both have been found to carry PFAS, highlighting how far these “forever chemicals” travel through the global ocean.
➡️ Read 'PFAS are polluting the Arctic, threatening both humans and animals' from AP News: buff.ly/VFHI9xR
As climate impacts accelerate and uncertainty grows, communities across the country are redefining what it means to be resilient. In a fireside chat with #URIGSO's J.P. Walsh, Bavishi will explore how equity, local leadership, and civic collaboration form the backbone of effective climate action.
🌊 #URIGSO is excited to welcome Jainey Bavishi, an expert on climate adaptation and resilience, as the guest speaker for the Charles and Marie Fish Lecture on Tuesday, March 10, at 6 p.m.
➡️ Learn more: buff.ly/ZsDENAZ
📍 URI Narragansett Bay Campus, Corless Auditorium, at 215 South Ferry Road
By coupling wave & ocean models, researchers Isaac Ginis, Tetsu Hara, & Angelos Papandreou found that strong currents can act as natural buffers, altering swell energy much like reefs or barrier islands. 🌊 🧪
Read more in Surfer Magazine: buff.ly/KkLw6b8 🌊
🏄♀️ New #URIGSO research has implications for oceanographers, meteorologists.....and surf forecasters. The study shows that ocean currents can significantly reduce hurricane swells, helping explain why wave forecasts around big storms sometimes look larger than what actually reaches the coast. 🌊 🧪
☀️ Historic blizzard conditions in the Northeast, but steady progress continues on the #RVNarragansettDawn in Houma, Louisiana.
Last week, crews used TIG welding — a precision method that produces strong, clean joints — on piping in the vessel’s trash room.
🚢 Learn more: buff.ly/OswlBdQ
The #URIGSO community will present its research at the 2026 Ocean Sciences Meeting (OSM) in Glasgow, Scotland, during the week of February 22-27, 2026. #OSM26
🌊 🏴 We’ve gathered a listing of where and when you can find their presentations:
The team is examining #PFAS levels in local waters and in culturally important seafood resources. Findings will be provided directly to the tribal community and municipal partners to support informed seafood consumption decisions and highlight preferable harvesting locations across Cape Cod.
🦪 🌊 On Cape Cod, #URIGSO students and STEEP trainees Justin Sankey and Paola N. Román Morales are working alongside the Mashpee Wampanoag Tribe Natural Resource Department and the Town of Yarmouth Division of Natural Resources to collect samples of surface water, fish, and shellfish. 🦑
After a 2022 volcanic eruption blanketed Pacific hydrothermal vents in ash, her team used advanced genomic analyses to uncover a surprising finding: genetic diversity declined in the bacterial symbionts, but not in their animal hosts. Discoveries like this rely on advanced computing resources! 🌊
📸 : Volcanic ash and mollusc shells surround a deep-sea hydrothermal vent at the vent field in the Kingdom of Tonga, Pacific Ocean. (Roxanne Beinart, chief scientist, URI. Funder: NSF © Woods Hole Oceanographic Institution)
What happens to deep-sea microbes after a volcanic eruption? 🌋🌊
In a new Faculty Spotlight from the URI Institute for AI & Computational Research, #URIGSO's @symbiosisrox.bsky.social shares how high-performance computing powers her lab’s work on marine symbiosis. 🌊
🖥️ buff.ly/Tx24kiB
She has spent hundreds of days at sea working alongside fishing communities, helping advance collaborative data collection that informs fisheries assessment and management. We’re proud to see her leadership and impact recognized. 👏🌊
Read more about the awardees: buff.ly/G0GFknL
Anna earned her Ph.D. in oceanography from #URIGSO & now serves as chief of the Cooperative Research Branch & director of the Narragansett Laboratory at NOAA’s Northeast Fisheries Science Center. Her career has focused on expanding fishermen’s involvement in scientific data collection & application.
🎉 Congratulations to #URIGSO alum Anna Mercer, Ph.D. ’15 on being named the 2026 #URIGSO recipient of URI’s Ten Under Ten Award! Recognized for outstanding professional achievement & dedication to the URI community, the awards celebrate young leaders who embody the University’s core values.
🌊 What does it take to build resilience in an era of accelerating climate impacts?
Join us for the Charles and Marie Fish Lecture featuring Jainey Bavishi, former Deputy Administrator of NOAA and former Director of New York City’s Office of Climate Resiliency.
Register: buff.ly/GfbfVfm
And a very happy Valentine's Day from #URIGSO 🌊 🧪 🦑
Valentine's Day is tomorrow.... send your favorite to your bestie, lab mate, or someone special ♥️ 🐟 🫶 🌊 🧪 🦑
They found that chemosymbiosis evolved independently more than once within the same family. 🧪 🌊 🦑
➡️ The implications reach beyond deep-sea biology, toward understanding how reliably evolution responds to environmental pressure. Read more in The Royal Society Publishing: buff.ly/552lKQP
Alvinocaris sp. from the Pacific Ring of Fire. Image courtesy of Submarine Ring of Fire 2006 Exploration, NOAA Vents Program
🦐 What can the study of bacterial symbiosis in deep-sea shrimp tell us about the evolution of species?
New research co-authored by #URIGSO's @symbiosisrox.bsky.social studied 22 shrimp species from hydrothermal vents and cold seeps worldwide. 🧪 🌊 🦑
🌊🧑🔬 On #InternationalDayofWomenandGirlsinScience, we’re celebrating the women shaping the future of ocean science. At #URIGSO, our women faculty, students, and staff drive discovery every day — and through our outreach, we’re inspiring the next generation of girls to be ocean leaders. 🧪
With the Munsell Soil Colour Chart, the cores are described visually in colour and structure as accurately as possible.
The discovery comes from sediment cores recovered during a major international expedition co-led by #URIGSO’s Becky Robinson. Researchers are now analyzing the cores in Germany to better understand the formation, evolution, and significance of this newly confirmed subseafloor freshwater system.
Valentia Rossi (left) and Rebbecca Robinson look at a core.
Measuring conductivity.
💧 An international science team has directly documented and sampled an extensive hidden system of freshened water beneath the seafloor, providing the first detailed evidence of long-suspected offshore freshwater aquifers. 🧪 🌊
➡️ Read more: buff.ly/u4pfTt3
🧪🌊 #URIGSO's @victoriafulfer.bsky.social, Ph.D. ’24, shares how sediment cores act as a time capsule of microplastic pollution in Narragansett Bay, where researchers see the highest concentrations of plastic particles, and what those findings reveal about how pollution has changed over time. ⤵
Depending on the hurricane, simulations show wave heights can drop 1–7 feet, and wave periods can shorten by 0.3–1.5 seconds—key numbers for understanding impacts on offshore and nearshore structures.
Waves are most strongly reduced on the front-right side of a storm, where winds, waves, and currents are all strongest. Currents moving in the same direction as waves make them travel faster, giving them less time to grow.
