Funded research is the lifeblood of this school.
Through it, knowledge about Earth’s ocean is expanded, scientists apply wisdom and expertise, graduate students gain experience and unlock passions, and the nation sees facts and evidence on which it can act. The quantity and quality of oceanographic research conducted at GSO is a special point of pride for the university and for all of Rhode Island.
In fiscal year 2020, GSO researchers were awarded $34.7 million in funding for new and ongoing, multi-year efforts. The top three funders—accounting for 75% of all dollars—were the United States Agency for International Development, the National Science Foundation and the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration.
New Awards for Funded Research, Fiscal Year 2020
| PROJECT/PROGRAM | INVESTIGATOR(S) | FUNDER | VALUE ($000s) |
|---|---|---|---|
| Ocean Exploration Cooperative Institute | Robert Ballard, Dwight Coleman | NOAA | 3,506 |
| Development and Maintenance of an Online Delivery System for STORMTOOLS Inundation and Risk Maps | Teresa Crean | R.I. Coastal Resources Management Council | 31 |
| Advancing Southern New England Shellfish Aquaculture through an Engaged Public and Next Generation Tools | Azure Cygler | University of Connecticut | 171 |
| Summer Undergraduate Research Fellowships in Oceanography (SURFO) | Brian Heikes, David Smith | National Science Foundation | 138 |
| Establishing the Spatial and Temporal Distribution Technology of Microplastics in Narragansett Bay | Christopher Kincaid, Kelton McMahon | R.I. Science and Advisory Council | 32 |
| 1814 Battle of Stonington Battlefield Protection Project | John King | Stonington Historical Society | 32 |
| Real-Time Opportunity for Development of Environmental Observations (RODEO) | John King | HDR/e2M | 138 |
| Regional Scale Benthic Habitat Mapping at Northeast Region Coastal Parks | John King, Monique LaFrance Bartley | U.S. Dept. of the Interior | 75 |
| Nurturing Successful Growth and Maturation of a Domestic Seaweed Aquaculture Industry | Dawn Kotowicz | University of Connecticut | 67 |
| Climate-Resilient Markets: Adapting to the Fisheries of the Future | Dawn Kotowicz | R.I. Natural History Survey | 38 |
| Restoring Fisheries for Sustainable Livlihoods in Lake Malawi (REFRESH) | Najih Lazar, Peter Freeman, Elin Torell | PactWorld | 375 |
| Analysis of Strength of Predictive Relationship Between Organism Bioaccumulation and Passive Sampler Uptake | Rainer Lohmann | General Dynamics Information Technology | 71 |
| FLUOROS 2020—An International Symposium on Fluorinated Organics in the Environment | Rainer Lohmann | National Institutes of Health | 39 |
| Concentrations and Source Assessment of Black Carbon Across Tropical Atlantic Air and Sediment | Rainer Lohmann, Robert Pockalny | National Science Foundation | 522 |
| How to Trace Glacial Meltwater by Shipboard Hydrographic Analysis of Dissolved Neon and Krypton | Brice Loose | National Science Foundation | 344 |
| Sea Grant Northeast Regional Lobster Extension Program: Rhode Island | Jennifer McCann, Azure Cygler | NOAA | 30 |
| University National Oceanographic Laboratory System (UNOLS) Host | Dennis Nixon | University of Washington | 39 |
| Manganese Cycling and Coupling Across Redox Boundaries within Stratified Basins of the Baltic Sea | Veronique Oldham | Woods Hole Oceanographic Institution | 37 |
| Ocean Submesoscale Currents and Vertical Transport | Melissa Omand | NASA | 228 |
| Gases in the Overturning and Horizontal Circulation of the National Subpolar North Atlantic Program (GOHSNAP) | Jaime Palter | National Science Foundation | 956 |
| MRI: Acquisition of a Customized GC-IRMS for Isotopic Analysis of Nitrate and Nitrous Oxide at URI | Rebecca Robinson, Kelton McMahon | National Science Foundation | 391 |
| Computational Methods and Robotics Systems for Modeling and Predicting Harmful Cyano-bacterial Blooms | Christopher Roman | Dartmouth College | 95 |
| Enhanced Sonar Feature Reacquisition Using Simultaneous Localization and Mapping Techniques | Christopher Roman | Physical Science Inc. | 139 |
| Towards Scalable Autonomous Benthic Imaging and Monitoring | Christopher Roman | Schmidt Ocean Institute | 59 |
| Assessing Occurrence of Bay Scallops Within R.I. Salt Ponds Using an Autonomous Surface Vehicle and Dives | Christopher Roman | R.I. Dept. of Environmental Management | 23 |
| Niche Overlap Between Atlantic Cod and Black Sea Bass | Nina Santos | The Nature Conservancy | 11 |
| Gathering New Insights into the Magmatic and Tectonic Processes at Kilauea Volcano | Yang Shen | National Science Foundation | 253 |
| Open Access Experiment to Seismically Image Galapagos Plume-Ridge Interaction | Yang Shen | National Science Foundation | 68 |
| Expansion of Narragansett Bay Fixed-Site Monitoring Network in Mount Hope Bay | Heather Stoffel, Candace Oviatt | Mass. Dept. of Environmental Protection | 180 |
| NASA Space Grant Fellowship | Jacob Strock | Brown University | 52 |
| Support of Continuing and New Activities of the National Sea Grant Library | Jan Voogd | NOAA | 302 |
| Inverted Echo Sounder (IES) Technology/Research: Pressure Recorders (PIES) and Current Meters (CPIES) | D Randolph Watts | Various | 406 |
| Yield Estimate Based on InSAR | Meng (Matt) Wei | Defense Threat Reduction Agency (DTRA) | 219 |
| Towards Autonomous UUV-Based Seafloor Reconnaissance Using Artificial Intelligence | Mingxi Zhou | Naval Undersea Warfare Center | 18 |
| EAGER: Navigating Unmanned Underwater Vehicles (UUVs) at Ice-Water Horizon | Mingxi Zhou, Brice Loose | National Science Foundation | 293 |