Principal Investigator

Dr. Lora Van Uffelen

Assistant Professor of Ocean Engineering, joint appointment with Graduate School of Oceanography

Research

Long-range ocean acoustic propagation, acoustic navigation of gliders, acoustical oceanography, particularly in the Arctic, ocean variability and effects on acoustic propagation, observations of marine mammal vocalizations using mobile platforms

Education

  • Post-Doctoral Researcher. Scripps Institution of Oceanography, 2010
  • Ph.D. Oceanography. Scripps Institution of Oceanography, 2009
  • B.S. Engineering. Hope College, 2002

Lora Van Uffelen’s Research Profile

Graduate Students

Melodie Ross

Melodie Ross is a graduate student working toward her Master’s in Ocean Engineering. Melodie graduated from URI with a Bachelor’s Degree in Ocean Engineering in 2016. Melodie’s research focuses on analyzing the accuracy of the timing in the Seaglider to determine the level of fidelity of the data produced by the glider. Since the glider is equipped with several different sensors that operate independently, Melodie is taking on the challenge of integrating the different systems in order to understand their relationships with respect to time.

Melodie is also performing a self noise analysis of the sea glider to evaluate what acoustic outputs are expected from each of the different functions performed by the glider. This will allow for sounds produced by glider functions to be properly accounted for and omitted when processing acoustics recorded by the Passive Acoustic Monitoring (PAM) system onboard the glider.

Luis Pomales Velázquez

Education

Physics Applied to Electronics from the University of Puerto Rico at Humacao

Advisor

Lora Van Uffelen

Jessica Desrochers

I am currently pursuing a Ph.D. in Ocean Engineering. I graduated from Westfield State University in 2013 with a Bachelor’s Degree in Mathematics as well as from UMASS Lowell in 2015 with a Master’s Degree in Applied Mathematics.
My current research focuses on underwater acoustics in the Arctic. Specifically looking at the relationship between the acoustic arrival times and the sound speed profiles within the Beaufort Duct. I will also be using acoustic data collected on Seagliders to construct a local tomography solution.

Cristian Graupe

Cristian is pursuing a Ph.D. in Ocean Engineering at URI. Cristian graduated from Purdue University in 2017 with a Bachelors of Engineering focused in Acoustics, and completed a Masters of Science in Ocean Engineering at the University of Rhode Island in 2019. His research focuses primarily on automating laborious tasks in underwater acoustic signal processing, such as classifying marine sounds in passive acoustic recordings and resolving long-range ray arrivals in active acoustic experiments, with comparative programmatic and machine learning methods. Cristian is also investigating the statistical influence of random ocean processes on measurable acoustic signals over long ranges.

Technician

Garrett Connelly

Garrett Connelly an Ocean Engineering Technician in the OPERA Lab. Garrett graduated from the University of Rhode Island in 2019 with a Bachelor’s Degree in Ocean Engineering. His primary work is with the lab’s Seaglider, and helping the OPERA lab members with their research.