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from the office
MATE ROV Ranger Team Award: NYC ROV
team members include Raph Hubbard, Joshua Rosenthal,
Aviv Crowell Lang, Spencer Yamada, and Cole
Houston.
Dr. Ed Mathez, curator at the American Museum
of Natural History, to learn about the collection of
the black smoker chimney on display at the museum.
To quote their report, "In the process of preparing
for the competition, we researched a team that brought
black smokers to the surface. We learned that, while our missions
are very different, the challenges and obstacles we face are
very similar."
We also awarded an overall Honorable Mention to the Ranger
team from Edgewater High School, Orlando, Florida (USA).
This team's poster was the most effective in conveying to a general
audience the importance of research at mid-ocean ridges.
They compared their ROV, "Caprimulgus," to MBARI's ROV
Tiburon working at the Juan de Fuca Ridge. As part of their
fundraising and outreach, they set up a booth at a local farmer's
market at which they practiced presenting and answering questions
about their ROV and educated visitors about ROVs and
mid-ocean ridges.
Other E&O activities in 2008
- Interview for IMarEst’s Marine Scientist magazine: “Keeping
an eye on the deep sea” (posted on the IR website);
- Two presentations for the Children’s School of Science in
Woods Hole, Massachusetts (USA) in July 2008;
- Presentation to Woods Hole Oceanographic Institution
Ocean Science Journalism Fellows in September 2008. The
journalists hailed from an impressive range of news outlets
such as Scientific American, the Los Angeles Times, Yomiuri
Shimbun (the largest daily newspaper in Japan), public television
and public radio affiliates, and Climate Wire.
E&O activities planned for 2009
In 2009 we will be highlighting the IR Global Hydrothermal
Vents Database on our website and Google Earth. We proposed
two major E&O activities for 2009 at the recent IR Steering
Committee meeting. Each of the activities involves ridge science
in multiple languages. At the end of this year, we will
announce which of the two activities we will pursue.
2008 InterRidge Student Fellows
As part of our mission to promote interdisciplinary, international
collaboration for research of oceanic spreading centers,
and to reach out to the next generation of ridge-crest scientists,
we initiated the InterRidge Student Fellowship Program
in 2008 with a call for proposals for two fellowships of up to
$3000 US each. These fellowships can be used for any field of
ridge-crest science. In particular these awards are encouraged
to be used for international cruise participation, international
laboratory use, and adding an international dimension to a
student’s thesis work. Please note that our Fellowship Program
is expanded for 2009 - 2011 with a partnership with the International
Seabed Authority Endowment Fund as mentioned in
the Letter from the Chairs and the announcement on p. 3.
The InterRidge Steering Committee is very pleased to announce
our 2008 InterRidge Student Fellows: Michelle Harris,
a Ph.D. candidate at the National Oceanography Centre
(NOC), UK, to work at a laboratory in Canada, and Kerry
Howard, a Ph.D. candidate at Cardiff University, UK, to conduct
research in France.
The competition was very strong for these two awards. All applicant
proposals were reviewed by two topical science reviewers
(one a native and the other a non-native English speaker).
The Steering Committee then ranked the proposals, using criteria
ranging from the quality and expected significance of the
work to whether the fellowship would provide benefits to the
student beyond just an addition to their thesis research, e.g.,
establish new collaboration, provide experience in communicating
science outside of their native language. There was much
discussion about the review process itself, and we learned a lot
in this first year and will continue to improve the Fellowship
Program in the years ahead. We are grateful to the major efforts
of all student applicants and their advisors and sponsors,
InterRidge News 5 Vol. 17, 2008