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Early Days

Columbus O’Donnell Iselin, Director of the Woods Hole Oceanographic Institution from 1940 to 1950 and from 1956 to 1958, watches as scientist Edmund Watson and others depart on a research trip to the Gulf Stream in 1950. Iselin, a physical oceanographer, specialized in the physical structure and circulation of the North Atlantic Gulf Stream, the powerful current carrying warmth northward along the east coast of the U.S. WHOI scientists continue to study this flow, which forms a critical component of ocean circulation. (Photo courtesy of Woods Hole Oceanographic Institution Archives)