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Research Highlights

Oceanus Magazine

Nereus Soars to the Ocean's Deepest Trench

Nereus Soars to the Ocean’s Deepest Trench

June 4, 2009

It took a village of engineers to build a completely new type of unmanned deep-sea robot that can reach the deepest part of the ocean. On May 31, 2009, a team of engineers at Woods Hole Oceanographic Institution (WHOI) celebrated…

Jason Meets the Carnivorous Sea Squirt

Jason Meets the Carnivorous Sea Squirt

April 3, 2009

Tito Collasius, an engineer at Woods Hole Oceanographic Institution, has witnessed some of oceanography’s more celebrated moments, including the discovery of the Titanic and the eruption of undersea volcanoes. But on expedition south of Tasmania that ended in January 2009,…

A Deep-sea Chemical-Sniffing Bloodhound

A Deep-sea Chemical-Sniffing Bloodhound

December 30, 2008

<!– –> Researchers can learn complicated things from some of the simplest animals in the ocean. Case in point: Rich Camilli’s work on sponges near Aquarius, an undersea laboratory 63 feet below the ocean surface in the Florida Keys National…

The Turtle and the Robot

The Turtle and the Robot

December 19, 2008

Stephen Licht built an unusual underwater robot with a curious name. With a wink toward James Joyce, he named it Finnegan, because he was particularly interested in studying the wake made by the robot as it moved through water. Instead…

A Tag Fit for a Porpoise

A Tag Fit for a Porpoise

November 13, 2008

In 2003, Stacy DeRuiter arrived as a graduate student at Woods Hole Oceanographic Institution (WHOI), where a new device developed at WHOI was sparking a revolution in marine mammal research: the D-tag. The cell phone-size digital recording device—affixed temporarily (and…

News Releases

Streaming off the ice shelf

WHOI receives $1.6 Million to build revolutionary Antarctic ice shelf monitoring system

August 13, 2024

SAMS will operate autonomously for years in hostile, difficult-to-reach locations that are Ground Zero for global sea-level rise

Researchers improve satellite surveillance of emperor penguins

May 29, 2024

New method will provide accurate counts and breeding success of the threatened species in the light of climate change

Sargassum Patch

Study Clearly Identifies Nutrients as a Driver of the Great Atlantic Sargassum Belt

October 11, 2023

Findings could lead to locating nutrient sources and providing management options

El Gordo hydrothermal chimney

WHOI tapped by NSF to lead OOI Program Management for an Additional Five Years

September 21, 2023

The OOI collects and serves measurements from more than 900 autonomous instruments on the seafloor and on moored and free-swimming platforms.

The Shared Autonomy for Remote Collaboration (SHARC)

A new framework for oceanographic research

August 24, 2023

The Shared Autonomy for Remote Collaboration (SHARC) framework “enables remote participants to conduct shipboard operations and control robotic manipulators.

News & Insights

A robot lives in this Antarctic penguin colony. It’s trying to save them

May 6, 2022

Fisherman strengthen science

January 27, 2022

Fishing community and OOI scientists unite to study how the ocean is changing & what it means for global fishing industries

WHOI builds bridges with Arctic Indigenous communities

February 10, 2021

NSF program fosters collaboration between indigenous communities and traditional scientists, allowing WHOI’s autonomous vehicles to shed light on a changing Arctic

WHOI-assisted study finds ocean dumping of DDT waste was “sloppy”

October 29, 2020

An investigative report this week in the LA Times features the work of WHOI’s marine geochemistry lab in identifying the discarded barrels and analyzing samples from the discovery.

DUNEX Pilot Program map allows you to explore an intensive coastal study

July 6, 2020

DUNEX is a multi-agency, academic and stakeholder collaborative community experiment to study nearshore processes during coastal storms. Use this ArcGIS map to learn more about all the project sites along the North Carolina coastline.