As flood waters from the remnants of Hurricane Ida ravaged parts of New Jersey and Pennsylvania, the mighty Raritan spilled over its banks, leaving a path of destruction in its wake.  Rutgers University was not absolved from its share of damage, and the RU Crew team bore the weight of being on the frontlines.  With the boathouse already flooded, a section of dock complete with four launches broke away, proceeding to smash into the Rt. 1 bridge. One launch and a twisted aluminum boat remained as the rest of the flotilla washed downstream, eventually settling on land as the floodwaters receded.  Video from NBC 4 shows the carnage in process.  https://twitter.com/i/status/1433415344727658499 The R/V Rutgers sprang into action, slaloming through the obstacle course upriver before picking up some of rowing’s finest to become the R/V’s crew for the day in an attempt to recover the launch vessels and dock section.  Swift currents made operations difficult, but the R/V Rutgers’ landing craft capabilities proved useful as it landed at the grounding site of the launches just north of the New Jersey Turnpike bridge. Tireless efforts and a combination of four-stroke horsepower, manpower, and sheer willpower were eventually able to pull three launches and a large section of dock offshore.  Two launches were in damaged but working order and able to return to the boathouse under their own power, while a third had to be towed back to dock prior to be dewatered and recovered; sinking narrowly avoided.  Although repairs are forthcoming, the day culminated in multiple successful recovery operations aided by teamwork and camaraderie.  Upstream, Red Team!

On behalf of Zdenka Willis, President of the Marine Technology Society (MTS), and Mary Munk, of the Walter Munk Foundation for the Oceans (WMFO), it is my pleasure to inform you of your selection as recipient of the Walter Munk Scholar Award and Commemorative Lecture. This award seeks to underscore the great importance of ocean science and technology; to recognize your achievements to date; and to encourage you to continue Walter Munk’s legacy of daring exploration and discovery throughout your career.  Given the highly competitive field of candidates from which you were chosen, we are confident that you will bring distinction to what will become a growing list of future Munk Scholars.

This summer we were happy to welcome 12 undergraduate students to SEBS for an in-person summer internship. Students based on main campus in New Brunswick and our Haskin Shellfish Research Laboratory completed authentic research experiences that ranged from undersea volcanos, shellfish aquaculture, to offshore wind. Our students spanned topics from our ancient ocean to present day and from the high Arctic to the coastal seas around Antarctica. We thank the university support and all involved who helped ensure that these students could work in a safe and productive environment all summer. Congrats to all of them for outstanding presentations!

The year of the pandemic has been challenging for everyone. When the COOLroom was formed, one goal was to develop an automated system that minimized the amount of time humans need to be at sea to collect ocean data and use it to educate our future generations. Given social distancing and safety considerations, COVID-19 provided a test of the resilience of the COOL network. Throughout the pandemic, the network continued to collect data using satellites, HF-Radar, gliders, and meteorological instruments, which fueled ocean and atmospheric models. Many of the results presented in this annual report highlight the ability of modern tools to enable us to now sample extreme locations of our planet even under extreme local conditions. This ability is becoming available at a critical time as the ocean globally continues to exhibit accelerating changes. These technologies will be critical to meet the challenges laid out in the UN Decade of Ocean Science for Sustainable Development: 2021-2030. The UN Ocean Decade is focused on providing a framework to ensure that ocean sciences support actions to sustainably manage the ocean and help achieve the 2030 Agenda for Sustainable Development. The COOLroom is well positioned to help lead by example the co-development of the global community’s response to the UN challenge. COOLroom Annual Report 2020-2021:

For the second time in as many days, an RUCOOL graduate student has completed her thesis. Ailey Sheehan successfully defended her Master’s Thesis “Developing an Open-Source Analysis Pipeline For a Glider-Based Acoustic Zooplankton Fish Profiler (AZFP)” in our Master’s in Operational Oceanography program! Congrats, Ailey!

Julia Engdahl, recent RUCOOL Masters in Oceanography graduate, won the NOAA Professional Excellence Award during her first year as a contractor for NOAA CO-OPS (Center for Operational Oceanographic Products and Services). NOAA CO-OPS Director, Richard Edwing, said the following: This award provides recognition for outstanding accomplishment in furthering CO-OPS’ mission through exceptional dedication or innovative approaches to their work while advancing morale among fellow employees. The Individual Award for Professional Excellence goes to: Julia Engdahl, OD (Lynker) Julia is being recognized for the professional excellence she has demonstrated in her first year as a Lynker contractor with CO-OPS. Her diverse contributions to CO-OPS and NOAA include providing quality control of water level and currents data; supporting the weekly Gain and Offset Backup Analysis, or GOBA, report; sharing her impressive coding skills; innovating product and process improvements; assisting with Software Carpentry workshops; and serving as the Executive Secretariat for NOAA AI Executive Committee and the Coordinator for the NOS AI Working Group. Julia’s leadership and support of CO-OPS CODE team activities has been exemplary. She has eagerly shared her skills with others and led and collaborated on multiple innovative coding projects; like converting microwave water level comparison scripts to Python, and bringing creativity to the Santa Monica Digital Display Project. One of Julia’s best known contributions to CO-OPS is her use of animated GIFs for the representation of water level and sea level trend data. Julia’s accomplishments are extensive and impressive, but even more so when considering that she was hired only 13 months ago – during the pandemic and without the benefits of in-person training, guidance, or collaboration. We are thankful to have you on board and looking forward to even more innovation. Congratulations Julia!

RUCOOL grad student Ted Thompson successfully presented his Thesis in our Master’s in Operational Oceanography program this morning titled “Best Practices for Sea-Bird Scientific deep ISFET-based pH sensor integrated into a Slocum Webb Glider”. Congrats, Ted! He’s moving on soon to a position at the U.S. Geological Survey, so we wish him well!