Challenger Glider Mission Receives Award from the G. Unger Vetlesen Foundation

January 19, 2021

Faculty, Scott Glenn, Oscar Schofield, and Travis Miles with The Rutgers University Center for Ocean Observing Leadership (RUCOOL), were recently awarded a $150,000 gift from the G. Unger Vetlesen Foundation for the continuing support of the global Challenger Glider Mission. The gift will support oceanographic research, capacity building, and education with autonomous underwater gliders in the Caribbean. It will include international glider deployments to study ocean heat transport from the tropical Atlantic into the Caribbean Sea, and will sample the ocean underneath hurricanes that transit through the region. This project is in partnership with the non-profit Ocean and Coastal Observing – Virgin Islands, the University of the Virgin Islands, among other institutions throughout the Caribbean, and will serve as a U.S. contribution to the U.N. Decade of Ocean Science for Sustainable Development.