PAL PI Oscar Schofield was recently asked to provide a “senior scientist view of the world” as part of the Food for Thought series in the ICES Journal of Marine Science.
In this retrospective, Oscar recounts how he ended up as an oceanographer, he shares tales of his early field experiences and the friends he made along the way, and he shares his insights on the future of ocean science and lessons learned along the way. His biggest lesson, “Don’t’ forget that science is fun!”
Abstract: Over the last 30 years, ocean sciences have been undergoing a technological revolution. Changes include the transition of autonomous platforms from being interesting engineering projects to being critical tools for scientists studying a range of processes at sea. My career has benefitted immensely from these technical innovations, allowing me to be at sea (virtually) 365 days a year and operate ocean networks globally. While these technical innovations have opened many research doors, many aspects of oceanography are unchanged. In my experience, working/talking/scheming with scientists is most effective face-to-face. Despite the growing capabilities of robotic platforms, we will still need to go to sea on ships to conduct critical experiments. As the responsibilities of scientists expand with mandated outreach efforts, I strongly urge young scientists to leverage the expertise of Broader Impact professionals, who are increasingly available to our community, in order to maximize the effectiveness and efficiency of our outreach efforts. Given the increasing observations of change occurring in the ocean, our work is ever-more important while still being fun. I am blessed to have had a career as an oceanographer exploring this planet.
You can find Oscar’s full paper here…
Schofield, O. (2024). Watching the sunrise on our ocean planet in a new era of marine science. ICES Journal of Marine Science, fsae049. https://doi.org/10.1093/icesjms/fsae049
