"Right Whale Ecology at the Intersection of Science, Technology, and Conservation"

Dr. Mark Baumgartner is an Assistant Scientist in the Biology department of Woods Hole Oceanographic Institution. He studies the foraging behavior and ecology of whales, and the formation and location of the patches of plankton that whales feed on. In this workshop he talked about his research on location of copepod patches, and the kinds of technology and tools he uses to track and observe the whales and their food. He discussed the need to understand how and where the North Atlantic right whale locates its food, in order to know how to save this endangered species from extinction.

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"Designing a New Vehicle for Deep Sea Exploration and Research"

Andrew Bowen, Research Specialist in the Applied Ocean Physics and Engineering department at WHOI, is currently working on a new type of underwater research tool for exploring the very deepest parts of the ocean, called a “hybrid remotely operated vehicle”, or HROV. He spoke about the design concept for a vehicle that can operate either as an ROV (remotely operated vehicle), with a new, lightweight, fiber-optic power-and-data-carrying tether, or as an AUV (autonomous underwater vehicle) to carry out pre-programmed operations without a tether. He also discussed the extreme conditions found in the deep sea and how vehicles are designed to function under those conditions.

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