Hurricane Hunter

Former MIT/WHOI Joint Program student (and current assistant professor at the University of Massachusetts Amherst) Jonathan Woodruff sinks a core sampler into the ground at Sippewissett Marsh in 2009. Woodruff and others at WHOI’s Coastal Systems Group look for layers of sand in the mud cores as evidence of past hurricanes. Lacking historic written records beyond a few hundred years, Woodruff and others examine past patterns of hurricane intensity and frequency—information that could prove useful for predicting future storms.(Photo by Tom Kleindinst, Woods Hole Oceanographic Institution)