Elise Hugus

Elise Hugus is a writer, sound designer, and documentary producer. She grew up in the backyard of the Woods Hole Oceanographic Institution, and from a young age, reveled in the stories she would overhear from scientists returning from sea.

The ocean beckoned Hugus to travel far and wide, first to the communications and journalism program at Concordia University in Montreal, and later to study at the Danish School of Journalism in Aarhus, Denmark. After a stint freelancing as a radio stringer and blogger from Eastern Europe, the ocean called her back home to share her fascination with the blue planet as a community newspaper reporter and multimedia freelancer for the Woods Hole Oceanographic Institution. She now works as a video producer with UnderCurrent Productions, a company she co-founded with her husband, Daniel Cojanu.

In her downtime, Hugus enjoys long runs on the beach at sunset, growing her own food, and attending independent film festivals.

To Tag a Squid

January 3, 2019

How do you design a tag that can attach to a soft-bodied swimming animal and track its movements? Very thoughtfully.

Illuminating the Ocean with Sound

April 26, 2017

WHOI’s new research vessel Niel Armstrong is equipped with an EK80 broadband acoustic echo sounder. Using a wide range of sound frequencies, it gives scientists the ability to identify and distinguish between different types of marine life in the depths.

The Hotspot for Marine Life

April 13, 2017

The continental shelfbreak in the waters off New England is an area where a spectacular abundance and diversity of marine life aggregate year-round. The Pioneer Array, a part of the NSF-funded Ocean Observatories Initiative, was placed there to help scientists explore the processes that make the shelfbreak so productive.