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Research Highlights

Oceanus Magazine

Bosun Oscar Sisson (left) and WHOI engineers Sean Kelley, Mike Skowronski, and Isaac Vandor deploy the autonomous underwater vehicle Sentry 

Exploring Atlantic seeps

July 8, 2026

AUV Sentry leads the way in mapping and monitoring methane bubbling from the seafloor

Quest was purchased by Shackleton

A once-in-a-generation dive into polar history

July 2, 2026

40 years after helping reveal the Titanic, Alvin returns to the North Atlantic to document two other legendary shipwrecks

Eyes on the deep submarine background

Eyes on the deep

June 26, 2026

How ocean imaging is accelerating the pace of deep-sea discovery

Mar de Plata canyon

Answers from the abyss

June 11, 2026

How new discoveries in the deep could change life at the surface

Alvin and the swordfish

Alvin vs. the swordfish

May 16, 2026

During a 1967 dive off Florida, a startled swordfish rammed the famed submersible Alvin—lodging its sword in the hull and forcing the crew to abort the mission

News Releases

SeaWorld & Busch Gardens conservation fund commits $900,000 to protect critically endangered North Atlantic right whales

November 14, 2019

The funding provided by the SeaWorld Conservation Fund will be primarily used to test alternative non-lethal fishing gear.  Whales and sea turtles commonly entangle in ropes that connect crab or lobster traps on the sea floor to buoys on the sea surface.

Basking shark

SharkCam reveals secret lives of basking sharks in UK

August 6, 2019

An autonomous underwater vehicle (AUV) known as the REMUS SharkCam has been used in the UK for the first time to observe the behaviour of basking sharks in the Inner Hebrides, off the west coast of Scotland.

Loral O'Hara

WHOI Research Engineer Selected for NASA Astronaut Program

June 7, 2017

Research Engineer Loral O’Hara was introduced today at Johnson Space Flight Center as a member of NASA’s most recent class of astronauts. O’Hara was one of just 12 to be selected from an applicant pool of more than 18,300 — the largest number NASA has ever received.

Ancient Skeleton Discovered on Antikythera Shipwreck

Ancient Skeleton Discovered on Antikythera Shipwreck

September 19, 2016

An international research team discovered a human skeleton during its ongoing excavation of the famous Antikythera Shipwreck (circa 65 B.C.) this month. The shipwreck, which holds the remains of a Greek trading or cargo ship, is located off the Greek island of Antikythera in the Aegean Sea. The first skeleton recovered from the wreck site during the era of DNA analysis, this find could provide insight into the lives of people who lived 2100 years ago.

SharkCam Tracks Great Whites into the Deep

SharkCam Tracks Great Whites into the Deep

June 24, 2016

On the first trip to study great white sharks in the wild off Guadalupe Island in 2013, the REMUS SharkCam team returned with an autonomous underwater vehicle (AUV) tattooed with bite marks and some of the most dramatic footage ever seen on Discovery Channel’s Shark Week: large great white sharks attacking the underwater robot, revealing previously unknown details about strategies sharks use to hunt and interact with their prey.

News & Insights

WHOI builds bridges with Arctic Indigenous communities

February 10, 2021

NSF program fosters collaboration between indigenous communities and traditional scientists, allowing WHOI’s autonomous vehicles to shed light on a changing Arctic

WHOI-assisted study finds ocean dumping of DDT waste was “sloppy”

October 29, 2020

An investigative report this week in the LA Times features the work of WHOI’s marine geochemistry lab in identifying the discarded barrels and analyzing samples from the discovery.

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