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Research Highlights

Oceanus Magazine

mROV concept rendering

New underwater vehicles in development at WHOI

April 30, 2025

New vehicles will be modeled after WHOI’s iconic remotely operated vehicle, Jason

Learning to see through cloudy waters

April 3, 2025

How MIT-WHOI student Amy Phung is helping robots accomplish dangerous tasks in murky waters

buoy

Navigating new waters

November 22, 2024

The engineering team at the Ocean Observatories Initiative overcomes the hurdles of deploying the coastal pioneer array at a new site

Tom Bell

The 10,000-foot view

June 27, 2024

WHOI’s Tom Bell tracks changes to vulnerable coastal ecosystems with aerial imagery

alvin blue print

The story of a “champion” submersible

May 30, 2024

Alvin’s humble origins began alongside Wheaties cereal

News Releases

REMUS SharkCam Captures Upclose Encounters with Great Whites

August 11, 2014

When a team from the Woods Hole Oceanographic Institution (WHOI) took a specially equipped REMUS SharkCam underwater vehicle to Guadalupe Island in Mexico to film great white sharks in the wild, they captured more than they bargained for.

Iconic Research Submersible Alvin Turns 50

June 5, 2014

We know more about the surface of other planets than we do about Earth’s ocean. And what is known about our ocean would not have been possible without the deep-sea submersible Alvin, one of the hardest working, most reliable vehicles…

Robotic Deep-sea Vehicle Lost on Dive to 6-Mile Depth

May 10, 2014

On Saturday, May 10, 2014, at 2 p.m. local time (10 pm Friday EDT), the hybrid remotely operated vehicle Nereus was confirmed lost at 9,990 meters (6.2 miles) depth in the Kermadec Trench northeast of New Zealand. The unmanned vehicle was working as part of a mission to explore the ocean’s hadal region from 6,000 to nearly 11,000 meters when a portion of it likely imploded.

 

Deep-Diving Sub Alvin Cleared to Return to Service

January 24, 2014

After a three-year overhaul and major upgrade, the United States’ deepest-diving research submersible, Alvin, has been cleared to return to work exploring the ocean’s depths.

Woods Hole Oceanographic Institution Scientist Receives Grant from the Paul G. Allen Family Foundation

January 14, 2014

The Paul G. Allen Family Foundation has awarded Woods Hole Oceanographic Institution (WHOI) assistant scientist Anna Michel $200,000 to develop a sensor that will enable scientists to analyze how methane emissions fluctuate in the Arctic. Methane is a greenhouse gas…

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.