Passages

SEA Semester Video Production

Ryan Maneri, W-169, returned to the Woods Hole campus on January 2, 2008 for the first day of Class 215. Ryan was on campus for the first of two camera shoots for the new promotional video that he is producing for SEA. Ryan, ecology major from University of Colorado, Boulder, attended an MFA program in Science Filmmaking at Montana State University and now owns Oystercatcher Productions in Chicago. He filmed the shore component on two separate occasions during week one and week five of the program, and then sailed with the class on the Corwith Cramer during the first week and again on the last leg of the cruise track from Samana to Key West.

The video is the first being made for SEA since Visionaries was filmed on C-153 in 1997. It will be distributed on DVD to prospective students, and sent to college and university Study Abroad offices, with excerpts used on the SEA website. The project was funded by a group of SEA’s Board of Trustees and is expected to be unveiled during Alumni Reunion/Annual Meeting weekend in June.

SEA Alumni are AAAS Annual Meeting Presenters

Each year at the AAAS Annual Meeting, science and technology professionals from across disciplines and around the world, gather to discuss new research, emerging trends, and exciting new possibilities. Dr. Barbara Block, W-49, of Stanford University and Dr. Andy Rosenberg, W-7, of University of New Hampshire appeared together during the February 2008 conference on the topic: Last Best Chance for Tuna: Learning from the Cod Collapse.

One Million Miles Sailed

On February 29, 2008, SEA reached its 1,000,000th mile sailed during the 215th class of SEA Semester.

Marking the milestone in the Caribbean, the SSV Corwith Cramer had left the Bahamas and was underway to Samana in the Dominican Republic. In the Pacific, the SSV Robert C. Seamans was NW of Ua Pou in The Marquesas, on her way from Tahiti to Hawaii, as SEA reached its millionth nautical mile.

SSV Westward sailed 498,197 of those nautical miles before being retired in 2003. SSV Corwith Cramer has sailed 364,424 nautical miles since she was launched in 1988 and SSV Robert C. Seamans has sailed 137,381 nautical miles since her launch in 2001.

The event was celebrated in Woods Hole by faculty, staff and trustees and at sea by the students, faculty and crew of Class 215. Onboard the Seamans life rings and a pfd, hung over the rail, marked the moment.

SEA on Ice

In July 2007, Dr. Sarah Das, a SEA W-129 alum and scientist at the Woods Hole Oceanographic Institution (WHOI), led a month long expedition to the Greenland Ice Sheet to study how the ice sheet is responding to climate change.

Das was in the field with colleagues from WHOI and the University of Washington, and while planning the trip she discovered the remarkable fact that 3 of the 4 field team members were alums of an SEA program! On a whim she stuck her SEA flag in with the boxes of chocolate bars and peanut butter while packing for the trip.

Dr. Matthias Tomczak Appointed Doherty Chair

Dr. Tomczak is Professor of Oceanography in the School of Chemistry, Physics & Earth Sciences at Flinders University in Australia. He is also the Director of the Flinders Institute for Atmospheric and Marine Sciences. A well respected educator, Dr. Tomczak has written oceanography texts, and until recently, authored the Education column in the journal Oceanography. His research interests include water masses and circulation, air/sea interaction, OMP analysis and rainfall measurement over the tropical ocean. He will be teaching for Class S-216, an Oceans and Climate SEA Semester.

Kimberly Jermain Receives 2007 Armin E. Elsaessar Fellowship

Late last summer SEA announced Kimberly Jermain as the recipient of the 2007 Elsaesser Fellowship. Kimberly is an alumna of Sea Semester Class W-29. She received a MFA from Tufts University and School of the Museum of Fine Arts, Boston, and a BFA from the University of New Hampshire.

Kimberly proposed to use the Armin E. Elsaesser Fellowship to travel to the Island of Koror in the Republic of Palau to study the color of tropical light as it relates to the geology, biology and vegetation of an environment.

Kimberly will be making a presentation on the Elsaesser Fellowship project during the 2008 Alumni Reunion weekend in June.

Six Students Present at NCUR Conference

With the guidance of SEA Oceanographer, Dr. Jeff Schell, six SEA students attended the 21st annual National Conference for Undergraduate Research at Dominican University of California. Alumni from SEA class S-206 who presented their posters were:

Working on Eddies -Justin Gillespie – 1st author, James Parra, Michelle Smet, and Scott Allen (helped with poster but not in attendance)

Working on River Plumes -Rusty Robertson – 1st author, Allison Bruce, and Carolyn Moss

The conference had over 2,500 undergraduates and 500 faculty from over 100 small, liberal arts colleges in attendance. Congratulations to these SEA alumni for their outstanding work.