PHOENIX — Of all places, right here in the hot, dry desert, the newest school at Arizona State University (ASU) focuses on the ocean.
The new program is providing exciting new opportunities for students and staff to dive into our planet’s oceans, bringing sea life to the desert.
Arizona and dry heat go hand-in-hand, but the future of ASU looks as wet as the ocean.
ASU is making oceans an integral part of their studies, bringing together faculty from not just ASU, but also the Bermuda Institute of Ocean Sciences in Bermuda and at their campus in Hilo, Hawaii.
"It's really focused on solutions,” said Dr. Greg Asner, who with his team, developed the Global Airborne Observatory. It’s ASU's airborne laboratory in Hawaii. He’s also one of the professors for the new School of Ocean Futures and the director of ASU's Center for Global Discovery and Conservation Science.
“We have a lot of intel about what's wrong in the oceans,” he said. “…and we need to keep doing that to understand how the oceans are changing.
But Dr. Asner says the School of Ocean Futures is all about empowering students.
“…and producing an entirely new workforce that's focused on solutions," he said.
The laboratory houses advanced Earth mapping technology, used to make scientific discoveries that support conservation.
The school’s founding director, Professor Susanne Neuer, says the school will have graduate, undergraduate, and online programs. She’s heard from a lot of students who would like to study marine biology.
“They came to me and said, we didn’t even know that there are these opportunities being at a desert university,” said Neuer.
They already teach ocean science classes, but now, with this additional faculty partnering with ASU, an even larger spectrum of ocean classes will be available.
“We will be creating more opportunities for our students to learn about the ocean,” she said. “…and to understand that we cannot understand our planet, and the health of our planet, without the ocean.”
Research programs for the School of Ocean Futures are currently underway with courses and degree programs launching in the fall of 2024.
For more information about the School of Ocean Futures, go to: https://collegeofglobalfutures.asu.edu/school-of-ocean-futures/
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