Craig Carlson’s vision for ASU BIOS unfolds

As he approaches the end of his first year leading ASU BIOS, Carlson is looking toward a new phase of expansion, one that would give the institution more space, more researchers and a larger role in international ocean science.

The next phase of the Bermuda Institute of Ocean Sciences (ASU BIOS), a unit of the Julie Ann Wrigley Global Futures Laboratory at Arizona State University, Craig Carlson says, will be defined by expansion. “The big vision is to go to the next phase of expansion,” Carlson said. Carlson wants ASU BIOS to have more laboratory space, more accommodation, stronger research infrastructure and a larger scientific community working in Bermuda.

The goal is to create the conditions for more research to take place at ASU BIOS and for more scientists to work together there. “The next phase of expansion includes building out laboratory space, accommodations and focusing more research on site,” he said. 

ASU BIOS already has proximity to some of the world's most important ocean research sites, including the Bermuda Atlantic Time-series Study (BATS) and Hydrostation ‘S’, together with laboratories, research vessels and a community of scientists accustomed to working at sea. What Carlson sees now is an opportunity to build around those assets. A place to stay, work and collaborate. Scientists have been coming to ASU BIOS for years to collect samples, conduct experiments and use its facilities. But much of that activity has developed informally.

“Right now, it’s all done ad hoc,” Carlson said. He would like to change that. More laboratory and accommodation space could allow visiting scientists to stay longer, work alongside ASU BIOS researchers and bring new methods and equipment with them. It could also create room for additional students, faculty and research staff.

The numbers are not yet fixed. Carlson describes the process as incremental rather than as a single, transformational step, but the direction is clear. “We need a lot more things,” he said. “That includes laboratory space, more people around that, more employees.”

For an institution whose work depends on getting scientists to sea, infrastructure also means boats. “The highest need right now is the boat stabilization,” Carlson said. The fleet is not merely a logistical resource. For Carlson, the boats are part of what makes ASU BIOS a place where scientists can work together in ways that are difficult to reproduce elsewhere.

“We’ve got access to our research vessel and small boats fleet, which is another level of convening space where you’re actually at sea, on the water, in the field, doing experiments, doing sample collections with colleagues from other institutions.” From an informal gathering place to a deliberate one, that idea of bringing people together sits at the center of Carlson's thinking about ASU BIOS. “What I’ve always found about ASU BIOS is that it has informally been a convening space where people from different disciplines will come,” he said. “Just by accident, you’re running into people outside of your narrowly focused, siloed sphere.” 

Carlson wants to make more of that happen deliberately. He imagines researchers coming to Bermuda for extended periods, using ASU BIOS facilities while working alongside its faculty and research staff. He also imagines something closer to a scientific think tank, with experts gathered around a difficult problem, moving between disciplines and developing new questions together.

The ocean itself becomes part of that model, with researchers moving from discussions in the laboratory to experiments and sampling at sea. It is a vision of ASU BIOS as not only a place where research is conducted, but a place where new collaborations are formed. 

There is already a working example of this approach, namely BIOS SCOPE. Carlson has led this international research program for more than a decade which brings together scientists from Bermuda, Europe, the United Kingdom and the United States to study microbial oceanography in the Sargasso Sea. With renewed funding from the Simons Foundation International, Carlson has expanded opportunities for researchers to work with ASU BIOS faculty and staff. “We’ve kind of retuned the project,” he said, “bringing more opportunities for collaborators to come and work with our faculty and research staff.”

Recent additions to ASU BIOS include microbial oceanographer Nicholas Baetge, physical oceanographer Alice Ren, research scientist Brett Jameson and Carolina Piña Páez, an evolutionary fungal biologist and mycologist.

For Carlson, the importance of BIOS SCOPE extends beyond its scientific output. “It’s kind of a prototype of this convening space model,” he said. 

Brett Jameson, who joined BIOS SCOPE after conducting postdoctoral research at ASU BIOS, sees the program as evidence of Carlson's ability to turn that idea into an operating institution. “Building a long term, international, interdisciplinary time series program requires far more than scientific vision,” Jameson said. “It demands the ability to recruit across institutions, align people with diverse expertise around a shared goal and sustain that collaboration over years.”

The expansion also comes at a consequential moment for ASU BIOS, as part of Arizona State University's Julie Ann Wrigley Global Futures Laboratory. Within this framework, ASU BIOS has access to expertise and capabilities beyond those traditionally available to the Bermudian institution.

 

 

Carlson sees engineering and technical expertise at ASU as particularly important as the institution considers how to develop its physical and research infrastructure. “Let’s take advantage of ASU’s contributions and their technical expertise, facilities and technical innovation,” he said. “We can build out a formalized center of excellence.” 

“Having Craig at the helm of ASU BIOS means that we have someone not only deeply familiar with the institution, but also genuinely committed to the success of its faculty and staff,” said Susanne Neuer, founding director of ASU’s School of Ocean Futures. “This is so important for the continued collaboration and joint ventures between the School of Ocean Futures and ASU BIOS.”

There are questions still to be resolved about the scale of expansion, the resources required and how the institution will organize itself as it grows. But the underlying ambition is not in question. “I was pretty clear-eyed coming into this,” Carlson said. “I knew what Bermuda and ASU BIOS were about, but I also know its potential.” 

That potential, in his view, lies in giving ASU BIOS the capacity to build on its existing strengths, supporting more research, fostering new collaborations and creating opportunities for scientists at every stage of their careers. Carlson’s first year has therefore been less about defining a finished destination than setting the course for what comes next.