While the COVID-19 pandemic disrupted summer internship plans for many university students, Amber Wolffe, an undergraduate student in meteorology and mathematics at Metropolitan State University in Denver (Colorado, USA), overcame these challenges to complete an eight-week Bermuda Program internship with the Bermuda Weather Service (BWS, a section of the Bermuda Airport Authority). Since 1976, the BIOS Bermuda Program has selected a handful of budding scientists each year to receive paid fellowships that allow them to work on specific projects of interest alongside BIOS scientists in both field and laboratory settings.

At BIOS, we believe that ocean science for human good involves not only research with tangible benefits for communities and the environment, but also education programs that highlight the many ways our lives are connected with the ocean. We view education as a crucial part of ocean science research, helping to translate the work of our faculty into meaningful experiences for visitors, students, teachers, and Bermuda residents.

Since its inception in the 1970s, the Canadian Associates of BIOS (CABIOS) program has provided over a hundred Canadian students and young scientists with financial assistance to pursue oceanographic research or academic coursework at BIOS. Founded by the late Dr. Earlston Doe, a former BIOS Life Trustee and Canadian oceanographer born in Bermuda, the CABIOS fund honors the memory of his youngest son Learmont “Leary” Doe.

In today’s competitive academic environment and job market, graduate and undergraduate students can benefit from internships and study abroad semesters that provide hands-on experience in marketable skills. For decades BIOS has been providing aspiring scientists with such opportunities through CABIOS (Canadian Associates of BIOS), the NSF-funded Research Experiences for Undergraduates (REU) program, and the Bermuda Program.

BIOS offers internship opportunities to both undergraduate and recent graduate students.  Volunteer internships may run for 8, 10 or 12 weeks in the summer, with flexible timing and duration.  BIOS interns can expect to work in BIOS laboratories with faculty and staff mentors,  participating in active research projects of mutual interest. A BIOS Volunteer Intern could have the opportunity to participate in an open-ocean research cruise aboard the R/V Atlantic Explorer, SCUBA dive on Bermuda’s coral reefs, learn progressive techniques from scientists at the forefront of their field, gain hands-on experience with cutting-edge laboratory equipment, and engage in workshops and seminars with peers and BIOS staff.

Samantha Hallam, a doctoral student at the University of Southampton National Oceanography Centre in the United Kingdom, has been fascinated by storms since she spent time sailing dinghies as a little girl in her hometown of Hampshire, England. This interest in “storminess,” as she puts it, drove her education, beginning with an undergraduate degree in environmental science from the University of East Anglia in 1990. This was followed by a master’s degree in ocean science from the University of Southampton in 2014, where her thesis research was on ocean influences on the North Atlantic jet stream – a narrow band of fast-moving wind that plays a large role in weather across western Europe.

In the summer of 1999, in the middle of working toward her master’s degree in zoology at the University of Toronto, Lisa Rodrigues—then 21—returned home to Bermuda. Having heard about BIOS from her advisor, and with an interest in focusing on the island’s marine organisms for her thesis, she applied to and was accepted into the Bermuda Program. Now, as then, the Bermuda Program offers intensive, hands-on summer internships in marine and atmospheric sciences to Bermudian students ages 18 and older.

When David Picton first arrived at BIOS in 2013 as a work study intern, he had no intention of pursuing a career in research science, wanting—instead—to become a medical doctor. At 19 he had just finished his first year of studies in biomedical sciences at Newcastle University in the United Kingdom and was simply looking for an opportunity to travel and try his hand at something new, with the hopes of gaining a few skills in the process.

Kelly Speare, a 2012 Research Experiences for Undergraduates (REU) student and 2013 BIOS summer intern, was chosen from a pool of qualified candidates to represent BIOS at the 2014 Ocean Sciences Meeting in Honolulu, HI. This bi-annual meeting is convened by the American Society for Limnology and Oceanography (ASLO), The Oceanography Society (TOS), and the American Geophysical Union (AGU), and brings together scientists from around the world to discuss current topics in marine science, technology, and education.

BIOS researchers and their colleagues from Woods Hole Oceanographic Institution have refined a common survey method to better account for a marine bacterium known as SAR11. Since BIOS adjunct scientist Steven Giovannoni discovered SAR11 in 1990, scientists have found the Sargasso Sea bacterium is ubiquitous in the world’s oceans and accounts for roughly one in every three cells at the ocean’s surface.  These bacteria have power in numbers: each cell contributes to the marine carbon cycle, and with approximately five million bacterial cells inhabiting every tablespoon of seawater, SAR11 is so abundant that its combined weight would outweigh all the fish in the ocean.