In 1991, BIOS became a site for the competitive and prestigious National Science Foundation (NSF) Research Experiences for Undergraduates (REU) program, which provides participants with the opportunity to work alongside the Institute’s faculty and staff on research projects in a variety of topics in ocean sciences.

Students from many disciplines can hone career skills, broaden perspective, and find inspiration at BIOS

BIOS training leads to diverse careers in marine and atmospheric sciences, and beyond

An interdisciplinary team of scientists joined forces in July for their first annual research cruise dedicated to revealing how specific microbes take up and transform organic matter within a web of ecological interactions in the waters southeast of Bermuda.

Sean McNally, former BIOS Fall Semester student, Grant-in-Aid recipient, and teaching assistant (currently at the University of Massachusetts Boston School for the Environment), and his colleagues, recently had a paper published in the journal Limnology & Oceanography (L&O) revealing how corals influence the communities of microorganisms in the waters around them. Read more at www.whoi.edu/news-release/picoplankton

A new research facility under construction at BIOS will allow researchers to collect tiny organisms on coral reefs and in the open ocean, then monitor their growth, development, and community structure in temperature-controlled rooms at BIOS that simulate conditions found at sea.

The BIOS Bermuda Program has been a cornerstone of the Institute’s local educational programming for more than 40 years. Since 1976, this unique program has given Bermudian students aged 18 and older the opportunity to gain valuable experience by working alongside BIOS faculty and scientific staff in hands-on internships that cover a range of topics in the marine and atmospheric sciences. Bermuda Program students have the opportunity to work in both field and laboratory settings, learning skills such as data analysis, communication, and problem solving that are crucial for success in a variety of careers.

Each year BIOS selects a handful of qualified Bermudian students to participate in the Bermuda Program. The summer internship opportunity pairs participants with BIOS faculty and scientific staff to work on research projects in the fields of science, technology, engineering, and mathematics (STEM), with a focus on marine and atmospheric sciences.

In early August, a team of researchers with the multi-year, multi-institutional BIOS-SCOPE (Bermuda Institute of Ocean Sciences – Simons Collaboration on Ocean Processes and Ecology) program completed their seventh research cruise aboard the BIOS-operated research vessel Atlantic Explorer. For four days, 13 scientists from eight institutions came together to study the unique microbial communities that develop in the Sargasso Sea during the summer, as well as the dissolved organic matter (DOM) they produce, consume, and redistribute throughout the water column.

The pool at the National Sports Centre hosts numerous aquatic competitions throughout the year, but perhaps none as unique as the MATE Bermuda Regional Challenge. The annual challenge, organized by BIOS’s Ocean Academy and supported by lead donor HSBC, is the culmination of months of work by teams of students on the design, construction, and operation of remotely operated vehicles, or ROVs. The challenge is also the final event in the BIOS Mid-Atlantic Robotics IN Education (MARINE) program, which uses a focus on marine robotics to bring science and technology curricula into classrooms around the island.