From February 23-28, nearly 5,600 ocean scientists, engineers, students, educators, and policy makers gathered in Honolulu for the 2014 Ocean Sciences Meeting. This biennial meeting, co-sponsored by the Association for the Sciences of Limnology and Oceanography (ASLO), The Oceanographic Society (TOS), and the American Geophysical Union (AGU), is an important venue for scientific exchange across broad marine science disciplines. With 141 scientific, educational, and policy sessions, the conference covered topics as wide-ranging as phytoplankton biogeography, ocean science workforce development, marine renewable energy, microbial oceanography in the deep sea, infectious marine diseases, and climate change.

In 2000, BIOS realized its vision of serving as a year-round educational institute with the development of spring and fall semester programs designed for undergraduate students interested in ocean and atmospheric sciences. The initial fall semester program consisted of three courses—coral reef ecology, marine invertebrate zoology, and marine biology and oceanographic research—and was created in partnership with the University of Rhode Island (URI) and Roger Williams University (RWU), both located in Rhode Island on the east coast of the United States.

Since 1987, the National Science Foundation (NSF) has funded a research internship for undergraduate students called the Research Experiences for Undergraduates (REU) program. The internships, which usually run for 10 to 12 weeks, are hosted at universities, research institutions, and professional scientific organizations and allow participants to work alongside faculty members and scientists on research projects in a wide range of science, technology, engineering, and mathematics (STEM) fields.

Canadian Associates of BIOS (CABIOS) student Annaliese Meyer, a microbiology student who worked with BIOS chemical oceanographer Damian Grundle, presented at two conferences in 2019 and early this summer moves to Australia for continued research in astrobiology.

A partnership between BIOS and two Massachusetts-based institutions was strengthened with the addition of a new microbial oceanography course, held for the first time at BIOS in January.

Researchers and students representing BIOS gathered in San Diego, California, in mid-February to participate in the biennial Ocean Sciences meeting. The flagship conference, held jointly by the Oceanography Society, the American Society of Limnology and Oceanography, and the American Geophysical Union, attracted nearly 5,000 scientists, managers, and educators from around the globe.

For more than two decades, BIOS has hosted a variety of intensive and immersive summer courses for an international cohort of undergraduate and graduate students.

For 20 days in July 2019, BIOS welcomed 18 students on campus to learn first-hand about the natural and anthropogenic factors in play to sustain life on Bermuda’s famed coral reefs. Course attendees travelled from Canada, Colombia, the Dominican Republic, Italy, Mexico, Slovenia, Spain, the U.K., and the U.S., to further their knowledge of the coral, fish, and algae that form reef ecosystems.

In summer 2018, undergraduate student Moronke Harris came to BIOS from the University of Guelph in Ontario, Canada to pursue what had been a years-long ambition: oceanographic research. Through a Canadian Associates of BIOS (CABIOS) internship, she spent three months engaged in a geo-engineering project seeking potential solutions for coral reef bleaching.

As the COVID-19 crisis progresses, BIOS is following U.S. and Bermuda Government guidelines about social distancing, remote work and operations, international travel, and ship and dock restrictions to protect employees, visitors, and the Bermudian community.