Bermudian Claire Fox joined BIOS this month as a science education officer, bringing to the job her experience as a BIOS intern, and as a former employee and volunteer for a variety of island-based science education outlets, plus university-level science training.

Two years ago, after nearly 20 years of living and working in the reinsurance industry in Bermuda, Stephen Weinstein joined the BIOS board as a trustee. Passionate about the island, committed to business development, and keen to promote initiatives and solutions related to the global risk of climate change, he strives to combine these elements. BIOS, he said, is a key player.

A two-year research project led by the Bermuda Institute of Ocean Sciences (BIOS) aimed at increasing understanding of highly migratory and mobile predatory fishes, including sharks, in Bermuda’s deep-sea waters was one of 31 projects chosen this month to receive funding through the Darwin Plus program. The program, also known as the Overseas Territories Environment and Climate Fund, is administered through the U.K. Government’s Department for Environment, Food and Rural Affairs and provides funding for the “conservation of unique and globally significant environments found in U.K. Overseas Territories.”

Acting U.S. Consul General Tom Edwardsen visited BIOS on June 22 for a tour of the Institute led by President and CEO Bill Curry. The two-hour tour gave Edwardsen, who is expected to remain in his post until this summer, an opportunity to learn about BIOS’s research and education programs.

Emma O’Donnell, 22, graduated this past spring from Princeton University (U.S.) with a Bachelor of Arts in ecology and evolutionary biology, with high honors. Her undergraduate thesis, “One Fish, Two Fish: Measuring Patterns of Reef Fish Biodiversity in Bermuda Using Environmental DNA Metabarcoding,” was based on research she conducted at BIOS, and it earned her the Princeton Ecology and Evolutionary Biology Prize for Best Thesis in Ecology.

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.

This summer, there is a new addition to BIOS: a 20-foot (6 meter) x 4-foot (1.2 meter) above-ground pool, dubbed the Underwater Robotics Innovation Test Pool. The pool is serving as a testing facility this summer for underwater robots, also known as remotely operated vehicles (or ROVs), as part of BIOS’s Mid-Atlantic Robotics IN Education (MARINE) program which is sponsored by RenaissanceRe.

For two sessions this summer (July 19 to 23 and July 26 to 28), 19 students aged 12 to 15 got to experience Bermuda’s marine environments and learn the foundations of scientific investigations through BIOS’s Ocean Science Camp. Now in its third year, the camp is designed for students who are interested in the ocean, but may not have had previous opportunities to study marine science.

In late January and early February, BIOS education and scientific staff presented two half-days of interactive educational content for 11 young Bermudians as part of an annual collaboration with the Endeavour Maritime Career Springboard Programme. The programme is an intensive, experiential training program for Bermudians ages 16 and older who are interested in working in the maritime industry, which includes careers as diverse as sailing instructors, ferry conductors, shipping and logistics managers, and port operators.

Molecular biologist Julius Barsi hosted three student interns from Bermuda, Canada, and the Netherlands this summer for an introduction to systems biology. Their research, on purple sea urchin embryos, focused on differential gene expression analysis, the mechanism by which cells become specialized to conduct a specific “job” for the organism.