While many students spent the summer enjoying Bermuda’s beaches and the freedom of not having to set an alarm clock, Jacari Renfroe—a 14-year old at The Berkeley Institute in his first year of senior school—showed up bright and early, five days a week for his Bermuda Program internship at BIOS.

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.

During the last two years, a team of researchers and technicians from BIOS have worked diligently alongside crew of the BIOS-operated research vessel Atlantic Explorer to maintain near-continued operations throughout the pandemic.

After completing his master’s degree in chemical and physical oceanography at Otago University in New Zealand in 2006, Kiwi native Matt Enright embarked on a dream life for many early career scientists. As a research specialist for the Bermuda Atlantic Time-series Study (BATS)—the world’s longest-running time-series of physical and biogeochemical oceanographic measurements—Enright spent much of his time at sea aboard the BIOS-operated research vessel Atlantic Explorer.

Each year a handful of Bermudian students are selected to participate in the BIOS Bermuda Program. This program, which began in 1976, offers students aged 18 and older the opportunity to broaden their knowledge of marine and atmospheric sciences by working on a specific project of interest alongside BIOS scientists in both field and laboratory settings.

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.