With sadness, the Bermuda Institute of Ocean Sciences (BIOS) has received news of the passing of former BIOS Trustee and Life Trustee, Mr. Harvey Eugene (Gene) Lehman.

With sadness, the Bermuda Institute of Ocean Sciences (BIOS) has received news of the passing of former BIOS Trustee and Life Trustee, Mr. John R. H. (Jack) Lightbourn.

It is with great sadness that the Bermuda Institute of Ocean Sciences (BIOS) has received news of the passing of former Trustee and friend of BIOS, Allan W. B. Gray on Nov 10, 2019.

Humans continue to amplify global warming by emitting billions of tons of carbon dioxide into the atmosphere each year. A new study reveals that a distant human relative plays an outsize role in damping the impacts of this greenhouse gas by pumping large amounts of carbon from the ocean surface to the deep sea, where it contributes nothing to current warming.

Walwyn Hughes is known to Bermudians for his public service: he served as Director of Agriculture before becoming the Permanent Secretary of the Ministry of the Environment and then the Ministry of Finance. Then in 1996 came his Senate appointment (the upper House of Bermuda’s Legislature) until his retirement in 2011. Throughout all of this, he remained a steadfast member of the BIOS board—the longest-serving member, in fact, in the history of the Institute. With a doctorate in entomology, he said he’s grateful that his service at BIOS has allowed him to stay intimately involved in science. This spring, Hughes, now 84 years old, reflected on nearly five decades on the BIOS board —and explained why fellow board members tease him about chickens.

When science came calling for James Galloway in the mid-1970s, he was a potter building garden planters in a Virginia pool hall that he and friends had converted into a craft cooperative. He had recently earned a doctorate in chemistry from the University of California at San Diego, but after receiving the degree he felt burned out by academia. Instead, with his wife Nancy (a pastel artist and potter) and a group of jewelers, wood workers, and weavers, he spent his days throwing clay on a potter’s wheel.

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.

Growing up in England, Rob Cawthorn dreamed of a farming life, but instead spent nearly four decades in the pharmaceutical, biotechnology, and animal health industries. He visited Bermuda for annual meetings and vacations while working for a company in Canada, and—smitten with the island’s climate and proximity to the U.S. and Europe—retired here in 1999 with his wife, Sue. That year he learned about BIOS [then the Bermuda Biological Station for Research] and soon after began serving on its board.

Prince Edward, Earl of Wessex, toured BIOS this month during a visit to Bermuda to celebrate the 50th anniversary of the country’s Duke Of Edinburgh International Award.

It is with sadness that BIOS announces the death of oceanographer John A. Knauss, 90, who served the Institute for 10 years as a board member and later as a trustee until 2005. Knauss, whose research and advocacy helped promote marine science, policy, management, and ongoing study of the world’s oceans, was founding Dean of the Graduate School of Oceanography at the University of Rhode Island. There, current BIOS trustee John Farrington recalls Knauss wore many hats with grace and dedication. Knauss was Farrington’s professor of a physical oceanography course in 1968, the same year he was part of a Presidential-Congressional Commission working on the influential report “Our Nation and the Sea.” “He often would arrive directly from the airport, having been at a Commission meeting in Washington, DC, and teach the class,” Farrington said. “He set a high standard as dean and professor that many, including me, have striven to achieve over the years.”  We join the University of Rhode Island in commemorating this loss.