A wave of change is upon the Bermuda Institute of Ocean Sciences (BIOS). After an extensive six-month international search BIOS is pleased to announce that Dr. William Curry will be stepping in as the new BIOS President and Director in September.

With the start of its 110-year anniversary just a few months away, and the recent installation of Dr. William Curry as the new President and Director, the Bermuda Institute of Ocean Sciences (BIOS) has more than one reason to celebrate. Given the coincident timing of these two momentous occasions, BIOS is pulling out all the stops for its 2012 Gala Celebration on Friday, November 9 at the Fairmont Hamilton Princess hotel.

During April’s all-hands Board of Trustees meeting, attendees unanimously voted to name current Trustee Sir John Swan, K.B.E., J.P., as a Life Trustee in recognition of his 37 years of service to BIOS.

Since its inception in the 1970s, the Canadian Associates of BIOS (CABIOS) program has provided over a hundred Canadian students and young scientists with financial assistance to pursue oceanographic research or academic coursework at BIOS. Founded by the late Dr. Earlston Doe, a former BIOS Life Trustee and Canadian oceanographer born in Bermuda, the CABIOS fund honors the memory of his youngest son Learmont “Leary” Doe.

BIOS trustee John Farrington was named a fellow of the American Geophysical Union (AGU) this summer, a tribute to member scientists who have made “exceptional contributions to Earth and space sciences.”

Amid growing concern regarding the current federal funding climate for ocean science research, the National Science Foundation (NSF) just announced continued support for the Bermuda Atlantic Time-series Study (BATS) research program at BIOS. According to Dr. Nicholas Bates, Senior Scientist and Associate Director of Research at BIOS and Principal Investigator of the BATS project, “This represents about $14 million from NSF to BIOS over the next five years: approximately $6 million for research and roughly another $8 million to support science days at sea aboard the R/V Atlantic Explorer.” This announcement comes on the heels of a $4 million award from NSF last year to support Hydrostation S, the world’s longest-running hydrographic time-series, for another five years. Together, these two awards represent a significant commitment by NSF to ocean time-series off Bermuda.

In the late 1980s Rod Johnson was working in the UK civil service—a “fantastic job” by his own account—when he attended a meeting concerning the Global Ocean Flux Study (GOFS). During this meeting a topic of discussion was how Bermuda and Hawaii would be pivotal in achieving the GOFS objectives of understanding biogeochemical variability in the oceans and the impact of climate change on these processes.  At the time, Johnson’s girlfriend (Sarah), now his wife, had just moved to Bermuda and, in a move that would impact the course of his career, he decided to contact Dr. Tony Knap, then-Director of BIOS (at the time BBS), to inquire about employment opportunities.

Oceanographer Kristen Buck has been spared the gender discrimination faced by her female predecessors, who until the 1960s were often restricted from science labs, kept from leadership positions, or prohibited from sailing on research vessels.

When Bill Charrier’s two daughters were young, he and his wife Anne traveled during their spring vacations to Bermuda, where Charrier tended to corporate business for his East Coast-based shipping companies. One of his stockholders also served on the board at BIOS and introduced Charrier to the marine research and education goals at the institute.

A multidisciplinary team of scientists, including a group from BIOS, spent six weeks this summer focused on the Pacific Ocean to study the lives and deaths of plankton, organisms that play a critical role in removing carbon dioxide from the atmosphere and in the ocean’s carbon cycle.