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Leading deep-sea research expeditions requires a breadth of training and experience, and the opportunities for Early Career Researchers (ECRs) to obtain focused mentorship on expedition leadership are scarce. To address the need for leadership training in deep-sea expeditionary science, the Crustal Ocean Biosphere Research Accelerator (COBRA) launched a 14-week virtual Master Class with both synchronous and asynchronous components to empower students with the skills and tools to successfully design, propose, and execute deep-sea oceanographic field research. The Master Class offered customized and distributed training approaches and created an open-access syllabus with resources, including reading material, lectures, and on-line resources freely-available on the Master Class website (cobra.pubpub.org). All students were Early Career Researchers (ECRs, defined here as advanced graduate students, postdoctoral scientists, early career faculty, or individuals with substantial industry, government, or NGO experience) and designated throughout as COBRA Fellows. Fellows engaged in topics related to choosing the appropriate deep-sea research asset for their Capstone “dream cruise” project, learning about funding sources and how to tailor proposals to meet those source requirements, and working through an essential checklist of pre-expedition planning and operations. The Master Class covered leading an expedition at sea, at-sea operations, and ship-board etiquette, and the strengths and challenges of telepresence. It also included post-expedition training on data management strategies and report preparation and outputs. Throughout the Master Class, Fellows also discussed education and outreach, international ocean law and policy, and the importance and challenges of team science. Fellows further learned about how to develop concepts respectfully with regard to geographic and cultural considerations of their intended study sites. An assessment of initial outcomes from the first iteration of the COBRA Master Class reinforces the need for such training and shows great promise with one-quarter of the Fellows having submitted a research proposal to national funding agencies within six months of the end of the class. As deep-sea research continues to accelerate in scope and speed, providing equitable access to expedition training is a top priority to enable the next generation of deep-sea science leadership.
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Training Leaders for Seagoing Polar Oceanography
Providing opportunities for early career researchers to gain leadership experiences in seagoing oceanographic science is critical to maintaining an inclusive and robust research community. While various opportunities exist to attract early career scientists to oceanography through undergraduate research experiences or first-time access to seagoing science, there are notable gaps in helping junior researchers who are already in the oceanographic workforce (junior faculty, research scientists, postdoctoral scholars) step into and embrace leadership roles. This training gap is particularly acute for leadership in field science, especially for remote regions with complicated logistics and unfamiliar platforms and support structures, notably the Arctic and Antarctic. In light of rapid environmental changes occurring at the poles and the importance of these regions in global connectivity, polar-specific training is needed to ensure incoming generations can effectively plan and execute research on icebreakers and ice-capable vessels. Here, we describe two training efforts conducted in 2023 and 2024 specifically tailored to train future leaders in polar seagoing science.
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- PAR ID:
- 10660279
- Publisher / Repository:
- Oceanography
- Date Published:
- Journal Name:
- Oceanography
- Volume:
- 38
- Issue:
- 4
- ISSN:
- 2377-617X
- Format(s):
- Medium: X
- Sponsoring Org:
- National Science Foundation
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- Free Publicly Accessible Full Text
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Accepted Manuscript1.0
- Journal Article:
- https://doi.org/10.5670/oceanog.2025.e408
