Ocean Exploration? A Challenge

Dr. Ballard, courtesy of URIDr. Robert Ballard and Dr. James Austin, Jr., long-time friends since their early days as young oceanographers at Woods Hole Oceanographic Institution, made a combined gift commitment of $100,000 to the University of Rhode Island (URI) as a challenge to spur other donors.

The goal is an additional $300,000 to support a fellowship endowment attached to the Graduate School of Oceanography’s (GSO) academic program, the Center for Ocean Exploration and Archaeological Oceanography at the University of Rhode Island’s Narragansett Bay campus.

The GSO’s Ocean Science & Exploration Center, a $15 million, 41,000 square foot state-of-the-art facility on URI’s Bay Campus in Narragansett, Rhode Island, houses new laboratory space, administrative offices, the expanded Pell Library, National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration (NOAA) personnel offices, the Institute for Exploration and the Ocean Exploration Trust.

The building’s centerpiece, the Inner Space Center, uses a satellite system and Internet2 technology to make it possible for URI scientists and students, as well as collaborators around the country, to participate in ocean-going research expeditions and “step aboard” research vessels without leaving campus. Advanced undersea vehicles, developed by Ballard’s team, which includes URI engineers, and the Office of Naval Research and NOAA, are used by the center’s researchers to explore uncharted regions of the undersea world.

“My commitment is made in hopes that others will join with Jamie and me in assuring that the Graduate School of Oceanography will continue to remain on the exciting forefront of discovery and knowledge about the oceans that cover 70 percent of our planet,” said Ballard.

James Austin said, “Like Bob, I want to challenge the other friends of GSO to support this fellowship. I hope and expect that this effort will be the first in a succession of initiatives geared to build a sizeable endowment for GSO.”

Specifically, Ballard/Austin will match every donor contribution to this fund on a 3 to 1 basis. That is, for every $3 in new donor gifts, $1 from Ballard/Austin will be leveraged as a match, increasing the value of the new donor gift by approximately 33 percent.

The challenge is set to expire Dec. 31, 2010.

Ballard, counted among the most accomplished and recognized deep-sea explorers in the world, is credited with the historic discovery of the R.M.S. Titanic. During his distinguished career spanning four decades, he has conducted more than 120 deep-sea expeditions using the very latest in exploration technology. Ballard created the JASON Project, an educational program reaching nearly two million students in their classrooms each year. The recipient of numerous professional awards and accolades, Ballard received the prestigious National Endowment for the Humanities Medal from President George W. Bush at the White House in 2003. He serves as a URI professor of oceanography, director of the Center for Ocean Exploration and Archaeological Oceanography (formerly the Institute for Archaeological Oceanography), and president of the Institute for Exploration at Mystic Aquarium.

Austin, senior research scientist at the University of Texas at Austin, Jackson School of Geosciences, Institute for Geophysics, has, over the course of his career, made use of a variety of leading-edge technologies in the study of geological strata in marine and lake environments, particularly those formed since the end of the last Ice Age beneath the continental shelf off the east coast of the United States. Austin is an active trustee of Woods Hole Oceanographic Institution and is chair of the American Geophysical Union’s development board.

For more information, contact Dr. Eugene Lyman, GSO associate dean for developmen, (401) 874-6131 or at elyman@foundation.uri.edu.