Skidaway Institute of Oceanography

05/28/2026

Summer may have just started, but we’re already excited to have undergraduate students back on campus for more fun Semester at Skidaway activities ☀️

05/26/2026

This past Friday, we had a great time hosting 25 USG students for a coding workshop 💻🥼

More than two dozen students traveled to SkIO from the University of Georgia, Georgia Southern University and Savannah State University to learn how to use the coding program R to produce reproducible scientific analyses.

The event was put on by Carpentries@UGA, a non-profit devoted to teaching foundational skills in coding and data science, and taught by Claire Zwiers Cook, a doctoral student in the Cohen Lab at the UGA Skidaway Institute of Oceanography.

05/22/2026

This Fieldwork Friday, we’re showing off some work out of the Edwards Lab, where scientists deploy autonomous underwater vehicles, known as gliders, that travel up and down through the ocean collecting critical data on temperature, salinity, and conditions that can fuel intensification of tropical cyclones.

Interested in learning more? Catch Dr. Catherine Edwards during Evening at Skidaway on Tuesday, July 21. Dr. Edwards will explain how her team uses these underwater robots to collect data that improve our hurricane forecasts in near-real time, strengthen storm prediction models, and inform the emergency management and the general public. RSVP on the SkIO website.

05/18/2026

What’s it like inside a doliolid bloom?

These tiny animals, studied in SkIO’s ZERO-C Lab, are very common in surface oceans worldwide.

Learn more:

Doliolids are gelatinous animals that can become abundant on the continental shelf near Georgia. These events when doliolids appear to take over are known as...

05/14/2026

Congratulations to Dr. Mariah Ricci on successfully defending her dissertation, “Marine Particles as Drivers of Trace Element Cycling in the Pacific and Southern Oceans.” 🌊🎓

During her time at the UGA Skidaway Institute of Oceanography, Ricci worked with faculty members Dan Ohnemus and Clifton Buck and participated in a 56-day GEOTRACES research cruise spanning the South Pacific Ocean, Southern Ocean, and Chile.

Ricci has already begun a postdoctoral fellowship with Washington Sea Grant and mCDR startup Banyu Carbon, where she is advancing community-informed modeling for marine carbon dioxide removal initiatives in the Salish Sea.

Congratulations, Dr. Ricci! 👏

Photos submitted by Mariah Ricci. Photos 1 & 2 by Rebekah Bogdanoff.

05/12/2026

Explore the hidden world of phytoplankton and the creatures that eat (and infect) them 🦠 🌊

RSVP to join us for a special, interview-style conversation with Dr. Sean Anderson, a biologist and postdoctoral researcher in Dr. Natalie Cohen’s lab at the UGA Skidaway Institute of Oceanography.

Topic: “Tiny Plants, Big Impact: Phytoplankton and the Ocean’s Microbial Food Web”

Description: Phytoplankton are enormously important for life on Earth. They serve as the base of ocean food webs and supply much of the world’s oxygen. Learn more about these microscopic plants and the organisms that eat and infect them during a live Evening at Skidaway Q&A with Dr. Sean Anderson, a postdoctoral researcher in the Cohen Lab at the UGA Skidaway Institute of Oceanography.

Location: SkIO Library Auditorium, 10 Ocean Science Circle, Savannah, GA 31411

Date: Tuesday, May 26, 2026

Time: Welcome reception starts at 6:30 p.m. Talk starts at 7:00 p.m.

Cost: Free

Phytoplankton are enormously important for life on Earth. They serve as the base of ocean food webs and supply much of the world’s oxygen. Learn more about these microscopic plants... Read more »

05/08/2026

A closer look at life in the water column. 🌊🔬

This towed instrument moves up and down through the ocean, capturing real-time images of plankton as they drift past its camera. The footage streams live to a computer onboard, giving researchers an instant window into what’s happening below the surface.

The instrument, used by researchers in SkIO’s ZERO-C Lab, can reach depths of up to 60 meters or operate in shallower waters, with an adjustable depth of field that keeps images sharp in both plankton-rich, nutrient-dense zones and the more sparse open ocean.

05/04/2026

This week, Macie Phillips will graduate from the UGA Franklin College of Arts and Sciences with a B.S. in ocean science. She is one of the first two Black women to graduate from the program. 🎓

Phillips spent the fall semester on the Georgia coast participating in our Semester at Skidaway program.

“The hands-on work, without a doubt, has been my favorite part of my education,” Phillips says, referencing her time in the UGA Skidaway Institute of Oceanography’s Semester at Skidaway program. “I’ve always been a physical learner, and I thrive when I can get my hands a little dirty.”

Read more: https://www.skio.uga.edu/2026/05/01/hands-on-and-fearless-how-macie-phillips-found-her-place-in-marine-science/

04/30/2026

Throwback Thursday to an early project at the Skidaway Institute of Oceanography. In 1968, as SkIO was just opening its doors, assistant director Lee Knight built a one-person submersible. Here’s a look at its maiden voyage in the Skidaway River.

04/28/2026

This May, Kennedy Ingram will graduate from the UGA Franklin College of Arts and Sciences with a B.S. in ocean science. She is one of the first two Black women to graduate from the program. 🎓

Kennedy spent the fall semester on the Georgia coast participating in our Semester at Skidaway program.

“We weren’t just studying oceanography, we were doing it,” she says about her time at Skidaway. “The experience helped me understand how interconnected everything in the ocean really is.”

Read more: https://www.skio.uga.edu/2026/04/28/kennedy-ingram-breaks-ground-in-ocean-science-graduation-milestone/