University of Massachusetts-Darmouth Receives Grant Money From Department of Defense
WASHINGTON, March 21–The University of Massachusetts-Dartmouth is one of 102 academic institutions to be awarded money from the Department of Defense to purchase state-of-the-art research instruments.
Dr. Lou Goodman, technical director and professor in the School of Marine Science and Technology at the University of Massachusetts-Dartmouth and Dr. Ed Levine at Naval Undersea Warfare Center in Newport, Rhode Island, wrote the proposal to the Office of Naval Research requesting $428,000 for an autonomous underwater vehicle (AUV), which acts like a small unmanned submarine, used to measure small scale physical processes in the ocean.
“There is a phenomenon of turbulence in the water, which occurs throughout the depth of the water column and we want to understand that relationship to ocean currents, ocean fronts, and ocean internal waves,” Dr. Goodman said.
Dr. Goodman believes the study of turbulence in the water is critical in a number of importance areas to people and to the economy, including “the pollution of water and making food available, or not available, to larger living underwater organisms.”
According to Dr. Goodman, the AUV will be used by students for research involving fisheries, the environment and operational oceanography.
The awards are distributed from the Defense University Research Instrumentation Program (DURIP) based on a merit competition conducted by the Army Research Office, Office of Naval Research, Air Force Office of Scientific Research and the Advanced Technology Development Directorate of the Missile Defense Agency.
Of the 733 proposals the research offices at the Department of Defense received, the University of Massachusetts-Dartmouth and Woods Hole Oceanographic Institution are among the list of 59 institutions that will receive money from the Office of Naval Research.
Steve Elgar, senior scientist in the Applied Ocean Physics and Engineering Department at Woods Hole Oceanographic Institution (WHOI) said the official funding began in January for their Nearshore Canyon Experiment (NCEX) and the most recent DURIP equipment award from the Office of Naval Research is about $400,000.
“This equipment includes an array of pressure gages (measure waves) that will be deployed in the surf-zone near a humongous submarine canyon in Southern California,” Mr. Elgar said. “The goal is to understand how complicated underwater terrain, such as submarine canyons near the shore affects waves and currents.”
According to Maj. Jay Steuck at the Department of Defense, all the awards, ranging between $50,000 and $1,000,000, are subject to an agreement between the institutions and the four Department of Defense research offices.
“This is an annual program from the Department of Defense,” Maj. Steuck said. “Awards are not finalized and this is an ongoing project. The final amount of funding for a specific institution will be decided between the institution and the specific research office.”
“We are really thankful and really appreciative of the support from the Office of Naval Research,” Dr. Goodman said. “The AUV is going to be an important resource, educational and public outreach tool.”
Harvard University, Massachusetts Institute of Technology, Boston University, Boston College, University of Massachusetts-Amherst, University of Massachusetts-Boston, and Northeastern University were among the other schools in Massachusetts to receive grants from one of the four research offices.
Written for The New Bedford Standard-Times in New Bedford, Mass.
