DOSI/DSBS Deep Sea Life
Issue 23, September 2024, pp. 26-27
Alexander Yin1, Alycia Smith2, Alyssa Schultz3, Amanda Kahn4, Bonnie Teece5, Eleanor Arrington6, Emanuel Pereira7, Joan M. Alfaro-Lucas8, Michelle Hauer9, Sina Wallschuss10, Titus Cañete11, Tremaine Bowman12
1University of Rhode Island, USA; 2Heriot-Watt University, Scotland; 3Texas A&M University, USA; 4Moss Landing Marine Laboratories, San José State University, USA; 5NASA Jet Propulsion Laboratory, USA; 6UC Santa Barbara, USA; 7Instituto de Biodiversidad y Biología Experimental y Aplicada (IBBEA, UBA-CONICET), Argentina; 8University of Victoria, Canada; 9University of Rhode Island, USA; 10University of Cape Town, South Africa; 11Large Marine Vertebrates Research Institute Philippines; 12The University of the West Indies, Jamaica
The Masterclass, led by the Crustal Ocean Biosphere Research Accelerator (COBRA), is a 13-week virtual course to empower participants with the skills and resources needed to effectively and thoughtfully design, fund, conduct and report on research cruises, intertwined with best DEI practices. This year’s Masterclass covered global deep-sea assets, building a team, writing proposals and securing funding, developing respectful concepts, preparations, thriving at sea, data management, reporting, outreach, and law and policy. An ongoing focus showed how these topics fed into fellows’ dream cruise ideas. Expert support came from people in the field, including Randi Rotjan, Julie Huber, Beth Orcutt, Andrew Fisher, Geoff Wheat, and Rosalynn Sylvan, featuring weekly synchronous meetings, pre-class materials to review, asynchronous communication via Slack, and weekly collections of resources.
