Scripps Oceanography at the 10th Annual BlueTech Week

Next week sees the start of the 10th annual BlueTech Week, an event organized and hosted by The Maritime Alliance, where hundreds of international participants gather in San Diego to highlight collaboration and innovation in the Blue Economy – those services, resources, and industries that are fueled by coastlines and oceans.

The Maritime Alliance is a non-profit industry association and cluster organizer for the San Diego blue technology community. Scripps is a member of The Maritime Alliance, fostering collaborations among education, policy, industry partners to promote the blue economy. 

From November 5-9, representatives from industry, academia, and government will participate in a tech expo, panel discussions and networking sessions to find solutions to sustainable development. The event will attract speakers such as  Scripps alumnus Timothy Gallaudet. Gallaudet – who graduated with a PhD in Oceanography from Scripps – is the Assistant Secretary of Commerce for Oceans and Atmosphere within the U.S. Department of Commerce. In this function, he fulfills the roles of acting undersecretary of commerce for oceans and atmosphere, as well as Acting Administrator of the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration (NOAA). Other speakers include Betty Yee, who serves as the California State Controller, which also puts her on the California State Lands Commission, a unit of state government that is responsible for management and protection of natural and cultural resources, as well as public access rights, on some of California's publicly owned lands.

Both of these speakers’ positions echo the theme of this year’s BlueTech Week: United Nations Sustainable Development Goals - Industry Solutions. The Sustainable Development Goals are a collection of 17 global goals to advance economic development while ensuring the vitality of resources that provide for global advancement. Specific areas of focus for BlueTech Week include marine debris solutions, aquaculture/biomarine, maritime robotics, offshore renewable energy, water/wastewater technologies and workforce development. The second day of the week will be hosted at Scripps Oceanography, which has made significant contributions to the Blue Economy.

Scripps’ involvement in BlueTech Week is a prime example of how the institution works directly with industry on some of the ocean’s most pressing issues. It’s reflective of its Scripps Corporate Alliance program, which is a community of member companies aligned with our mission to seek, teach, and communicate scientific understanding of the oceans, atmosphere, Earth, and other planets for the benefit of society and the environment. Our students and faculty have strong relationships with industries around the world–industries that understand the need for collaboration with academia–advancing research translation to the private sector and a pipeline to industry careers for Scripps students and postdocs.

We sat down with those from Scripps and UC San Diego who will be participating in the Nov. 6 day at Scripps to get a take on their involvement and collaboration with industry.

Dimitri Deheyn - Associate Research Scientist and Lecturer, Marine Biology Research Division

What are you presenting at BlueTech Week?

I will be presenting three times: as part of a panel on industry solutions to plastic pollution, a panel on biomimicry, and as the keynote speaker for the gala dinner. For the first panel, I will talk about the industry-funded project we have to deal with synthetic microfibers. I will moderate the second panel of two speakers from academia who use marine organisms as inspiration for new technologies. One of the speakers on the panel is from the company Sharklet, which originated from shark skin technology. The gala speech will focus on the importance of biomimicry, and the collaboration between academia and industry.

How are you working with industry now or what potential exists in your field?

Currently, we have funding support from industry that allows us to perform research on microplastics. The types of industry we work with now are related to fabric – a source of microplastic-related pollution – but also biomedical/pharmaceutical companies for new compounds or proteins with unusual functions. We also work with the food industry on natural color dyes. Many aspects of my research have direct relevance to applications in biotechnology and bioengineering. They just need funding support to make the cross-over to applications. I hope the BlueTech Week will help us solidify more of these interactions.

What are you most excited about when it comes to opportunities to tackle scientific challenges?

Discovery. Innovation. The unknown...and yet knowing that what you work on could be a disruptive innovation, that could change things dramatically. It is a good driving motivation to know that things don't have to stay the way they are if they are not great. There is always room for improvement, and going back to natural processes, trials and errors, and learning from the millions of years of such process in nature, gives an exciting prospect to fundamental science being able to help "resource" the more applied science.


Peter Rogowski - Postdoctoral Researcher, Coastal Observing Research and Development Center

What are you presenting at BlueTech Week?

I will be presenting water resource monitoring strategies utilizing autonomous underwater vehicles (AUV). Specifically, I will present results from past projects including mapping the evolution of wastewater plumes discharged from the Point Loma Ocean Outfall using an AUV and mapping the evolution of an introduced dye tracer into a small reservoir. The dye tracer served as a surrogate for adding purified treated water into the reservoir that is proposed as part of a project to introduce reclaimed water into the system.

How are you working with industry now or what potential for that? exists in your field?

Ocean outfall plume tracking is a new requirement for National Pollutant Discharge Elimination System (NPDES) permits for regional ocean outfall dischargers. We are working with the San Diego Regional Water Board to educate discharge managers on emergent technologies available to meet these monitoring requirements.

What are you most excited about when it comes to opportunities to tackle scientific challenges?

I'm most excited about the use of new technologies, such as AUVs, to tackle old problems. The adaptive sampling, increased efficiency, and cost effectiveness of autonomous technologies make them appealing alternatives over traditional monitoring methods.


Jenni Brandon - Price Postdoctoral Fellow, Birch Aquarium

What are you presenting at BlueTech Week?

I am presenting on marine debris, specifically the issues that arise from netting and ghostfishing. I am speaking in a panel with other groups that work on alternatives to traditional fishing gear, to limit ghostfishing, and work on recycling gear.

How are you working with industry now or what potential exists in your field?

I work with industry in an informal advisory role. I've met with large companies to talk about how to change to biodegradable plastics in their packaging, and multiple cleanup projects about whether their project is addressing the majority of the plastic in question.

What are you most excited about when it comes to opportunities to tackle scientific challenges?

I'm excited that a lot of engineers are getting interested in plastics and working on it from a bioengineering/composting perspective, a new materials perspective, innovative cleanup perspective, for example. I'm excited that people are tackling plastics from the scientific, engineering, policy and legislative, and economic angles. It's an issue that can only be solved interdisciplinarily.


Stephen Mayfield - Director, California Center for Algae Biotechnology; Co-director, Food & Fuel for the 21st Century; Professor, UC San Diego Division of Biological Sciences

What are you presenting at BlueTech Week?

I am on a panel called the future of algae for food and feed.

How are you working with industry now or what potential exists in your field?

There are three algae companies also on this panel, Triton Algae Innovations, Global Algae, and Cellana. UC San Diego works closely with these and other companies to help advance the basic technology they will use to bring algae products to market.

What are you most excited about when it comes to opportunities to tackle scientific challenges?

I’m excited about the potential of algae to be a game changer for food production. This is agriculture 2.0, where we produce protein and essential nutrients much more efficiently than traditional agriculture. If we can do this, it will do more than almost anything else we can do to reduce our carbon footprint.


Ben Reineman - Research and Development Engineer, Climate Atmosphere Science and Physical Oceanography

What are you presenting at BlueTech Week?

I will be presenting the platforms and sensing capabilities of autonomous underwater instruments developed by the Instrument Development Group (IDG) at Scripps, with a focus on the Spray underwater glider. I will touch on some past glider operations in the Gulf of Mexico, where real-time data assimilation into forecast models assisted in oil spill response strategies.

How are you working with industry now or what potential exists in your field?

The Instrument Development Group’s newest generation autonomous 2000-m profiling float and its 6000-m variant, which both play a major role in the international Argo program, are licensed to private firm MRV Systems. IDG and MRV are currently partners to develop a next-generation Spray glider and transition it to industry.

What are you most excited about when it comes to opportunities to tackle scientific challenges?

I have been fortunate to work with extremely motivated groups of individuals; whether my fellow engineers and scientists from academia, representatives from industry, or researchers from government labs, everyone has brought new perspectives and allowed for new ideas and new technologies to be conceived and shared.