Scripps Scientist Receives Lockheed Martin Award for Excellence in Ocean Science and Engineering

John Orcutt, professor of geophysics at Scripps Institution of Oceanography, UC San Diego, has received the prestigious Marine Technology Society's Lockheed Martin Award for Excellence in Ocean Science and Engineering. The award, acknowledging his numerous contributions to ocean technology, was presented on October 3rd at the annual Oceans 2007 Marine Technology Society/Institute of Electrical and Electronics Engineers (MTS/IEEE) conference in Vancouver, British Columbia, Canada.

Orcutt was awarded the honor for his instrumental role in the development and operation of ocean bottom seismographs and hydrophones, which have led to significant advances in marine seismology and long-term ocean observing initiatives by the oceanographic community.

The Marine Technology Society (MTS) presents the award annually to a recipient with the highest degree of technical accomplishment in the field of marine science, engineering or technology.

Orcutt holds appointments at Scripps Oceanography and the California Institute of Telecommunications and Information Technology (Calit2) at UC San Diego. He was prior director of Scripps's Cecil H. & Ida M. Green Institute of Geophysics and Planetary Physics (IGPP) for 18 years and served as deputy director of Scripps from 2002 to 2006.

Orcutt's many contributions, including the introduction of continuous Internet connections to U.S. academic research vessels, have greatly improved research and education at sea. He has been instrumental in initiating the National Science Foundation's Ocean Observatories Initiative. He also is a member of the Board of Governors for the Southern California Coastal Ocean Observing System, a multi-institutional effort designed to make observations and collect real-time data and develop models of environmental phenomena within the region known as the Southern California Bight, an area extending 450 miles along the Pacific Ocean coast from Point Conception near Santa Barbara south to Cabo Colonet in Baja California, Mexico.

Orcutt is the immediate past president of the 50,000-member American Geophysical Union and a member of the American Philosophical Society. Previous MTS awardees at Scripps include Walter Munk, Fred Spiess and Jim Cairns.