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​BLOG BY GRACE C. YOUNG                                                                              
                                                                               


Land-Based Tech Project via MIT

10/16/2017

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Drug overdoses now kill more Americans than guns.

Last year I took on a side project to support fellow MIT alumni and learn some things from a different field. Five of us, with one alumni mentor, created an app to help rapidly deliver the antidote to an opioid overdose (Naloxone) to those who need it. You could call it the Uber for Naloxone. It was a different experience for me, in part because I hadn't worked on applications before and also because the five of us never once met in the same room (a few of us had known each other before though). We coordinated over Google Hangouts and email across four time zones, spanning California to England! There were some late nights working on this project from Kansas and at the SailFuture house, but it was worth it. 

Our submission to the government-sponsored hackathon was recognized in this article from the US Food and Drug Administration (FDA). Additionally, team leader Ben Taylor is continuing this work with his company LedgerDomain. 
"FDA also congratulates Team MIT on their app concept, NalNow, which the judges recognized as a second high-performing submission. Team MIT receives an honorable mention as the team with the second-highest score in the Competition. Team MIT is represented by Dr. Hattie Chung, Grace Young, Sinchan Banerjee, Rodrigo Ipince and Emily Zhao. View the NalNow app video here:  http://bit.ly/nalnow_video." -- FDA blog
LedgerDomain announcement October 2017:
Greetings!

Writing to share our LedgerDomain launch news and thank everyone for their help while we were in stealth mode.  Nineteen months ago, we decided that blockchain would drive the fourth wave in accounting.  We set to work using blockchain to build safe spaces where participants across enterprises could transact and share sensitive information.  40,000 lines of code later, we are ready to share the good news.

WHY BLOCKCHAIN? Blockchain's cryptographic safeguards have enabled cryptocurrencies like bitcoin to be transferred by strangers globally.  These same techniques shall enable global enterprises to transact across the firewall. Additionally, blockchain's structure has the potential for users to confidentially analyze their own granular historical data.

SAFE SPACES On Wall Street, we have continuous auctions in safe spaces called trading platforms. LedgerDomain was founded to deliver safe spaces for sensitive transactions to the Global 2000. 

Our first step to test use cases was to sponsor the sterling effort by TeamMIT, which finished second in the FDA challenge last Fall with NalNow (bit.ly/nalnow_video). Most viewers had no clue that NalNow contemplated a blockchain on the backend; we wouldn't have it any other way.

OUR SOLUTION Our target customers are typically global in scope, exchanging high value goods & services, operating in over a hundred countries, and are highly regulated.  Based on their feedback, we have initially focused on blockchain platforms that are cryptocurrency free, and chose Hyperledger, a Linux Foundation project, as our technology core.  Cryptocurrencies are on our roadmap, but to quote Orson Welles, "no wine before its time".  

Our first demo moved a stream of hypothetical pill bottles marked with 2D barcodes through the pharmaceutical supply chain.  Our smart contracts controlled the flow of the bottles while our Selvedge blockchain orchestration server powered the client experience, managing user access & privileges while provisioning system resources on the fly. 

CURRENT MILESTONE Our goal is to make the blockchain seamless and invisible to our users, enabling them to enjoy its benefits without the mental overhead. We are ready to pilot at scale now while readying Selvedge V1.1 for those clients who scale in ludicrous mode.

I'd like to recognize & thank my partners, Dr. Victor Dods, Dr. Gabe Hare & Dr. Aaron Smith; as well as our amazing TeamMIT members, Hattie, Emily, Sinchan, Rodrigo & Grace; those advising behind the scenes, including Max, Will, Tim, Jeremy, Chris & Adrian; as well as those in the real world, including Michael, Mike, Steve, Angeliki, Chad, Ted, Eric, Thierry, JB, Vinay, Marcelino, Larry, Ruey, Jeff, Faye, Ansel, Damian, Michelle, Kevin, Neil, Dan, Kate, Ron, David, Anju, Anthony & Rose.

For more information about the opioid epidemic I recommend the documentary "Prescription for Change" featuring Macklemore and President Obama.  It's free on Youtube (here). The more I learned, the more I realized how many people I know whom have been affected by this epidemic. It put me in awe and respect of how fragile our chemical balances are as humans. 
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​Ocean Exploration -- in Times Square!

10/13/2017

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Last week I hopped across the pond for the opening of National Geographic’s first immersive entertainment experience. “Ocean Odyssey” in Times Square draws visitors under the sea to experience ocean life thanks to clever videography, staging, virtual and artificial reality. Virtual explorers witness a battle between Humbolt squid, get lost in a kelp forest, and see a whale leap from the depths to feed on a school of fish. They can also play quiz games that show how they can improve the ocean.
 
Pictures tell the story best. More information about how you can visit the exhibit is in the Act Now page of this blog. Your ticket purchase supports the National Geographic Society’s great work! 
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"Our oceans are our life support system ..." G.C.Young
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Virtual turtle!
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My face in the explorer's hall!
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Stepping in virtual sea grass.
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Playing with virtual reality seals that mimic your movements - reminds me of my real dives with seals in the UK's Farne Islands.
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Fluorescent models of coral that you can touch.
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My friend Bizzy and I lost in kelp forest mirror maze.
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On the reef with fellow NatGeo Explorer, cave diver Jenny Adler Owen.

PROGRESS

Last year I was in Boston with three other Oxford grad students presenting a new business model for SeaWorld that entertained with virtual and artificial reality instead of captive cetacean. Visitors could have the sensations of travelling with dolphins miles in the ocean, seeing whales breach right in front of them, and experiencing the ocean from the perspective of a stingray in the wild. Our presentation won the 2016 International Business Ethics Competition; see past blog post  "The Future of SeaWorld Won 2016 International Business Ethics Competition!"       

I'm so glad that National Geographic has done it! Hopefully this is a trend that catches on.
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​No more! Experience marine animals up-close as they are in nature with virtual and artificial reality; it's cooler and kinder. Image from The Onion.

Other Update from Yellow Rectangle

Attention teachers! On Tuesday October 17th, your classroom can join me and fellow ocean engineer Shah Selbe in a hangout! Register here. The hangout is organised by National Geographic Education. More helpful links: 
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View teacher's guide here: https://goo.gl/MDxnAZ
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From QUANTUM Physics to Ocean ENGINEERING

10/2/2017

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​"It was CERN's high-powered global community of scientists congregated in one beautiful place to solve big problems that was a magnet for me." -- Grace C. Young
CERN's Symmetry publication recently published an interview I did with them a few weeks ago. Excerpts are below, and you can read the full interview at ww.symmetrymagazine.org/article/cern-alumna-turned-deep-sea-explorer
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 "​Grace C. Young is fascinated by fundamental questions about realms both quantum and undersea."
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Each summer, the international research laboratory CERN, home to the Large Hadron Collider, welcomes dozens of students to work alongside seasoned scientists on cutting-edge particle physics research. Many of these students will pursue physics research in graduate school, but some find themselves applying the lessons they learned at CERN to new domains. 

In 2011, MIT undergraduate Grace Young was one of these CERN summer students. 
Like many young adults, Young didn’t know what career path she wanted to pursue. “I tried all the majors,” Young says. “Physics, engineering, architecture, math, computer science. Separately, I always loved both the ocean and building things; it wasn’t until I learned about ocean engineering that I knew I had found my calling.”

Today, Young is completing her PhD in ocean engineering at the University of Oxford and is chief scientist for the deep-sea submarine Pisces VI. She develops technology for ocean research and in 2014 lived underwater for 15 days. During a recent visit to CERN, Young spoke with Symmetry writer Sarah Charley about the journey that led her from fundamental physics back to her first love, the ocean.

As a junior in high school you competed in Intel’s International Science Fair and won a trip to CERN. What was your project?

GY: A classmate and I worked in a quantum physics lab at University of Maryland. We designed and built several devices, called particle traps, that had potential applications for quantum computing. We soldered wires onto the mirror inside a flashlight to create a bowl-shaped electric field and then applied alternating current to repeatedly flip the field, which made tiny charged particles hover in mid-air. 

We were really jumping into the deep end on quantum physics; it was kind of amazing that it worked! Winning a trip to CERN was a dream come true. It was a transformative experience that had a huge impact on my career path.
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You then came back to CERN as a freshman at MIT. What is it about CERN and particle physics that made you want to return? 

GY: My peek inside CERN the previous year sparked an interest that drove me to apply for the Openlab internship [a technology development collaboration between CERN scientists and members of companies or research institutes]. 

​Although I learned a lot from my assignment, my interest and affinity for CERN derives from the community of researchers from diverse backgrounds and disciplines from all over the world. It was CERN's high-powered global community of scientists congregated in one beautiful place to solve big problems that was a magnet for me.

​You say you’ve always loved the ocean. What is it about the ocean that inspires you?

GY: I’ve loved being by the water since I was born. I find it very humbling, standing on the shore and having the waves breaking at my feet. 

​This huge body of water differentiates our planet from other rocks in space, yet so little is known about it. The more time I spent on or in the water, either sailing or diving, the more I began taking a deeper interest in marine life and the essential role the ocean plays in sustaining life as we know it on Earth.

What does an ocean engineer actually do?

GY: One big reason that we’ve only explored 5 percent of the ocean is because the deep sea is so forbidding for humans. We simply don't have the biology to see or communicate underwater, much less exist for more than a few minutes just below surface.

But all this is changing with better underwater imaging, sensors and robotic technologies. As an ocean engineer, I design and build things such as robotic submersibles, which can monitor the health of fisheries in marine sanctuaries, track endangered species and create 3-D maps of underwater ice shelves. These tools, combined with data collected during field research, enable me and my colleagues to explore the ocean and monitor the human impact on its fragile ecosystems.

I also design new eco-seawalls and artificial coral reefs to protect coastlines from rising sea levels and storm surges while reviving essential marine ecosystems.

​What questions are you hoping to answer during your career as an ocean engineer and researcher?

GY: How does the ocean support so much biodiversity? More than 70 percent of our planet is covered by water, producing more than half the oxygen we breathe, storing more carbon dioxide than all terrestrial plant life and feeding billions of humans. And yet 95 percent of our ocean remains unexplored and essentially unknown. 

The problem we are facing today is that we are destroying so many of the ocean’s ecosystems before we even know they exist. We can learn a lot about how to stay alive and thrive by studying the oceanic habitats, leading to unforeseeable discoveries and scientific advancements.

What are some of your big goals with this work?

GY: We face big existential ocean-related problems, and I'd like to help develop solutions for them. Overfishing, acidification, pollution and warming temperatures are destroying the ocean’s ecosystems and affecting humans by diminishing a vital food supply, shifting weather patterns and accelerating sea-level rise. Quite simply, if we don't know or understand the problems, we can't fix them.

Have you found any unexpected overlaps between the research at CERN and the research on a submarine?

GY: Vision isn’t a good way to see the underwater world. The ocean is pitch black in most of its volume, and the creatures don’t rely on vision. They feel currents with their skin, use sound and can read the chemicals in the water to smell food. It would make sense for humans to use sensors that do that same thing. 

Physicists faced this same challenge and found other ways to characterize subatomic particles and the celestial bodies without relying on vision. Ocean sciences are moving in this same direction.

What do you think ocean researchers and particle physicists can learn from each other?

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GY: I think we already know it: That is, we can only solve big problems by working together. I'm convinced that only by working together across disciplines, ethnicities and nationalities can we survive as a species. 

Of course, the physical sciences are integral to everything related to ocean engineering, but it's really CERN's problem-solving methodology that's most inspiring and applicable. CERN was created to solve big problems by combining the best of human learning irrespective of nationality, ethnicity or discipline. Our Pisces VI deep sea submarine team is multidisciplinary, multinational and—just like CERN—it's focused on exploring the unknown that's essential to life as we know it.
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  • Read more about my recent visit to CERN in my blog post, "Return to CERN."
  • I look forward to presenting at CERN's alumni event in February. 
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Return to CERN

9/29/2017

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Update

My interview from time at CERN just published in Symmetry magazine. ​Excerpt below.
CERN alumna turned deep-sea explorer ​
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S: What do you think ocean researchers and particle physicists can learn from each other?

GY: I think we already know it: That is, we can only solve big problems by working together. I'm convinced that only by working together across disciplines, ethnicities and nationalities can we survive as a species. Of course, the physical sciences are integral to everything related to ocean engineering, but it's really CERN's problem-solving methodology that's most inspiring and applicable. CERN was created to solve big problems by combining the best of human learning irrespective of nationality, ethnicity or discipline. Our Pisces VI deep sea submarine team is multidisciplinary, multinational and—just like CERN—it's focused on exploring the unknown that's essential to life as we know it.
Full article here. It's also on the Facebook page for the Pisces VI submarine (here). ​

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​Last week I was delighted to return to CERN for a short trip (and break from thesis writing). In front of the Globe, CERN's alumni team and I filmed an interview for CERN's newly launched alumni network. I'll post the video once it's live. Rachel Bray and I chatted about my time there, including my first visit as an INTEL Science Fair winner followed by an internship in CERN openlab, and then my transition from physics into ocean engineering (how it's not such a weird transition!). We also gave a plug for my talk in February at CERN's first-ever alumni conference, where I'll tackle the subject, ‘What is the role of scientists in building a sustainable future for the planet?’ Spoiler alert: I'll focus on the big questions a CERN-for-the-ocean could answer! (My 2014 op-ed for TIME explains more fully my vision for a  CERN-for-the-ocean.)

My first-ever blog titled, "CERN-Intel 2010 Special Award Winners' Trip," chronicles my first visit to CERN as a thrilled 17-year old physics student living her dream of a one-week immersion at CERN. It covers every detail of the trip, from notes on each speakers and activities to what we ate for breakfast.  

I'm thankful for CERN's supportive community, its dedication to pushing the boundaries of human knowledge, and its pioneering model that has demonstrated how cooperative, interdisciplinary, multinational pulbic-private research can succeed in solving big problems and achieving monumental results (e.g., invention of World Wide Web and Grid Computing, confirmation of Higgs boson, are just a few examples). In fact, the night before my interview I met another alumna who wrote the first code for CERNdocs that became a central node in the "vague but exciting" project now known as the World Wide Web. 

In my interview, rather than focus on specific problems and solutions, I tried to highlight open-ended research questions---the type of large-scale questions CERN has so well addressed. I was thinking, 'What is the equivalent for the ocean of confirming the Higgs boson?' For me there are two big, unanswered questions:  (1) How does the ocean support so much biodiversity? (Also: Why does it? What are all those unique creatures and their purposes anyways? (2) How does it regulate weather/atmosphere on our planet? Our window of opportunity for answering these questions is closing, as we are losing biodiversity and the ocean is increasingly unable to provide the ecosystem functions we depend upon; but again, it's possible to focus on the big, exciting questions without harping on the doom and gloom.

Notes/text from my interview are below. 

Tell us who you are.  I'm an ocean engineer, just now completing my doctorate at University of Oxford. I work on technologies that help us better understand our ocean. 

What have you done since CERN? This summer I joined 23 other scientists from around the world for an artificial intelligence accelerator at NASA’s Frontier Development Lab in California. It reminded me a lot of CERN – on a much smaller scale. It was a public-private, interdisciplinary initiative that brought together scientists from different backgrounds to focus on solving discreet problems in a short period of time. My team focused on using artificial intelligence to create 3D models of asteroids. ​
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Depiction of CERN's vast amounts of data (300 TB!) from ScienceAlert.com
What unique experience did you take away from CERN?  CERN had a huge impact on my development as a scientist and engineer. My experience was truly transformative. My first experience was when I was age 17. A classmate and I won a week-long trip to CERN from the Intel Science Fair for a physics project. It was a dream come true; I'd read so much about CERN. I'm still incredibly thankful to Wolfgang Von Rueden for organizing that trip and becoming a mentor. A year later, CERN’s openlab took a chance on a first-year MIT student and let me into its summer internship program. I got to work with phenomenal people and write software to help physicists (perform Dalitz analysis within the ROOT data analysis framework).
 
Although I veered away from physics into ocean engineering (I like to sail and I love the water), CERN taught me many things that I often think back to. One is the genuine power in community. It's not just about putting capable people in the same place -- it's about having those people, from diverse disciplines work together to solve discrete problems, and work towards a common purpose. Another thing it taught me is that fundamental science pursued for the sake of science (or art) spawns innovation. ​
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The night before the interview I met another alumna. She wrote the first code for CERNdocs, which became a central node in the "vague but exciting" project  now known as the World Wide Web. ​​
Even my visitor's badge to CERN reinforced its core purpose. I thought the text on the badge aptly described CERN's mission and motivation. It read:  
What is the Universe made of? Where did it come from, where it is going and why does it behave the way it does? At CERN, the European Organisation for Nuclear Research, physicists and engineers and probing the fundamental structure of the universe. They use the world's largest and most complex scientific instruments to study the basic constitutes of matter - the fundamental particles. The particles are made to collide together at close to the speed of light. The process gives the physicists clues about how the particles interact, and provides insights into the fundamental laws of nature.
What value do you see in the CERN alumni network? I see the alumni network as a potentially powerful tool. Of course it's a great way to stay in touch with friends, make new ones, and enhance career connections. Its greatest value, however, may be in harnessing the power of our great community to solve big problems like CERN proper does. Alumni know the value of cooperation and the power of working across disciplines, across cultures, public-private sectors, and that's a powerful thing. 
 
What’s next for you? I'd like to create a CERN-for-the-ocean. Right now we don't understand how the ocean works -- how it holds so much biodiversity, how it maintains weather, sequesters so much carbon. At the same time it faces big problems including overfishing, pollution, acidification and warming. These require technical and policy solutions. I'd like to copy CERN's model for research and innovation and apply it to the equivalent for the ocean of confirming the Higgs boson. 

ANOTHER NOTE ON POSITIVE MESSAGES

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Humpback whale off New York City!
While in Geneva, I stumbled across this well-written, cautiously optimistic piece by Carl Safina ​for National Geographic about how the waters off of New York are changing for the better. I found it inspiring, and it made me extra-excited to attend the opening of NatGeo's Ocean Odyssey next month! More about that on the Act Now page!   

From Safina's article: 
This is a new and improved, revitalized coast, returning to abundance, where everything has plenty to eat and big things linger all summer getting fat and staying relaxed. Whales are spending summers where no one remembers seeing them before; fish eating birds are doing better than anyone can remember, sharks are rebounding along the East Coast as nowhere else in the world, and high-value fish such as striped bass and bluefish have plenty to eat. Osprey pairs have been raising healthy broods of three chicks and many mornings this summer it took them a few minutes to find and catch a fish as the sky was getting light. Often they’d delivered breakfast to their chicks even before time the sun cleared the horizon.
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Summer at NASA - Update

8/4/2017

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So far so good! My previous blog post explains why I'm at NASA this summer. In short, I'm still 'Team Ocean' (of course!), but the 3D shape modelling techniques developed for my PhD on coral reefs have direct application for NASA's research on near-Earth asteroids (and vise versa). It's been a fantastic collaboration. Here are more details about what we're doing and why. 

What We'RE Doing and Why 

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<- Explaining our work during a Facebook live event for SETI (here on Facebook; it's been viewed by >30k!). 
NASA's Frontier Development Lab (FDL) is an experimental tool in NASA’s innovation portfolio that emphasizes artificial intelligence, inter-disciplinary approaches, rapid iteration, and teamwork to produce significant breakthroughs useful to the space program.

​This summer, four of us at NASA FDL are creating 3D models of asteroids. Our core team comprises two planetary scientists (Agata Rozek and Sean Marshall), two machine learning engineers (Adam Cobb and me), plus mentors from both disciplines (Chedy Raissi,  Michael Busch,  and Yarin Gal). We’re creating the 3D models from radar data. It's a difficult computational problem, but knowing an asteroid’s 3D shape helps us predict its future trajectory (/whether it will collide with Earth!). 

The formal introduction to our problem reads as follows: 
​Delay-Doppler radar imaging is a powerful technique to characterize the trajectories, shapes, and spin states of near-Earth asteroids and has yielded detailed models of dozens of objects. Since the 1990s, delay-Doppler images have been analyzed using the SHAPE software developed originally by R. S. Hudson and S. J. Ostro [1, 2]. SHAPE normally performs sequential single-parameter fitting. Recently, multiple-parameter fitting algorithms have been shown to more efficiently invert delay-Doppler data sets, thus decreasing runtime while improving accuracy [3]. However, reconstructing asteroid shapes and spins from radar data is still, like many inverse problems, a computationally intensive task that requires extensive human oversight. The FDL 2016 team explored two new techniques to better automate delay-Doppler shape modeling: Bayesian optimization [4] and deep generative models [5]. The FDL 2017 team is refining that work and exploring new directions for more quickly and accurately generating 3D models of near-Earth asteroids from delay-Doppler images.
It took me a bit to understand exactly what our goals and motivations were. The most common questions my friends ask are, “What are you doing?” and “Why?” My short answer: We're generating 3D models of asteroids from radar data so that we can better determine asteroids' physical properties and orbital trajectories. There are over 16,000 known near-Earth objects, and on average 35 new ones each week. It's too much data to keep up with without sophisticated data analysis techniques, so we're  using machine learning to speed up and automate the process of generating 3D models from radar data of asteroids.

Still #TeamOcean

I'm also interested in the task of 3D modelling asteroids because the techniques can be applied to 3D modelling coral reefs, the topic of my thesis, as further discussed in my first post about NASA.

Preliminary Results

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Result 1A: Delay-Dopler images (example above) are converted into 3D models of asteroids (example at right).
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Result 1B: Last year a team trained a neural network to generate 3D asteroid shapes in the form of voxels (cube-like 3D pixels). We've developed triangular meshes from those voxels, and have smoothed the 3D shapes so that they better resemble asteroids. We'll be feeding a set of synthetic radar shapes into a deep neural network to train the network. For more details, stay tuned for our presentation on August 17th in Silicon Valley. ​​​

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Result 2: We wrote a script that that finds signals in sets of delay-Doppler radar images. This quickens pre-processing of the data. The script intelligently masks the signal from the noise in an image using a density-based clustering (DBSCAN) algorithm.

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Result 3: We also wrote a script that estimates the spin state of an asteroid from available data. That data can be radar data, optical or light curve data, or any of the input sources used by existing 3D modeling software for asteroids called SHAPE. It quickly and efficiently estimates spin states by performing Bayesian optimization on a spherical coordinate system. Already processing time has gone down from 3 days to 4 hours (and getting faster!).
More details will be in our final presentation and report at the end of the summer. Register here if you'd like to attend our final presentation in Santa Clara, California. 

References: 
​[1] R. Scott Hudson. Three-dimensional reconstruction of asteroids from radar observations. Remote Sensing Reviews 8, 195–203, 1993.
[2] Christopher Magri, Michael C. Nolan, Steven J. Ostro, and Jon D. Giorgini. A radar survey of main-belt asteroids: Arecibo observations of 55 objects during 1999-2003. Icarus 186, 126–151, 2007. 
[3] Adam H. Greenberg and Jean-Luc Margot. Improved algorithms for radar-based reconstruction of asteroid shapes. The Astronomical Journal 150(4), 114, 2015. 
[4] Jonas Mockus. Bayesian Heuristic Approach to Discrete and Global Optimization: Algorithms, Visualization, Software, and Applications. Springer-Verlag, Berlin, Heidelberg, 2010. 
[5] Ruslan Salakhutdinov. Learning deep generative models. Annual Review of Statistics and Its Applications 2, 361–385, 2015. 
​[6] Shane Carr, Roman Garnett, and Cynthia Lo. BASC: applying Bayesian optimization to the search for global minima on potential energy surfaces. International Conference on Machine Learning. 2016.

This post is modified from the original published on the NASA FDL page (here). All work was developed while at NASA Frontier Development Lab, working with Agata Rozek, Sean Marshall, Adam Cobb, Justin Havlovitz, Chedy Raissi,  Michael Busch,  and Yarin Gal.  

UPDATE - 12 Sept 17

My colleague Adam just posted his perspective on the project. Read his blog post here. 

Update - 20 Nov 17

The video of our final presentation at Intel Headquarters is live! It's on YouTube at this link.
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Update - Jan 2018

The results from our team of four engineers and scientists were well-received by NASA's Planetary Defense Community. The tool we developed will be implemented this year at the Arecibo Observatory to help track near-earth asteroids.

Related blog posts:
  • Looking up! NASA this Summer
  • Aquarius Day 3: Met an Astronaut Underwater
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National Geographic Explorer Festival

6/27/2017

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Last week I had the honor of attending National Geographic’s first-ever Explorers Festival. It was many things:  It was a gathering of explorers from all disciplines and corners of the globe; it was my introduction to the NatGeo “family;” it was an excuse for NatGeo to roll out the 'yellow carpet' for James Cameron, Sylvia Earle, Neil DeGrasse Tyson, Bob Ballard, and other explorer-celebrities.
 
As a 2017 Emerging Explorer, I gave a 10-minute talk about my work and dreams and then contributed to a panel discussion on “Transformative Technology;” both are online here.
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<-Video of our talks. Also check out Charlie Hamlton James, Jennifer W. Lopez, and Corey Jaskolski; they talk about wildlife photography, space, and 3D mapping ancient sites.
The week was a gear-shifting process for me. For the past several months I’ve been up to my ears in my PhD thesis. This week forced me to take a few steps back and think big-picture, about major goals and priorities in terms of ocean technology development. It also forced me to reflect on my personal story --- the twists of fate that pushed me to where I am now.
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NatGeo focuses on human elements of any story; I believe this is one reason why it effectively engages across disciplines. Explorers are encouraged not just to talk about their work, as they might at an academic or technical conference, but also to speak of their motivations – how and why they got to their unique position. Usually these stories take us back to childhood, but not all the time – sometimes the story starts later in life. Distilling one’s life into a story is a difficult task if you overthink it. How can one figure out which moments of the past millions and millions of moments to cut and which to mention? How do our brains remove the signal from the noise? Only in hindsight have I identified some of the more transformative moments. The storytellers at NatGeo helped me bring out the bits of my story that linked my path in ways I hadn’t considered before. For that I’m very thankful to the NatGeo community.
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During the Festival, Fabien Cousteau’s Mission 31 got a shout-out not just in my talk, but also in educator Joe Grabowski’s talk. Joe founded Exploring by the Seat of Your Pants (EBTSOYP), an awesome program that connects classrooms with explorers for virtual field trips. If your classroom is studying the ocean, EBTSOYP can connect your class for 30+ minutes with someone or a team doing ocean work that as their full-time job(s). I believe exposing young students to human stories related to their studies is essential to engagement. I remember in middle school wanting to be a dolphin trainer, orthodontist, or teacher because those were the professions that I understood---I never heard of an ocean engineer until university! I can’t wait to connect students with the Pisces VI submarine project through Joe’s program.
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Chatting with legend James Cameron about lights and cameras for the Pisces VI submarine. Although it doesn't look like it in this picture, I swear I was paying attention!
One of the moments that brought happy tears to my eyes last week was watching Wasfia’s story. I was introduced to her a few days before at a happy hour, when someone whispered to me “she’s climbed Everest…” but only after watching her film did I realize that’s the tinniest part of her story. A Bangladeshi orphan, she learned new definitions of home. On summitting the highest peaks of all seven continents, she said "in my eye, climbing is more of a surrender rather than conquering; if anything nature conquers you."
Watch Wasfia's inspirational story here^

WHAT’S NEXT.

Yesterday (Monday June 26, 2017) was the first day of my 8-week stint with NASA’s Frontier Development Lab. In September I’ll return full attention to my doctoral thesis, which I plan to submit in December. In my spare time I’m thinking about the science addenda for the Pisces VI submarine, which I’ll visit this August with fellow scientist Anni Djurhuus. Scott is currently on a cruise with the Alvin submarine in Costa Rica.
 
At the Festival, I learned and experienced the word “overinspired.” I feel extremely motivated to get back to work, even if that means getting back to the grind. I’m looking forward to learning cutting edge machine learning applications this summer with NASA colleagues and will devote my whole focus to that. Down the line, I look forward to collaborations with fellow explorers, whether that be on ocean research expeditions, technology development, or yet unplanned adventures. ​
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UNITED NATIONS OCEAN CONFERENCE

6/25/2017

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This month I attended the United Nations Ocean Conference. It was the first-ever Ocean Conference at the UN. Headquartered in New York City, it focused on Sustainable Development Goal 14:  "to conserve and sustainably use the oceans, seas and marine resources for sustainable development." I'd never been to a UN general assembly meeting before, so it was a new experience for me (plus an excellent excuse to catch up with NYC friends). 
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LOOKING UPWARDS THIS SUMMER -- INVITE TO NASA

5/25/2017

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Excited to announce that I’ve been offered a research position this summer at NASA’s Frontier Development Lab in Mountain View, CA. I’ll be working alongside other scientists and engineers for eight weeks in an intensive research accelerator focused on artificial intelligence.
Hosted by the SETI Institute and NASA Ames and supported by leaders in AI from the private sector, such as IBM, Nvidia, Autodesk and Miso Technologies, FDL brings together teams of experts in the physical sciences and specialists in data science and machine learning for an intense 8-week concentrated study on topics important to NASA – and to humanity’s future. The format encourages rapid iteration and prototyping to create outputs with meaningful application, papers and conference posters.
They've asked me to develop a project with cohorts on near-earth object 3D shape modelling and lunar water detection, topics that directly relate to my thesis (minus the "lunar" part and replace "near-earth" with "underwater" of course!). It's a fantastic opportunity to develop skills and learn from NASA in ways that will not only further develop our underwater 3D modelling techniques, but also vise versa; they'll learn from our research techniques. 
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Image: G. Young Credit Mission 31.

Still Team Ocean

Ocean and space are commonly pitted against each other – upward vs downward – astronaut vs aquanaut, etc. ​
Fabien Cousteau and Liz Magee from Mission 31 recently debated in a Science Throwdown: Space vs. Sea at the American Museum of Natural History, and Nat Geo 2011 Explorer of the Year Kenny Broad plans to highlight the topic in his Red Planet vs Blue Planet session at the National Geographic Explorer’s Festival this June.

​I delve into the debate’s history in my undergraduate thesis 
Missiles and Misconceptions: Why We Know More About the Dark Side of the Moon Than the Depths of the Ocean, TEDx Talk Why We Know More About the Moon Than the Depths of the Ocean, and in an interview for an upcoming PBS documentary based on Ben Hellwarth’s awesome book SEALAB.
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It’s not an either-or debate, however. We can explore both.
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I’m looking forward to this summer opportunity at NASA for a number of reasons. I’m eager to learn from NASA methods that will enhance our underwater 3D modeling techniques while sharing what we’ve learned underwater. The experience will also provide another perspective on how public-private partnerships can work effectively to achieve defined research objectives. I believe public-private partnerships like NASA FDL and what I observed at CERN OpenLab, are the key to tackling our most urgent  ocean research objectives---a vision I outlined in my 2015 TIME op-ed. Finally, I’m excited to spend weekends diving, surfing, and reuniting with West Coast friends.
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Image: G. Young credit Mission 31

Many astronauts are also aquanauts, but most people don’t realize more people have been to space than have lived underwater! Several acquaintances work in both arenas: Pisces VI submarine owner Scott Waters is also on a space advisory board. FDL founding member, Jordan McRae, invented OctoTalk, a system for divers to transmit voice communications underwater. Jonathan Knowles, who is involved with FDL through Autodesk, also advises The Hydrous, an organization that 3D models corals around the world.
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That said, I’m committed to Team Ocean. I’m personally drawn to water, a connection many humans have (see Wallace Nichols' book 
Blue Mind: The Surprising Science That Shows How Being Near, In, On, or Under Water Can Make You Happier, Healthier, More Connected, and Better at What You Do.).

Moreover, engineering-wise, while space may seem more exotic, I’d argue the ocean, particularly the deep ocean, is a more challenging work environment considering that E&M waves, upon which wifi, GPS, and many modern innovations are based, do not work, and salt water kills electronics. We’re forced to innovate.

(Thanks Somerville (Oxford) for the article with video!)
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Spring Updates:  LIVE UNDERWATER SEMINAR AT OXFORD & NATIONAL GEOGRAPHIC ANNOUNCEMENT

5/15/2017

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Next week we are hosting what we think is the FIRST LIVE UNDERWATER SEMINAR at Oxford! Come along if you're in the area! It'll also be video-recorded/posted online at a later date. 
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The Conservation Governance Lab and The Ocean Science & Policy Lab present: 
 David Novillo -- Live and interactive from under the ocean of Tenerife
 Wednesday 17th May 12.30 in Becket Room, Department of Geography
 
David Novillo is an entrepreneur and conservationist who through vision, drive and boundless optimism and enthusiasm is pulling off one of the most innovative and exciting marine restoration projects in Spain, if not Europe. Using the wonders of modern technology, David and his colleague Filipe, will take us underwater to show marine ecosystems damaged by lime urchins and the transformation in marine life that their control and restoration of algal communities brings.
    
As David descends under the waves and swims between areas, Grace Young, Emma McIntosh and Paul Jepson will present the technology being used, the development context of the restoration project and the innovations in marine governance that it represents. 
We thank the Municipality of Adeje, Tenerife for providing the technological infrastructure to make this link-up possible.  Please note. Whilst we have tested the underwater link, weather on the day could intervene!
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​NATIONAL GEOGRAPHIC ANNOUNCEMENT

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Image Credit: Mission 31/Fabien Cousteau 
Thrilled to have been named one of National Geographic's 2017 Emerging Explorers. Looking forward to learning from the other explorers this June at NatGeo HQ. Read more: 

Fourteen world-changers named 2017 National Geographic Emerging Explorers

  • "Every year, National Geographic recognizes and supports uniquely gifted and inspiring scientists, conservationists, storytellers and innovators who are changing the world, known as our Emerging Explorers."
  • "Grace C. Young, United States: Ocean engineer developing technology to explore and manage ocean resources. Technologies Young has helped develop include underwater robots and camera systems that record fish populations, map coral reefs in 3D, and capture undersea events in ultra-slow motion. She is also working on a deep sea submarine for manned exploration.​"
Aside:  A piece titled "We Need a New Approach for Saving the Oceans!" for the International Foundation for the Conservation of Natural Resources by David Wills mentioned
​my 2015 TIME op-ed article
about a new vision for ocean research, including creating a CERN-like organization for the ocean. David supports the vision, and explains why fisheries management based on “maximum sustained yield”  must be revised (snippet below). 
"As a small aside, “maximum sustained yield” (MSY) the mantra for fisheries management, was a practice developed in the 1930’s by the US Forest Service. It may work for trees because they stand still and are easy to count, but it definitely is not a practice that can be easily applied to or work as well for enormous amounts of biomasses of living, moving, animals. 

In fact it is such a narrowly focused management methodology that the 20th Century’s most respected expert in marine fishery dynamics, the late Peter Anthony Larkin, wrote the MSY epitaph in 1977, four decades ago. 

Larkin condemned Maximum Sustained Yield because it put marine species at too much risk. It left out too many relevant factors and left management decisions too vulnerable to political pressure to be accurate or objective. Its myopic view is weighted towards “benefits” (to the fishery) while at the same time ignoring relevant negative factors. It strives to impose a constant harvest rate without taking into account each species’ natural biological and environmental fluctuations. 

In short, MSY is probably not the way to try and ascertain accurate population counts of global fisheries whose health and abundance depend on an integrated management approach. "
Read David's full article here. 
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NO ENGINEER IS AN ISLAND - REVISITED -- COLLABORATIVE ENGINEERING AND SCIENCE

11/26/2016

 
Yesterday on a podcast I heard the host say "everything in engineering seems to be collaborative," as if that was surprising. It reminded me of a misconception that I speak of often with students: that great engineers are geniuses working alone in basements. This couldn't be farther from the truth, but it's a misconception that keeps many students from pursuing engineering as a profession because they think engineering isn't a career for "people persons."

I spoke about what I call the "Iron Man" myth exactly three years ago as a 20min "TIMTalk" at MIT, titled "No Engineer is an Island." The video is no longer available online (at least for now), but a transcript is below. 
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hTIMTalk Grace C. Young
Theme: Collaboration and Engineering
Title: No Engineer is an Island 
 
You know the movie Iron Man? The rock-star engineer of the film creates an incredible machine, alone, while squirreled away in a glorified basement. Not to dis superheroes or Marvel fans, but that really is fiction. I don't know anyone who works like that... and I go to MIT.
 
At MIT I’ve found engineering to be extremely collaborative. On a daily basis, engineers work together to solve complex problems all over the world. We may be "nerds" that have our own quirks, but in order to do our jobs right, we need to be people persons too - constantly interacting with others. We shouldn’t be ashamed of working in groups, of not accomplishing things purely on our own, and then having a "team," rather than an individual, be recognized. This is an important idea to get into people's heads, especially engineers.
 
DaVincis or Edisons may come along once every 500 years or so. But as a rule, successful engineering requires teamwork.
 
Once I met a girl at a Christmas party and someone asked her if she wanted to be an engineer "like Grace" when she grew up. She said “no,” because she "liked working with people.”
 
I wish I could convey this to her that as an engineer, you do work with people! A lot of people! Really, everyday; it’s necessary. She thought a “people career” was being a doctor or working at a store. Too many people think this way, that engineers are somehow anti-social, working alone in basements.  It’s an unfortunate misconception because it inhibits some, especially women, from entering, or trying, engineering because they want to “work with people.”
 
Honestly, part of me was that girl at the Christmas party when I first got to MIT. I remember as a freshman, reading a problem set question and having no idea how to solve it, yet I thought if I really focused and put a ton of hours into it I could do it; but I wasn’t successful. Then, I remember staying up late working on problem sets with classmates. A group of us would sit down and, working together for several hours, we’d somehow manage to find a solution, even though each of us on our own couldn’t figure out how to solve the problem earlier.
  
I remember hearing about a guy in our physics class who did the whole PSET we were struggling over in just two hours by himself. I was so jealous! I thought, “I want to be that guy.” But I realize now that I was missing the point. Collaboration is necessary to solve real problems. I’m grateful that MIT has taught me that lesson.
 
I discovered then that to succeed at MIT you really need both introverted and extroverted qualities. There are times when it’s better to sit on your own, straighten things out in your own head, do practice problems, or just teach yourself a new skill. But you also need to know when to work with others to find solutions.
 
This summer I used that working style on a real project. I was working in Hawaii to re-design an autonomous robot for monitoring the health of commercial fisheries. Building the robot was a perfect project for an ocean engineering student, like me. Here I am on deck of a research vessel with the robot I worked on [referring to photo]. 
 
Sure, for this project I spent some time alone at my desk, making a SolidWorks 3D model and reading relevant papers, but a huge amount of my time I spent soliciting input and communicating with others; so I really had to be a people-person, too. I’d be on the phone with a machinist, for example, almost daily, about what parts to change to make manufacturing faster. Or, I’d be talking to the crew who deployed an earlier version of the robot, seeing how I could change the design to make their lives easier. They said if the units could stack on top of one another, like Ikea boxes, it would make their work more efficient. I incorporated their feedback by adding simple pegs in the corners that allowed units to stack.
 
I wouldn’t have known these things, about the machining or stacking, without reaching out to those people. So collaboration and communication was a huge part of the project, and quite frankly one of the challenges.
 
This dynamic working style - I’m calling it the mix of intro and extroverted – comes into play in many areas of like, not just on engineering projects like building robots or solving problems sets.
 
I first practiced it in ballet class.
 
This is me four years ago [refering to photo]. Before MIT I danced with a ballet company. In high school I spent just as much time in the ballet studio as I did doing math problems and working in my school’s robotics lab.
 
When you’re training at the ballet barre it’s easy to stand there and be jealous of the dancers around you. Maybe they have a higher développé, or longer legs, and so on… But at some point for you to get better, you need to put blinders on, and focus on your own improvements. You need to let yourself be inspired and motivated by the people around you, but also know when to focus on your own development.
 
I’ve had to do the same thing at MIT; it’s easy to be jealous of the guy who finishes the 6.01 PSET in an hour, or started in advanced physics freshman fall. But that’s not always productive. To succeed here you need to let yourself be inspired and motivated by your peers, and work with them to solve problems, and then know when to focus on your own learning.
 
I hope the girl at the Christmas party, and other people stuck in her mindset, will soon consider engineering a career that lets you “work with people,” that the Iron Man-working style is a myth. 

SUBMARINES IN KANSAS? YES! PISCES VI TO BRING DEEP SEA RESEARCH TO THE MASSES

11/17/2016

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Chickens peck in the dirt at the end of the rutted drive. Out back of the house, a rooster crows. And in a building that looks like a fine place to park a combine, a crew works on a submarine that can go 8,000 feet deep in the ocean.

Only a half-dozen or so subs in the world can do that. The others are owned by governments and research groups in Russia, France, Japan and the U.S. Then there’s Scott Waters, 29, the head of his family’s chain of hardware stores. He found his submarine in storage in Wisconsin, loaded it on a flatbed truck and hauled it home to Salina.

Its name is Pisces VI and it can go where light can’t, down to an undersea world of legend and fantasy, the part of the planet we know least about. .. Grace C. Young is the project’s science ambassador. She will be the link to research groups and networks... Young [left] high school early, earned an engineering degree at MIT and now is doing thesis work on oceanic imagery at the University of Oxford in England.

Question: What made her come to be part of this?
“People asked me that when I left Oxford — ‘Kansas? Really
?’ It’s because we all believe in what Scott’s doing. I’m very interested in climate change, and the oceans are a big part of that." 
... 

Grace Young climbed out of a crate with an electrical connector in decent shape. She smiled.
​'This is like finding gold,' she said....

Read the full story in The Kansas City Star. We made front-page! ​
​Here are a few more updates from Instagram: 
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After Kansas, I headed to  St. Petersburg, Florida, for the BLUE Ocean Film Festival & Conservation Summit and to reunite with the SailFuture crew. SailFuture, you might remember I sailed across the Atlantic for them last winter, is at the moment setting up a new home in St. Pete for the young adults they work with. At BLUE, I was fortunate to reconnect with familiar faces like Billy Snook from Mission 31, Dr. Sylvia Earle from Mission Blue, and Zach Ponder from Utila; I also met plenty of new people, like the founder of Nekton, Erika Bergman, researchers at University South Florida and University of Miami, and an handful of submarine pilots. I was surprised to see my main thesis supervisor, Professor Alex Rogers, featured in one of the films! 
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Until Christmas (when my family visits the UK!), I'm focused on thesis work and four more papers in the pipeline (see my thoughts on peer review publishing). I'll also be at the Reef Conservation UK Conference at The Zoological Society of London on November 26th and speaking at the Royal Russell School on December 7th. 
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SUBMARINE SAFARI

10/15/2016

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Cool right! Shoutout to DOXA watches (my favourite adventure watch) for reposting on Instagram.
Here are some photos from our fun trip on a submarine off Tenerife, Spain! This was through Submarine Safaris with two other crew of the Pisces VI deep-sea submarine (follow us on Facebook here!). We reached just 100m (which I'd done a few weeks earlier on a rebreather, Hollis Prism 2 in the Red Sea), but it was awesome. Highly recommend for anyone who wants to safely see the sea while staying dry! They even have people propose to their partners in here.
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Tenerife from airplane. 
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Submarine safari's main submarine. 
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View from the window seat.
Related blog posts: 
  • SUBMARINES IN KANSAS? YES! PISCES VI TO BRING DEEP SEA RESEARCH TO THE MASSES
  • OCEAN EXPLORATION FOR THE MASSES IN TIMES SQUARE
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EARLY OCTOBER UPDATES

10/3/2016

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1. New (SAD) Scientific Discovery by LABMATE

My officemate and a fellow researcher in Oxford's Ocean Research & Conservation Group, Dr Michelle Taylor, has found the first evidence of microplastic being ingested by deep sea animals. Read her paper at: 
http://www.nature.com/articles/srep33997 
You can read more about microplastics on this NOAA webpage. They first appeared in personal care products about fifty years ago. On December 28, 2015, President Obama signed the Microbead-Free Waters Act of 2015, banning plastic microbeads in cosmetics and personal care products. Other countries are following suit. It was a major topic of discussion at the Our Ocean conference, which I attended last month (that story here). 
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Image credit http://brenmicroplastics.weebly.com/impacts.html

2. SPEAKING IN LONDON, OPEN TO ALL

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This Thursday (Oct 6) I'll be speaking at Kings College London about ocean exploration. Everyone is welcome. At 6pm in the Pyramid Room, the talk part of their Intrepid Explorers series and will most likely precede some sort of pub outing. Thanks Rebecca Farnum, author of Defending the Deep - Guardians of the Sea (!), for inviting me! 
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3. Speaking at Oxford Animal Ethics Society

I'll also be speaking alongside two other scholars again at the Oxford Animal Ethics Society, where we're sharing our presentation on how SeaWorld could replace their captive animal shows with virtual and artificial reality entertainment. It's the same presentation we won for at the 2016 International Business Ethics Competition (that story here). 
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Our presentation was "so busy, people were standing in the hall!"
Later this month, I'll be traveling to Kansas to work with the rest of the team bringing the Pisces VI submarine back into operation as a deep-sea research vessel. From there, I'll head to the BLUE Ocean Film Festival in Florida to reconnect with Mission 31 crew and with the SailFuture team.
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Our Ocean, One Future Leadership Summit Success

9/20/2016

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"Because we share nothing so completely as our ocean, each of us also shares the responsibility to protect it.” ~ US Secretary of State John F. Kerry

In Washington D.C. last week I attended the Our Ocean conference hosted by US Secretary of State John Kerry at The State Department and the affiliated Ocean Leadership Summit hosted by Georgetown University. Following the main events, I spoke on a panel at the French Embassy for an event on climate, ocean preservation and scientific cooperation with Fabien Cousteau (Ocean Conservationist, Mission 31), Dr. Sylvia Earle (Oceanographer, National Geographic Explorer-in-residence, former NOAA Chief Scientist), Dr. Margaret Leinen (Director of Scripps Institution of Oceanography, University of California, San Diego, and UCSD’s Vice Chancellor for Marine Sciences), Dr. Françoise Gaill (Research Director at CNRS, Scientific Committee Coordinator of the Ocean & Climate Platform), and Bertrand Delorme (PhD candidate, Stanford).
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Panel at French Embassy following Our Ocean conference.
​The concurrent two-day events, Our Ocean and the One Future Leadership summit, were jam-packed with activities from early morning breakfast meetings to late night working dinners all focused on solving our oceans most urgent problems with leading scientists and policy makers from around the world. 
The State Department rolled out a blue carpet extending from the main entrance to the reception hall, which was transformed into a virtual ocean, illuminated by blue lights on white banners.
The State Department rolled out a blue carpet extending from the main entrance to the reception hall, which was transformed into a virtual ocean, illuminated by blue lights.
The first day ended with a concert at the Kennedy Center for visiting dignitaries (and student attendees!) featuring singers Grace Potter and Norm Lewis. The last time I was in the Kennedy Center’s Eisenhower theatre I was performing in Washington Ballet’s Romeo and Juliet. After the concert, I waited around the corner from the stage door, under the Center’s iconic huge golden pillars, for my mom, who picked me up just like she did countless times during that performance nine years ago.
 
The second day ended with dinner at the French Ambassador’s residence with the other panelists and Segolene Royal, France’s Minister of Environment, Energy and Marine Affairs, and President of COP21.
​I arrived at the conference with little expectations; if anything I was feeling discouraged about the state of our ocean. I left, however, feeling more educated, inspired and optimistic than ever about our ocean’s future. Secretary Kerry reported that during the conference $5.24 billion was committed towards sustainable oceans from a combination of governments and foundations. He emphasized his deep personal connection the ocean (he grew up sailing) and alarming facts about the ocean. For example, it will contain more plastic than fish by weight in 2050 if we do not change our ways (on a bus I sat next to the State Department  that proudly wrote that fact into his speech; everyone can help in this fight!). I asked Secretary Kerry about the US’s commitment to the ocean, especially regarding the Law of the Sea Convention, last spring when he gathered Rhodes and Marshall scholars at a pub in Oxford (that story here). I knew he was dedicated to ocean issues, but I hadn’t realized the full extent of his work, nor did he necessarily allude to all of it in that first response. Now I am really impressed. President Obama expressed the same sentiment:  
​Also at the conference, nations committed to designating 1.5 million square miles of ocean as a marine protected area (MPA). Yet MPA designation doesn’t necessarily mean protection in practice. It must be monitored and enforced; otherwise it is a “paper park.” Plenty of attendees, including Secretary Kerry, acknowledged this, and solutions were discussed, combining new technology with policing. These are works-in-progress; but are an excellent start.
 
Secretary Kerry announced key features of his Safe Ocean Network, which aims to build a global community to better combat illegal fishing. “Various nations are working hard to track and address illegal fishing, but the fact is no nation is currently capable of policing the entire range of the oceans,” he said. Enforcement is where technology can play a huge role in how we manage and protect the oceans, so this gets into my particular area of interest. Various uniformed members of the military explained aspects of the Safe Ocean Network, as well as representatives from partners including Google, SkyTruth, and Oceana. It was a beautiful example of public and private sectors working together for a common goal. This diagram (that I can't find online; pardon bad quality scan) explains the facets of their operations well: 
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...the Safe Ocean Network
True to their mission of getting other nations involved, the State Department flew out nearly 50 student leaders from select countries, particularly those reliant on fishing, for a two-week tour of NOAA operations in California and New Hampshire, culminating at this Our Ocean conference. I met the student representatives from Fiji, Philippines, Indonesia, Italy, and many more, each of whom is leading or involved with an ocean project, ranging from simple but effective initiatives such as installing mooring buoys around dive sites, to more nuanced like initiating culinary ventures that educate consumers about the ecosystem.
​If you only watch or read one speech from the even, I recommend President Obama’s (online video; transcript). I also recommend Admiral Robert Papp’s speech on the Arctic. If you’ve more time, however, basically everything was recorded and available for binge watching.

Adrian Grenier spoke several times alongside Secretary Kerry. Grenier, perhaps best known for his staring role in 
Entourage, and I first met during Mission 31 when the actor/ filmmaker/ environmentalist dove down to Aquarius to visit us during Mission 3. Approximately a year later he founded the Lonely Whale foundation to promote ocean conservation. His Instagram post with me at an Aquarius viewport was listed as one of “10 Times Adrian Grenier Sent Love Letters to the Ocean in 2014.”
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(I've since changed my Instagram to @gracecalvertyoung)
I was incredibly impressed by the Georgetown University student group Sustainable Ocean Alliance (SOA), ​which ​co-hosted the Leadership Summit alongside the State Department. It was founded by Daniela V. Fernandez (who, fun fact, is a fellow recipient of Glamour magazine’s “Top 10 College Woman of the Year” scholarship).

During the Summit, I was put into a group of about 30 engineering-minded young people to roundtable with David Lang and Monica Medina. Lang spoke of the low-cost underwater robotics company he co-founded, openROV. I assembled one of their products last year to use in Honduras and have collaborated with some of their employees, so we had a good deal to talk about. Medina, Deputy Director of the Walton Family Foundation’s Environment Program, spoke about what it took to get whales protected in Boston shipping channels. She didn’t gloss over anything. She impressed on us the need for perseverance and patience in order to achieve practical results. If I were based in DC again, I’d love to sit in on the ocean governance class she’s teaching at Georgetown University as an adjunct professor.
 
I look forward to watching several new films introduced at the event, including Sonic Seas, A Plastic Ocean, A Fragile Legacy, Nuclear Sharks, Second Century Stewardship, Vey nou Lagon, and Wild Galapagos, Pristine Seas.
 
Now it’s time to bottle up all the inspiration and hunker down in Oxford to finish reporting the results from coral reef fieldwork (and finishing my thesis!). ​
True to their mission of getting other nations involved, the State Department flew out nearly 50 student leaders from select countries, particularly those reliant on fishing.
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UPCOMING TRAVEL: OUR OCEANS CONFERENCE, WASHINGTON, DC & OCEANS’16, MONTEREY BAY, CA

9/13/2016

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I’m heading across the pond (flying! not sailing this time, although that story <here>) later this month for a number of exciting ocean-related events.
 
“Wouldst thou”—so the helmsman answered--
“Learn the secret of the sea?
Only those who brave its dangers
Comprehend its mystery.” 
~ Henry Wadsworth Longfellow
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Sailing across Atlantic last winter with friend, Bizzy Walton.
My first stop is Washington, D.C., where I’ll catch up with family and attend the 3rd Our Ocean Conference, hosted by US Secretary of State John Kerry, whom I met in Oxford earlier this year (that story <here>). Discussions will focus on marine protected areas, climate and oceans, sustainable fisheries, and marine pollution. Richard Branson’s organization, <Ocean Unite>, suggests following the conference via the hashtag #OurOcean or on Twitter through @StateDept @StateDeptLive @JohnKerry @StateDeptOES @CathyNovelli. I’ll of course be writing/tweeting as well, but not as regularly as those accounts. I'm at @grace_h2o. 
 
I’ll participate in the Our Ocean Leadership Summit hosted by Georgetown University. Each participant, as well as members of the public, have submitted pledges for the <1000 Our Ocean Actions Campaign> that we’ll share with Secretary Kerry and other global leaders. Pledges include big commitments from NGOs, governments, and the private sector; but the organizing committee also will highlight “the equally important commitments to action that individuals and community groups can make to protect our ocean.” I've three: 
My pledge is to develop and implement technologies that help us better explore, understand, and manage our oceans. I believe the best means of implementing this pledge is to create a CERN-like research organization that is multinational and funded jointly by the public and private sectors. A CERN for the oceans could also serve as an incubator for more effective global ocean management policies. More on that in my <my 2015 TIME op-ed>.
 
My pledge is to complete my current PhD research combining marine biology with engineering to determine the most effective means to restore and degraded coral reefs.
 
My pledge is to become more engaged in public policy development, specifically related to international cooperation and better unilateral management of the oceans that will rationalize and focus public and private research funds on the most pressing ocean-related issues. 
 After the conference, I’ll be speaking at the French Embassy on a panel with Dr. Sylvia Earle, Jean-Michel Cousteau, Dr. Françoise Gaill, and Bertrand Delorme. It’s open to the public so if you’re in the area this Friday evening and are interested, you can register for the event <here>.
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Mission 31 splash-up press conference two years ago.
I’m most looking forward to seeing my family in D.C. and to meet the other participants of the Leadership Summit. 
 
The event piggybacks off a few other important ocean meetings, including the 2nd of four preparatory meetings to negotiate a new High Seas Treaty at the United Nations in New York. From the Ocean Unite’s newsletter:
 “Governments and NGOs will be pulling up their sleeves again to carry on the important task of plugging the governance gaps for 2/3 of the world’s Ocean. Round one of meetings in March got off to a successful start. At this session, things are likely to get more charged as the meeting starts to focus on the substance, with regards to the different elements that need to be included in the agreement. At this stage there is always the risk that important issues might get stranded on the rocks or thrown overboard altogether.
 
Gearing up for the meeting the NGO coalition the High Seas Alliance (HSA) organised a webinar and released a newsletter, and various organisations prepared handy briefings such as  Greenpeace’s 10 steps to high seas marine protection – a must-read for governments. The Huffington Post is also running a series of articles about the negotiations on its ‘What’s Working Oceans’ page, written by negotiators and observers to this process. Plus, check out our blog  on why the next two weeks are critical for the future of high seas marine life, the Ocean and all of us.
 
The IUCN World Conservation Congress will shortly start its 24th Session in Hawaii (1–10 September), now home to the world’s largest marine reserve! As we reported last month, this meeting is a big deal in the conservation world, with more than a thousand events bringing together thousands of scientists, politicians, NGOs, academics, indigenous peoples and business folks to talk all things conservation.
 
A number of important motions for the Ocean will be up for discussion including marine protected areas (MPAs), sharks and rays and coral reefs, and NGOs are currently working hard to drum up enough votes for their successful adoption at the Member’s Assembly. Check out all the marine-related events in this very handy IUCN guide.
 
In particular, Motion 49 urges members to work together constructively within the high seas treaty negotiation process to ensure a strong agreement that really does address all the gaps in high seas governance (see above). If this motion goes forward it will give a welcome boost to treaty negotiations, ensuring ambition levels stay high.
 
Motion 53 builds on the 2014 IUCN Promise of Sydney “to create a fully sustainable ocean, at least 30% of which has no-extractive activities”, by including a 2030 deadline to reflect scientific recommendations that say we need to up our game in Ocean protection. Let’s hope for a Blue Hawaii conference (feel a song
 coming on?) with the successful adoption of these motions.”
OCEANS'16, organized by the Marine Technology Society, which I’ve been a member of for almost eight years now, including a council member for two years, is held Monterey Bay this year. I’m looking forward to meeting other ocean engineers and reconnecting with many friends and colleagues there.
 
Finally, in November Fabien Cousteau is opening his Ocean Learning Center in Bonaire. If any readers want an invitation, please message me. I won’t be there, but it’s sure to be a blast!
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AUGUST BREAK IN BURGUNDY

9/7/2016

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Last spring three friends made a bet that they could live in a château in Burgundy more cheaply than they could in a two bedroom London flat. They decided on a summer trial run.
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Hrant, a close friend from undergrad, decided to drop in on them for a couple days. We planned to rendezvous at Gare Du Nord. He was making his way circuitously from Armenia back to Stanford, where he’s doing his PhD. I bused and trained in from Oxford via London. Using the bus from Oxford to London and the 4-hour Eurostar from London to Paris as extensions of my office, I’d been working since 6am and was just wrapping up while waiting for him at Starbucks. Hrant and I hadn’t seen each other in more than a year, but I keep finding that with good friends, you pick up where you left off as if no time had passed at all. A quick coffee turned into a “quick” champagne before our next train.

​We caught the 6pm to Sens, a smallish city (population ~30k) in Burgundy, southeast of Paris. Our friends met us at the station in a beat-up car they said had broken down last week. They related the comedy of trying to find a French mechanic who didn’t groan “but it’s Saturday...” in response to their repair requests.  
On the drive to the château in La Chapelle-sur-Oreuse, we stopped at a bakery to pick up their last pan au chocolat before closing.  The back seat was a buttery-flakey mess as we pulled onto rue du château.

The 14th century château was postcard perfect.  The sun was seting over its expansive green and yellow fields, illuminating a glass of white wine that rested languorously on a table outside the ivy-covered stone walls.
 
We ditched our bags and lounged in the unkempt garden to watch sunset. Our host brought out some watered-down pastis, a French anise apéritif. The nine of us were a mix of recent grads and PhD candidates in theoretical physics or engineering from MIT, Harvard, Oxford, or Stanford. 


“Is now a good time for the champagne tasting?” one of our hosts asked. Meeting no objection, he dashed inside while another host gave Hrant and I a tour of the place.
Our first stop was the wine cellar, which was expansive and musty, but empty except for two lonely bottles of local red. Our next stop was the main reception on the ground level. Sleeping bags covered couches in front of a massive fireplace. A Ping-Pong table occupied an arched stone alcove, looking incongruous under a brass chandelier and in front of a two-story red velvet curtain leading to the front garden. Empty glass bottles covered all counter space in the butler’s kitchen, waiting to be driven to the nearest recycling center. A long dining table that could easily seat twenty plus guests also occupied the ground floor, but it looked unused. The real living space was  on the upper floors.
 
Up half a flight on the lopsided spiral staircase, we reached what looked like a front door, but upon opening it we found a sheer one-story drop along the château’s stony outer wall –- an effective way to dispose of unwanted guests? 

Further up the stairs we encountered a cozy sitting room complete with couches and high-backed velvet chairs around another fireplace. The room connected to a smaller dining area and a fairly modern kitchen. From a terrace adjoining the kitehcn, a château cat surveyed the neighbor’s chickens.
 
Our host ran the champagne tasting much like ones I’ve had the good fortune to enjoy at Oxford. Two of our hosts had toured the vineyards in the nearby Champagne region and returned with their favorites, so needless to say they really knew what they were talking about. Many of us preferred the slipped in sparkling bourgogne (not technically a champagne; a NV Honoré Louis Crémant de Bourgogne Brut). Ed told us that in blind “champagne” tastings, most people prefer non-“champagnes” (even non-French Proseccos, Cavas, etc.). It reminded me of how susceptible we humans are to marketing and hype; how often we go with the crowd and don’t really know what we want.
 
Candle wax had already dripped onto the tablecloth by the time we started dinner. After our second bowls of pasta, when I for one would ordinarily be settling into a carb-coma, someone got a Ping-Pong tournament going to German rap and Brittany Spears. Wine and conversations flowed well into the night.
 
The next day I woke with the sun and roamed the château with everyone still zonked. I felt like the one person awake during a Sleeping Beauty curse. I made a cup of tea and quietly enjoyed the library. People emerged at a more civilised hour and brunch cooking quickly commenced.
 
Individually, some people worked remotely, connecting to the library Wi-Fi, Skyping with their supervisors, etc. Those not so scholarly employed spent the afternoon reading or cooking. I thought of an advertisement that keeps appearing on my Facebook and Instagram:  “Apply for a Remote Year.” The concept is that you pay a set price to travel the world with a group of young professionals who all work remotely. I guess this is how it might work and it’s not bad.
I thought of working, but tried not to. I’d planned in advance enough to be able to take these two days off and had just finished a paper on my summer field work; now was a good time to take a break. The library’s enticing collection books proved a relaxing distraction.
 
I kept-up a habit I’ve developed recently of taking an hour’s afternoon siesta. When I awoke, the crew was attempting the rather ridiculous endeavor of rigging a sous-vide in the tower bathtub to cook half a lamb. Sous-vide is a method of cooking meat very slowly till melt-in-your-mouth tenderness. I’d learned about the technique from this KickStarter a few years ago, but I had never seen one before, let alone tasted its output.
 
The sous-vide in place, the team set to frying calamari in a homemade spicy batter. Because of overfishing, I don’t eat seafood except for bivalves, cephalopods, and lionfish (you can read why on my Act Now page), and calamari thankfully falls into the cephalopod category. We enjoyed a late “lunch” in the sunshine, wearing straw hats that came with the château, eating the small batches of calamari as they emerged from the kitchen, where two guests volunteered as chefs. Each batch improved, getting crispier. We finished with a ricotta lime cake topped with grape compote that a kitchen goddess had made from scratch while I was napping. Discussion of the next meal commenced immediately afterward; we had a château conundrum. The sous-vide lamb would be acceptable to eat around 9pm, but it would be at its best, mouth-watering, falling-off the bone, at around 5am. We decided to have dinner with the first round of lamb at 9pm, followed by a breakfast of lamb so scrumptious that it was worth waking up at 7am. No one objected to this plan.

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With the next day’s early start in mind, the evening quieted down earlier. In the morning, just hours before Hrant and I departed, we enjoyed an early morning farewell feast of what was indeed the most tender and delicious lamb I’ve ever eaten, paired with eggs, toast, foie gras, and just a little bit of red wine. It was the gastronomic pinnacle of our Epicurean stay and the perfect way to wrap-up our visit.
The neighbor’s excitable dog joined the party bidding us farewell. The guests remaining had seen posters advertising a circus in town that night, so planned to attend and host an impromptu after-party. I was tempted to stay, but by that time Hrant would be flying over the Atlantic and I’d be at a Royal Geographic Society (RGS) conference in London thinking of what we were missing.
 

The experience was not unlike ones I’ve had on boats and expeditions. You learn to savor moments with the people around you because, well, you are stuck with them. You’re not in the city, so you can’t bounce from one attraction to the next, or pick-and-choose with whom you hang out. There’s no compulsion to check your phone all the time because no one else is doing it and, frankly, why? After the RGS conference, rather than venturing into the city, I spent my time in the quiet of my Oxford apartment working more productively than usual. I wonder how I’d feel after a full “European August” off in such a lovely spot.
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EXPEDITION, HONDURAN BAY ISLAND 

6/28/2016

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I'm once again on the island of Utila conducting research with Operation Wallacea. I'm leading a team of four students 3D mapping the coral reefs here and retrieving 3D printed artificial reefs we placed last year. Our studies will help reveal how how reef structure, or architectural  complexity, affects  marine communities. My upcoming papers and thesis will be on the topic! Stay tuned! 
3-legged turtle swims past
Stuck in tropical storm
Boating past small island
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WORLD OCEANS DAY GOOGLE HANGOUT WITH STUDENTS

6/8/2016

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​Today for World Oceans Day I did a Google Hangout with school kids in Canada and the US. It was hosted by non-profit Exploring By the Seat of Your Pants, which aims to connect students with guest speakers to give them "virtual field trips" around the world. The founder, Joe Grabowski, calls it "knocking down classroom walls." This World Oceans Day they broadcasted 12 hours (6am - 6pm EST) of ocean-themed talks. You can watch my full talk here, or see the snippets from Q/A below. 
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What's the scariest thing you've experienced? 
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What made you interested in the ocean?
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What did you eat when you were underwater?
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Which do you care about more, the earth or the ocean?
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REMEMBERING CAPT. Bonnie JEAN WAGGONER

6/1/2016

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This Memorial Day I'm thinking of those who lost their lives in military service both on land and at sea. There are a few good books on the subject of military underwater exploration. My favourites are Sealab: America's Forgotten Quest to Live and Work on the Ocean Floor, Blind Mans Bluff: The Untold Story of Cold War Submarine Espionage, and The Silent War: The Cold War Battle Beneath the Sea, although much of the research work is still classified. 

I'm also thinking about my Grandma Bonnie, who passed away earlier this year. She served in the Air Force as a captain and nurse who ministered to many servicemen and women. 
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For as long as I can remember, every time I’ve seen a shooting star, blown on a dandelion, or made a wish, it’s been for one thing: my Grandma Bonnie’s good health. She was a rock in our family, but at the same time hilarious and sometimes just as much of a goofball as us kids. She had the beautiful ability to be tough but kind, reminding us that you never know what others might be going through. Her “past lives” ranged from being a nun to a captain in the Air Force, all with an IQ that was through-the-roof. 

Her death last weekend, although not unexpected, put me in a dark place that I know I’m not the first to experience. She wouldn’t stand for us being melancholy though, so I’m trying to focus on the incredible woman she was and live in a way that makes the best of her influence. Thank you to all my family and friends for your love and optimism.

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Malta Revisited, Above and Below the Waves

5/23/2016

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This autumn I was in Malta for a hot second filming for U-Boat Worx submarines with my friend and Mission 31 fellow crewmate Billy Snook. They make some beautiful submarines, mostly for yachts and yacht-owners (and their explorer friends). Check them out on their website. This was my first time in a submarine. It was thrilling! 

Part I: In Malta on a Submarine 
I created this "book" in a cool app called Steller (https://steller.co/).
Part II: Above and Below the Waves in Malta

Photos from the books laid out below... 
We had a FANTASTIC set of afternoon SCUBA dives with Adventure Diving Malta! Highly recommend!  

More blog posts: 
  • REFLECTION ON SAILING ACROSS THE ATLANTIC
  • MISSION 31 HIGHLIGHTS - LIVING UNDERWATER​
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Will the US Ratify the Law of the Sea? Meeting Secretary of State John Kerry

5/19/2016

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Last week I had the opportunity to join a handful of Marshall and Rhodes Scholars for an informal discussion with US Secretary of State John Kerry at the King's Arms pub. He'd just finished a speech at the Oxford Union and was kind enough to chat with us for a hour or so before dashing off to dinner with the Prime Minister at 10 Downing Street. 

​I asked Secretary Kerry:  If the US won't ratify the Law of the Sea, how can we stay a leader in global ocean policy? The conversation was off-the-record, but it's fair to say he basically reiterated his stance from his 2012 Huffington Post op-ed "Law of the Sea: A National Security Issue that Unites," yet was more pessimistic (or perhaps realistic in light of the political gridlock of the last four years) about getting Congress to pass anything. You can read more about his position and the issues in Chapter 5: Possibility of US Accession to the LOS Convention and its Potential Impact on State Practices and Maritime Claims in the South China Sea by Yann-huei Song in the book: 
Wu, Shicun. Major law and policy issues in the South China sea: European and American perspectives. Eds. Yann-huei Song, and Keyuan Zou. Ashgate Publishing, Ltd., 2014.
In early 2009 when President Obama entered office and Senator Kerry took over chairmanship of the Senate Foreign Relations Committee, ratifying the Law of the Sea Treaty was one of his priorities:  
Democratic Senator John Kerry of Massachusetts, chair of the foreign relations committee, followed Clinton's response with his own support for the treaty. "We are now laying the groundwork for and expect to try to take up the Law of the Sea Treaty. So that will be one of the priorities of the committee," Kerry said. "The key here is just timing." ​(original article) 
In his 2012 op-ed, he reiterated then Secretary of State Hillary Clinton's support: 
Secretary of State Hillary Clinton said it best: “Joining the convention would secure our navigational rights and our ability to challenge other countries’ behavior on the firmest and most persuasive legal footing, including in critical areas such as the South China Sea and the Arctic. (original article)
Again in 2014, Kerry stressed law, not coercion, is the key to resolving sea disputes.


Yet the the Law of the Sea is still not US law 34 years after we negotiated the treaty. We are the only major country that hasn't ratified this treaty while 166 countries and the EU have done so. If we are to remain leaders in global ocean policy we must keep this issue at the forefront of discussion until the Senate takes appropriate action. 

​From Instagram: 
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​Other than the above, there isn't much photographic evidence of our encounter. On the US Department of State's Flickr, however, my shoulder makes an appearance, which is pretty exciting. 
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Yes, that is my shoulder. (Credit US Department of State Flickr:  "U.S Secretary of State John Kerry shakes hands with U.S. Rhodes and Marshall Scholars attending Oxford University who assembled at the historic King Arms pub in Oxford, U.K., on May 11, 2016, after the Secretary delivered an address to the Oxford Union membership.")
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"OUR" BOOK IS OUT!

5/12/2016

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Last year I worked (in a minor way!) on the recently published book by friend and fellow Marshall Scholar Rebecca L. Farnum. She writes about the incredible story of the Kuwait Dive Team. Check out the book on Amazon here, and see synopsis below. I'm so excited to see this in print! 
"On Christmas Day in 1991, the Government of Kuwait formally accepted an offer from a group of young scuba divers to help remove underwater debris left by the Iraqi Invasion of Kuwait. What began as a patriotic act of post-conflict rebuilding grew into a national movement for marine conservation and environmental volunteering. This is the strory of those volunteers, young Kuwaitis dedicated to preserving and protecting the rich resources and natural beauty offered by our planet's water. Today, the organisation holds hundreds of beach clean-ups each year, salvages thousands of tons of boats and fishing nets from Kuwait Bay, and creates a safe haven for millions of animals in the Gulf. This book invites you to take a journey with the Environmental Voluntary Foundation. It is a story of life and death, capture and rescue, wreck and restoration. It is a story meant to show you a different Middle East than you know. It is the story of the Kuwait Dive Team."
From the inside... 
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You can find the book on Amazon and the team will be presenting at the Royal Geographical Society's Annual International Conference on Sept. 2, 2016 in London. Please message if you'd like more details. 
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Talk At Oxford Underwater Exploration Group

5/9/2016

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Yesterday Dominic Andradi-Brown and I presented at the annual dinner of the Oxford University Underwater Exploration Group (OUUEG). We talked broadly about using technology to explore coral reefs, and gave examples from our work together on rebreathers in the Caribbean and Red Sea. We also talked about our separate expeditions, including Dom's in Indonesia with Operation Wallacea and mine in the Keys with Mission 31 and in Hawaii with NOAA's Pacific Islands Fisheries Science Center. 

UPCOMING TALK

I'll also be talking at Somerville College in Oxford as part of their "Will Power Lunch" on May 21st. 
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... and again at Somerville College, on May 23, as part of a series on emotional well-being in research and fieldwork. Please message if you'd like more details. 
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OUR PRESENTATION -- The Future of SeaWorld --Wins 2016 INTERNATIONAL BUSINESS ETHICS COMPETITION!

4/29/2016

 
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The 2016 International Business Ethics Competition was last week in Cambridge, Massachusetts. I competed with a team from Oxford. Our presentation, "The Future of SeaWorld," earned us the top prize in our division.
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Professional videos and photos of presentations will be available shortly. Meanwhile, here is a copy of our PowerPoint and a brief summary of our vision for the parks is below. ​

FROM INSTAGRAM

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SUMMARY OF OUR VISION

  • Replace captive animal shows with virtual and artificial reality (VR/AR) alternatives. VR/AR could give visitors the sensation of swimming alongside dolphins in the wild or having a whale breach right in front of them, for example. The purpose of our presentation was not to present a technical plan or storyboard for VR/AR entertainment, but rather to demonstrate the possibilities. We recommended that SeaWorld hire a core engineering and design team, similar to Disney's Imagineers, to produce these attractions. 
  • SeaWorld recently ended its orca breeding program. While this is a step in the right direction, it is not enough. Orcas and dolphins currently in SeaWorld's care should be rehabilitated and moved to sea pens following plans like those detailed in this article.   
  • Existing tanks could be used as part of VR/AR attractions (e.g., holographic shows, as in the video below by Magic Leap). They might also hold FlyBoard shows (e.g., video below by FlyBoard). VIP park visitors could glide and out the water in either whale-inspired water craft (e.g., video below by SeaBreacher) or in tandem with FlyBoard performers.  

Example VR; video by MIT. 
Example use for existing tanks; video by FlyBoard. 
Example AR; video by MagicLeap. 
Example use for existing tanks; video by SeaBreacher.

Here are some facts that struck me emotionally from former trainer John Hargrove's article "I trained killer whales at SeaWorld for 12 years. Here's why I quit."
  • "SeaWorld had a male, Taku, who bred with his own mother, Katina, resulting in the birth of a calf named Nalani."
  • “Another symptom of boredom: I saw the whales float motionless for hours upon hours every day, leading, among other things, to complete dorsal fin collapse on 100% of all captive adult males… This happens in fewer than 1% of wild adult males. In the wild, it's believed to be caused by traumatic injury such as being struck by a vessel — in captivity, it is the unnatural amount of time spent at the surface and the inevitable pull of gravity.” 
  • "I witnessed and distributed the enormous amount of drugs the whales were doped up on: antibiotics to treat chronic infections, medication to treat ulcers and fungal infections, drugs to treat epilepsy. I even gave whales Valium when we would do an invasive procedure, take a calf away from its mother, or move whales from one park to another."

SeaWorld's predicament and the ethical issues it faces are highlighted in the documentary Blackfish and subsequent media focus.  ​​The film isn't perfect, however; it has been criticized in this Medium article by Isaac Wadd and SeaWorld refutes the film's claims. That said, SeaWorld must make changes in order for it to not only remain a viable business, but also stay true to its mission of providing inspiring, exciting, and educational experiences to its visitors.
Thanks especially to the University of Oxford Centre for Animal Ethics, especially its deputy director, Clair Linzey, for helping us prepare. Also thanks to Professor Tom White, author of In Defence of Dolphins, for his inspirational talk last November at the Centre for Animal Ethics. 

UPDATE

Press release from the Centre for Animal Ethics: "Oxford University Animal Ethics Society Wins at IBECC 2016."
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THE REPORT IS OUT: GLOBAL OCEAN COMMISSION's HIGH SEAS SYMPOSIUM & FINAL RECOMMENDATIONS

4/22/2016

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Last fall (or "autumn" as they say here in England) I attended the Global Ocean Commission's symposium on the future of the High Seas hosted by my Oxford college, Somerville. A summary of the symposium and its recommendations is in the  Commission's most recent (and last) report, The Future Of Our Ocean: Next Steps and Priorities. This report, as well as the Commission's initial report, From Decline to Recovery: A Rescue Package for the Global Ocean, ​are now available to download online here. I highly recommend both, especially the first for its straight-forward, engaging, and well-researched perspective on the political actions needed for a healthy ocean. 
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Global Ocean Commission's High Seas Symposium
A major obstacle to better management and governance of the high seas... is the fundamental lack of understanding of their biological and physical elements. To address this shortcoming, and evaluate the potential need for a high seas regeneration zone, the Commission hosted an interdisciplinary High Seas Symposium in Oxford in November 2015. More than 40 experts in ocean science, economics and policy came together to identify areas requiring further research and direction. Participants were asked to perform a ‘horizon-scanning’ exercise to envisage the scenarios: business as usual; a recuperating high seas benefiting from effective governance with a strong implementing agreement that allows for significant high seas MPAs; and a future where the high seas are closed to all extractive human activities. This exercise highlighted the desirability of addressing high seas decline now, as laid out in the Commission’s suite of proposals, so that the radical creation of high seas regeneration zones will not be necessary.
--- The Future Of Our Ocean: Next Steps and Priorities
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    Grace Young  (B.S., MIT, Ph.D, Oxford) is an ocean engineer, aquanaut, and explorer currently working at X. She lived underwater as a scientist and engineer on Fabian Cousteau’s Mission 31, and is a National Geographic Explorer. 

    Blog Highlights: 
    1. No Engineer is an Island
    2. Mission 31 Highlights
    3. Sailing Across the Atlantic 
    ​3. Return to CERN

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