PI Name	Position	Funded Project	Sponsor
Vaudrey, Jamie M	Assistant Professor	UConn Department of Marine Sciences Technical Support Services in Support of the Designation of a CT NERR	DOC/NOAA/Oceanic and Atmospheric Research/CT Department of Energy and Environmental Protection
Whitney, Michael	Associate Professor	Collaborative Research: Mixing of river water into the coastal ocean and the role and structure of the outer edge of the discharge	NSF/GEO/Directorate for Geosciences
Baumann, Zofia A	Assistant Professor	Methylmercury and Total Mercury in Antarctic Seawater, Snow and Penguin Tissues	Korean Federation for Environmental Movement (KFEM)/Citizens’ Institute for Environmental Studies (CIES)
Cabaniss, Joseph T	Marine Operations Manager	Charter of R/V Connecticut by WHOI for ESP Deployment and Recovery	DOC/NOAA/National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration/Woods Hole Oceanographic Institution
Lombardo, Kelly	Assistant Professor	CAREER: The Response of Coastal Squall Line Dynamics to Climate Change	NSF/GEO/Directorate for Geosciences
Baumann, Hannes	Assistant Professor	Assessing Processes that Drive Fisheries Productivity on New England Sand Shoals	DOC/NOAA/National Ocean Service/DOC/NOAA/Stellwagen Bank National Marine Sanctuary
O’Donnell, James	Professor	The Development of the Connecticut Connections Coastal Resilience Plan	HUD/Department of Housing and Urban Development/CT Department of Housing
Randolph, Kaylan L	Assistant Research Scientist	A Measurement-Based Characterization of the Hyperspectral Reflectance of Breaking Waves, Subsurface Turbulent Kinetic Energy Dissipation Rates, and Air Entrainment as a Function of Physical Forcing	NASA Ocean Biology and Biogeochemistry
Cabaniss, Joseph T	Marine Operations Manager	Charter of R/V Connecticut by NOAA to Recover and Deploy Acoustics Recording Units	DOC/NOAA/National Marine Fisheries Service
Cabaniss, Joseph T	Marine Operations Manager	Charter of R/V Connecticut by Skidmore College for Equipment Testing	NASA/National Aeronautics and Space Administration/Skidmore College
Matassa, Catherine M	Assistant Professor	Identifying the Drivers of Marsh Loss in the Westport River	Westport River Watershed Alliance (WRWA)
Siedlecki, Samantha A	Assistant Professor	Enhancement of an Existing Ocean Forecast System to Include Ocean Acidification	DOC/NOAA/National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration/University of Washington
Siedlecki, Samantha A	Assistant Professor	Downscaled Seasonal Forecasts for Living Marine Resource Management off the US West Coast	DOC/NOAA/Oceanic and Atmospheric Research/University of Washington
O’Donnell, James	Professor	Municipal Resilience Planning Assistance Project	HUD/Department of Housing and Urban Development/CT Department of Energy and Environmental Protection
Cabaniss, Joseph T	Marine Operations Manager	Charter of R/V Connecticut by WHOI for Mooring Recovery Deployment	NSF/GEO/Directorate for Geosciences/Woods Hole Oceanographic Institution
Baumann, Hannes	Assistant Professor	Larval Connectivity and Habitat Modeling of Sand Lance on Stellwagen Bank and Nantucket Shoals	DOC/NOAA/National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration/Woods Hole Oceanographic Institution
Lund, David C	Associate Professor	Anomalous submarine volcanism during glacial terminations: Exploring archives from the Global mid-ocean ridge system	NSF/National Science Foundation
Baumann, Zofia A	Assistant Professor	Mercury Bioaccumulation in Southeastern Bering Sea	DOC/NOAA/National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration/North Pacific Research Board
Bucklin, Ann	Professor	Ocean Twilight Zone Project: Biodiversity Theme	TED Conferences/Woods Hole Oceanographic Institution
Cabaniss, Joseph T	Marine Operations Manager	Charter of R/V Connecticut for WHOI Glider Support	NSF/National Science Foundation/Woods Hole Oceanographic Institution
Siedlecki, Samantha A	Assistant Professor	Experiments with Seasonal Forecasts of ocean conditions in the Pacific Northwest to aid the crab fishery	DOC/NOAA/National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration/University of Washington
Ward, J E	Professor	NSF-IOS-BSF: Mediation of Biological Filtration in Marine Suspension Feeders: Significance of Intrinsic and Extrinsic Factors	NSF/National Science Foundation
Dam Guerrero, Hans G	Professor	ECHOHAB 2017: Are Growth and Toxicity of the Dinoflagellate Alexandrium Controlled by Grazer-Induced Defense?	DOC/NOAA/National Ocean Service
Cifuentes-Lorenzen, Alejandro	Postdoctoral Fellow	Collaborative Research: An Investigation of Energy Exchange Across the Air-Sea Interface in the Presence of Surface Gravity Waters through Measurement of Dissipation, Production, and Transport of TKE	NSF/GEO/Directorate for Geosciences

The Department of Marine Sciences (DMS) is home to a diverse interdisciplinary faculty, staff and students. It is one of the most successfully funded departments at UConn with a rich history of international collaborations and oceanographic research. This article is the first in a series of articles discussing how the department was formed and the accomplishments that shaped DMS as we know it. The story of the department begins in 1957 when UConn first established a formal marine science effort with the formation of the Marine Research Laboratory in Noank under the Directorship of John S. Rankin.

The Marine Research Laboratory replaced a lobster hatchery on the Mystic River and was largely a summer program until 1960, when resident UConn staff and students moved in and the program became more year ‘round. From the beginning, State agencies like the Connecticut Board of Fish and Game and the U.S. Geological Survey program worked in the laboratory alongside faculty and staff. In 1967, the University established the Marine Sciences Institute (MSI) based on the Avery Point campus. Dr. Peter Dehlinger, a geophysicist, was hired as the first Director of the Institute in 1968. MSI was appealing to young scientists in the 70s and showed promise to become a renowned oceanographic research center. There were many resources available including the R/V UCONN, small boat access, specialized staff and developing laboratories which provided support for an expanding range of relevant marine research. Drs. W. Frank Bohlen and William F. Fitzgerald, two of our valued and active emeritus faculty, were among those young scientists. They started at MSI as assistant professors in the Geology Department in 1969 and 1970, respectively, after obtaining their doctorates through the MIT-Woods Hole Joint Program in Oceanography. Dr. Fitzgerald established one of the first clean laboratories in the nation, making it possible to study trace metal biogeochemistry (e.g. mercury) without external contamination. Other research at the time included finfish and lobster surveys, benthic and water column ecological work, geophysical studies, physical/chemical oceanographic and sediment transport investigations.

While the institute structure was valuable for graduate student and faculty research, the faculty at MSI were separate from the departments to which they were appointed. This situation created problems because the faculty at MSI were often not conducting research that directly supported the associated department’s focus. To allow the oceanographic research program to grow further, the director at the time, Dr. Sung Feng, along with MSI faculty and graduate students convinced the administration to establish the Department of Marine Sciences in 1979. The Department of Marine Sciences was founded with the graduate program housed at Avery Point and some research laboratories remaining at the Noank facility. In the years to come faculty and staff would develop DMS into a top-tier program with a wide range of interdisciplinary research, particularly focused on coastal waters.

 

Special thanks to Drs. W. Frank Bohlen and William F. Fitzgerald for sharing their memories and contributing to this article.