Teaching

Avery Point Spotlight: Jeff Godfrey

Posted on February 5, 2026February 5, 2026 by Hannes Baumann

By: Anne L. Gilewski

Officially, Jeff is an Academic Assistant at UConn's Marine Sciences Department, but if you’ve ever been lucky enough to interact with Jeff, you know he’s far more than that. Over his 26-year career directing dive operations, Jeff standardized a formal curriculum that includes course work for Open Water Dive and Scientific Diving training and certification. He also maintained all facilities and equipment, approved dive plans, and has been part of countless research projects that require dive operations.

Every superhero has an origin story, so we asked Jeff to share his!

Growing up in Utah, Jeff had three dream jobs in his mind: paleontologist, astronaut, or diver. After watching cartoons, Jeff would switch over to Sea Hunt, a 1958 program about the adventures of an ex-Navy frogman, starring a very handsome Lloyd Bridges. After that was The Undersea World of Jacques Cousteau, a series that often served as inspiration for future marine biologists—including Jeff.

Despite living in a landlocked state, diving found Jeff. During his senior year in high school, when he wasn’t racing motorcycles and boating, Jeff took a diving certification course after school class—a move he says was a good way to get out of chores. Though the impetus may have been to avoid milking the cows, that course set the stage for a lifelong passion.

Jeff set out to build up a collection of certifications, started snorkeling, free diving, and collecting daphnia and salamanders for local aquarium stores. At 24, he earned his Dive Instructor certification. In 1987, while earning his bachelor’s degree in Applied Biology from Utah State University, Jeff joined the Utah Fish & Wildlife Cooperative Research Unit as a Field Tech and Research Diver. Being a field diver is most decidedly not a desk job. A typical day might be ice diving in the Flaming Gorge reservoir, or monitoring trout habitat in the Green River, maybe even donning 90 extra pounds to face the white water of the Green River!

After graduation, Jeff accepted a position at the Marine Resources Development Center Underwater Foundation’s MarineLab program in Key Largo, FL. Jeff taught Marine Ecology to students of all ages, conducting lectures on seagrasses, marine algae, mangroves, coral reefs, astronomy, and marine invertebrates—to name a few. A chance phone call from Avery Point librarian Jan Heckman about an open Dive Safety Office position in a small Connecticut town piqued his interest. In 1999, Jeff and his family moved north, and the rest is history. (Thank you, Jan!)

Amongst all the diving Jeff had done, we had to know: What was the most memorable? (Spoiler alert! It was hard to choose).

“Blue water diving in Antarctica. To see that environment—icebergs, Deception, Palmer Station”, Australia, Hong Kong, China, American Samoa, and everywhere in the United States.” Jeff also had the opportunity to dive the USS Monitor and take part in a National Geographic survey in the Bahamas—diving to 430 feet!

We asked Jeff what it takes to be a DSO at a university. Here’s his advice:

DSOs facilitate dive operations to be done safely and efficiently. Jeff strongly believes in looking at universities that have a well-developed program. A STEM degree, with coursework in physics, chemistry, and biology, is a critical piece. A research DSO needs to have a solid science background to effectively communicate with investigators—graduate degrees are not uncommon in this field. Most importantly, spend a lot of time in the water. Diving is a tool; for a diver to be useful, they need to have extensive experience in a variety of conditions.

Any final thoughts?

Jeff is grateful to UConn for supporting his endeavors to increase technology for scientific diving here at Avery Point. His hope for the future? UConn continues to push students to take advantage of these advanced technologies in their academic pursuits.

Thank you, Jeff, for 26 years of service. We wish you the best in your retirement!

DMS researchers test novel underwater “presenter” helmet

Posted on May 22, 2025 by Hannes Baumann

Helmet_Auster_2 — Prof. emer. Peter Auster during the test dive of the new presenter helmet

21 May 2025
Research Professor Emeritus Peter Auster led a development project to demonstrate the utility of a "presenter helmet" and integrated oxygen rebreather to engage audiences with video recorded directly from environments of interest. The novel helmet allows an expressive human face and voice rich in excitement, in contrast to standard helmets and full-face masks.

The field test was conducted from the RV Weicker in a shallow seagrass meadow off Avery Point. The project was funded by CT SeaGrant with vessel support from the CT National Estuarine Research Reserve. Mike Lombardi from Lombardi Undersea LLC designed and built the helmet, rebreather, and submersible video "studio" complete with voice from the helmet. Associate Professor Jason Krumholz from the CT Reserve also dove the helmet and collected multiple video segments for posting over the web. The potential for “live dives” with a host on the seafloor is a possibility in the future.

Graduate Students Bring Ocean Science to Life at Sip ‘n Science Event

Posted on May 12, 2025May 16, 2025 by Hannes Baumann

By Samantha Rush.

Last Friday, DMS graduate students hosted the annual Sip ‘n Science event at Beer’d Brewing Co. in Stonington, featuring interactive science demonstrations for the local community. Despite a torrential downpour outside, the event was well attended and highlighted meaningful engagement between students, faculty, and the public. Students designed demonstrations of oceanographic principles or their own research, showcasing the breadth of work at the Marine Sciences department while also gaining valuable experience in communicating complex scientific concepts to a general audience.

This year’s demonstrations covered a wide range of topics, including microfossils, mercury, marshes, ocean waves, isotopes, ocean acidification, the Coriolis force, sea ice brine, Black Sea Bass gut contents, planktonic species, and coastal snails and crabs. Students were nothing short of creative - designing wave tank races, ranking games for mercury-impacted species, isotope explanations using the Hungry Hungry Hippos game, visual displays of acidification effects on seashells, rotating table experiments with dye to show ocean forces, larger than life-sized sea bass cutouts, and salty ice cubes to simulate polar sea ice processes.

Well done, everyone! The department is truly proud of its graduate students!

DMS sophomore to study if tiny algae grow calcium carbonate crystals

Posted on February 12, 2025February 12, 2025 by Hannes Baumann

Evelyn Lewis glances at the well plates full of colorful slime in Prof. Visscher’s lab and smiles. The life thriving in there is invisible to the naked eye, but she knows how to keep the microscopic critters happy. For almost a year now, she has helped taking care of them, and this has helped others in the lab with their research projects.

But now, Evelyn is starting a project of her own. Her soft voice betrays the nascent excitement, as she examines a well plate full of what looks like crusty, white dust.

“These are calcium carbonate crystals, and they look so beautiful under the microscope”, she says.

Thanks to a new supply grant from UConn’s Office for Undergraduate research, she will now have the opportunity to look at many more of these crystals. Evelyn’s research will focus on some of the smallest photosynthetic organisms in world, cyanobacteria. When they bloom they often coat themselves in slime that they can chemically manipulate. The conditions in this extracellular slime might then become favorable to bind carbon dioxide (CO₂) in form of calcium carbonate (CaCO₃), ultimately removing it from the atmosphere. In other words, cyanobacteria may be tiny but mighty as a natural tool for combating the increase of heat-trapping CO2 in the atmosphere.

“These natural options of using microbial slime for CO₂ removal remain surprisingly underexplored”, explains Visscher. “The slime binds calcium and when it sinks to the bottom, it supports CaCO₃ formation in sediments for thousands of years. This recently discovered mechanism provides novel insights into the global carbon cycle.”

So over the course of the next months, Evelyn will culture cyanobacteria again – but this time for her project. In small well plates, she will measure their CaCO₃ production for about two weeks in relation to differing amounts of calcium. Yet the arguably coolest part will come after that, when the collected crystals will be examined using scanning electron microscopy (SEM) and energy dispersive X-ray spectroscopy (EDS).

Ultimately, the gathered data will allow testing the overarching hypothesis that the presence of cyanobacteria increases CaCO₃ precipitation.

New fellowship offers outreach experience for DMS students!

Posted on September 17, 2024September 17, 2024 by Hannes Baumann

The New Generation of Marine Scientists and Stewards Fellowship is a new initiative led by Dr. Zofia Baumann, who has secured funding for the Department of Marine Sciences to award $1,500 to each of three graduate students for the academic year 2024/25. The inaugural recipients of this fellowship are Anagha Payyambally, Emily Watling, and Bernard Akaawase, who bring a rich diversity of backgrounds, experiences, and expertise to share with K-12 students in Groton, CT.

Located in the southeastern corner of Connecticut, Groton is part of the ancestral territory of the Mohegan, Mashantucket Pequot, Eastern Pequot, Schaghticoke, Golden Hill Paugussett, Nipmuc, and Lenape Peoples, who have been stewards of this land for generations. Groton is also classified as an Environmental Justice Community, underscoring the importance of land and water stewardship to protect the marine ecosystems that coastal communities, including Groton, rely on. Scientific inquiry is a powerful tool that can empower people to become environmental stewards, and the fellowship recipients will engage with K-12 students in Groton to share their unique perspectives on this process.

Anagha Payyambally is a first-generation graduate student from India pursuing a Ph.D. in chemical oceanography. She understands the immense value of sharing ideas with the younger generation and is eager to contribute to this initiative.

Emily Watling, a New England native passionate about the marine environment, is working toward her M.S. with a focus on marine ecology. She is excited to collaborate with the other fellows and bring a "storm of ideas" to the table.

Bernard Akaawase, originally from Nigeria, is a third-year Ph.D. student specializing in physical oceanography. Committed to engaging with the younger generation, he has also served as the community outreach chair for the Graduate Students of Color Association (GSCA) at UConn.

As the fellows embark on this journey, stay tuned for updates on their activities and impact in the Groton community.

Finally in person again: Feng Graduate Research Colloquium 2023!

Posted on June 2, 2023June 13, 2023 by Hannes Baumann

18 May 2023. After a COVID-forced hiatus of more than two years, our department finally held a successful Feng graduate student research colloquium in person again. The Feng Graduate Research Colloquium has been a tradition in the Marine Sciences Department since 1996. Named after the first Head of the Department of Marine Sciences, Dr. Sung Y. Feng, the colloquium was started by Prof. Hans Dam. The colloquium acts as a conference in which students receive friendly, constructive criticism, and have the opportunity to work on developing their abstract writing, leadership, and scientific communication skills. The Colloquium is funded by the Department of Marine Sciences and the S.Y. Feng Scholarship Fund.

This years colloquium featured 16 oral presentations and 20 posters spanning the entire diversity of marine research in our department. Special thanks to the student organizers and Debra Schuler for the help behind the scenes.

See the colloquium list of talks and poster presentations, including abstracts

Prof. Catherine Matassa wins UConn-AAUP Teaching excellence award

Posted on March 16, 2023June 1, 2023 by Hannes Baumann

23 March 2023. DMS is proud to share that Prof. Catherine Matassa has been selected for a 2023 UConn-AAUP Excellence Award in the Early Career Teaching category. This is well deserved, because since joining our department, Catherine has distinguished herself as one of the most cherished, effective and innovative educators for undergraduate and graduate students of our Department and CLAS. Her enthusiasm for Marine Biology and her innovative approach to teaching Quantitative Methods and Experimental Design are a true enrichment to students and faculty alike.

Here are some excerpts of what colleagues and students had to say about Catherine's teaching:

"In addition to providing the foundational basis of marine ecosystems, she facilitates transformative learning experiences with hands-on laboratory and field activities where students apply their knowledge and conduct independent research. Courses where students conduct independent research require much larger investment of time and energy from the instructor." Prof. Heidi Dierssen

"Almost from the time I arrived at UConn in 1995, I heard colleagues in Marine Sciences discussing the need for an Experimental Design/Statistics course for our students. Being located at Avery Point has always limited our participation in Storrs-based classes, so we tried, and failed, several times to develop a course of our own. When Catherine arrived, the problem was solved. Her class, MARN 4210Q Experimental Design in Marine Ecology, covers the basics of hypothesis testing and gives students a good working knowledge of R, the state-of-the-art computing environment for scientific statistics." Prof. George McManus

"Catherine created the experimental design and analysis course to address the demand for a course that covered statistics, coding and design. The course provided us with real data to run analyses on in R and posed questions, which we addressed with experimental design. The homework was dynamic and helped me hone my abilities coding in R and interpreting statistical results. I took a statistics class during my undergraduate studies but gained a much better understanding of analyses with Catherine's hands-on approach." Kayla Mladinich, PhD student

"I took Dr. Matassa’s Marine Biology course in the Fall of 2022. I personally was impressed with how innovative and diverse the content that she included in the class was. The laboratory experiments perfectly complemented the lecture period and helped me relate the information on the slides to real life situations. The ability to write and explore our own independent projects as well provided creative freedom that many other class labs seem to be lacking, and she did well to encourage critical thinking and exemplify how our experiments relate to real marine problems. Her inclusion of science communication in the curriculum was also a refreshing innovation to the lecture period, and something I had not experienced before in a STEM class." Greg Aniolek, undergraduate student

"Dr. Matassa coordinated an engaging field trip to Avery Point that was an exciting opportunity for students to expand their knowledge outside of the classroom. This opportunity included a tour of the Long Island Sound on a Project Oceanography research boat. While the tour was guided by two Project Oceanography educators, Dr. Matassa took every chance to communicate additional information that related to our classroom studies and energetically answered the questions that were raised. Dr. Matassa had something interesting and relevant to say about every species that we collected on the boat." Lukas Liebowitz, Senior Biology Major 2023

A supply grant from UConn's Office of Undergraduate Research (OUR) will test whether cyanobacteria could assist with removing carbon dioxide