Tuesday, February 17, 2026.   Location:  MAE Auditorium.   11:30-12:30

Changing Polar Oceans - What is in and under the Ice

Dr. Antje Boetius
CEO and President of MBARI
Alfred Wegener Institute, Helmholtz Center for Polar and Marine Research

The ice-covered Arctic, Antarctic seas, and the Southern Ocean remain among the least explored ecosystems on Earth in terms of ocean processes, and biotic interactions. Together, they cover ~15% of the global ocean, forming the largest cold-water biome, with temperatures near or below the freezing point from top to bottom. In recent decades, these regions have warmed and lost sea ice more rapidly than at any other time in human history. This rapid transformation poses opportunities for access, but also risks due to the immense variability of sea ice behavior.  These include coastal erosion, more extreme weather events, threats to some of the planet’s most unique biological and genetic diversity, and long-term accelerated sea-level rise. Polar science therefore faces the urgent challenge of improving the predictability of ocean-ice interaction, and deepening our understanding of feedback mechanisms and teleconnections. This presentation highlights recent scientific findings from time series and year round polar studies, underscores the importance of international research initiatives, and discusses how they can inform about the future of polar seas.

Tuesday, July 8, 2025.  Spanagel Hall, Room 316.  12:00 

From large-scale internal tides to small-scale turbulence: observations on the continental slope off Tasmania

Dr. Camille Lique

Ifremer, Laboratoire d’Océanographie Physique et Spatiale, Brest, France

Mesoscale activity in the Arctic Ocean remains largely unexplored, owing primarily to the challenges of i) observing eddies in this ice-covered region and ii) modeling at such a small deformation radius. Yet, there is growing evidence of a strong interplay between sea ice and mesoscale eddies that can both modulate the sea ice conditions and induce some peculiarities in the Arctic turbulent field. 

In this talk, we will use observations of the ocean and sea ice conditions as well as results from simulations run at high resolution to explore the processes at play in the eddy-sea ice interplay, and discuss the time and space scales of these different processes. In particular, we will highlight how the presence of (sub-)mesoscale eddies may induce some heterogeneity in the sea ice conditions through both dynamical and thermodynamical processes.

Finally, we will discuss how these processes of eddy-sea ice interplay may evolve in the future as the Arctic transitions toward a seasonally ice-free regime, and future avenue for model development in order to reduce the uncertainty associated with the projected changes in the Arctic Basin.

Monday, March 31, 2025.  Spanagel Hall 316,  12:00

The physics is against us: adventures in marine sensing systems

Erin M. Fischell, PhD (President and Founder, Acbotics Research LLC) 

Development of marine sensing systems is fundamentally limited and challenged by the ocean environment, from the physics of light attenuation to the vagaries of long-range acoustic propagation to the hazards presented by the sea ice. This presentation describes a series of projects that use one-way travel acoustic and seismic techniques to overcome these challenges while observing at a distance, for a diverse set of applications including AUV swarming, source of opportunity underwater track reconstruction, lineless lobster fishing, and ice crack localization. Physics may pose barriers to ocean sensing, but with modern electronics design and signal processing methods it can also be a tool to see a bit further in the ocean.

A Moore Inventor Fellow with more than 15 years marine robotics and underwater acoustics expertise, Dr. Fischell’s work spans propagation physics, arctic acoustics, autonomy, signal processing, instrumentation development, and robot perception topics. She received her PhD in Mechanical and Oceanographic Engineering from the MIT/WHOI Joint Program in 2015, and continued her work under a Battelle postdoctoral fellowship at MIT. From 2017-2021, Dr. Fischell was an Assistant Scientist at the Woods Hole Oceanographic Institution where she served as PI on AUV, autonomy and acoustics projects while teaching acoustics in the MIT-WHOI Joint Program. Dr. Fischell founded Acbotics Research with the objective of providing ubiquitous marine sensing systems to the scientific community; at Acbotics, she splits her time between subject matter consulting, product line development and testing, and continuing research in areas of acoustics, array processing, autonomy, and sensing.

Wednesday, March 5, 2025.  Spanagel Hall 316.   12:00

Optimizing Human-AI Teaming in High-Stakes Decision-Making through Empathy: A SONAR Operations Application

Madeline Facino,  University of Bath

Abstract 

The increasing integration of artificial intelligence (AI) in high-stakes decision-making, particularly within military contexts, has revealed significant barriers to trust and adoption. While AI often exceeds human capabilities in specific tasks, skepticism arises from unrealistic expectations of perfection, which hampers its acceptance in critical operations. This PhD project seeks to address these challenges in trust and adoption by investigating whether incorporating a model of empathy into Human-AI (HAI) interactions can foster more effective Human-AI Teaming (HAIT). By dynamically responding to human factors such as stress, cognitive overload, and fatigue, Empathetic Artificial Intelligence (EAI) has the potential to simulate human-like supportive behaviors - enhancing teamwork by facilitating the complementary strengths of both humans and AI. To test this hypothesis, we employ a Sound Navigation and Ranging (SONAR) simulation game, Tactical OpeRation Testbed for Underwater Gamified Analysis (TOrTUGA), designed to replicate high-stakes scenarios and integrate EAI behavior. Through an interdisciplinary approach that spans computer science, engineering, and social sciences, this research aims to determine whether EAI can reduce operator distress, enhance trust, and improve team performance in complex environments. Notably, this study is not focused on advancing AI technology itself, but on demonstrating how a model of empathy can transform HAIT by addressing the psychological and emotional needs of human operators.