Stony Brook Southampton Hosts Third Ocean Acoustics Summer in School (OASiS) Bootcamp

Often students who study underwater acoustics never have the chance to take their skills to sea. But recently at Stony Brook Southampton, a group of students and researchers from across the country participated in the Ocean Acoustics Summer in Southampton (OASiS) Bootcamp, and had the opportunity to conduct experiments off the coast of Long Island and in the Atlantic Ocean, aboard two research vessels, the Paumanok and the Parker.

The Office of Naval Research (ONR) funded this underwater acoustics research project, which began in 2024 and is organized by Andrew Singer, dean of the College of Engineering and Applied Sciences, Professor Joseph Warren from the School of Marine and Atmospheric Sciences and Professor Grant Deane, who runs a similar program at Scripps Institute of Oceanography.

Singer and Warren led the bootcamp this year, under the guidance of several collaborating professional acousticians from universities and research laboratories across the country and with help from two teaching assistants. The student groups had four days to learn how to transmit, sense and measure different acoustic signals.

Although we transmit information on land using electromagnetic waves such as television signals, cellular telephone signals and radio signals, these don't penetrate the ocean and can't be used under the surface of the water. Even though two thirds of the surface of our planet is covered by water, the ocean's inhabitants have been communicating effortlessly using something that does propagate well through water - sound.

Not only do whales and dolphins communicate using sound, but also the undersea environment is teeming with life - and sound - and this makes acoustics, or sound, key to understanding marine environments. The group's goal was to examine and characterize the impact of ocean environmental conditions on their ability to transmit and receive sounds they prepared using transmitters and receivers they deployed.

The first essential exercise for the students was learning about calibration and operation of underwater acoustic equipment. How would they ensure that the calibrations provided by manufactured hydrophones - an underwater microphone that converts acoustic pressure changes into electrical signals - would be accurate and reliable, especially in the highly variable ocean?

"After learning how to calibrate hydrophones and transducers during the first two days of OASiS," Singer said, "they learned how to deploy them and use their calibrations to ensure they understood what their measurements actually mean about the undersea environment. This bootcamp-like experience provides them with a hands-on learning opportunity, where they literally get their hands wet."

Kanad Sarkar, a graduate student at the University of Illinois Urbana-Champaign, served as a teaching assistant for the past two years after participating in the bootcamp three years ago. "In just one week, participants learn to calibrate underwater acoustic equipment, build hydrophone arrays, and ultimately deploy those systems from boats," said Sarkar. "That kind of practical learning experience is difficult to find, and I'm incredibly grateful to everyone who has made it possible."

When designing an experiment, it is important to have reliable means of interpreting the results. Calibrated transmitters are especially essential to monitoring environmental effects of the experiment and ensuring compliance with any limits placed on their use in the areas of operation.

At the most basic level, the team had to verify that the transmitted signals were received at all, and if they were received in an expected manner. Then they had to create an experiment plan, across all groups, including what signals would be sent from a boat that contained transmit equipment, what equipment needed to be on each boat, and how the signals would be processed in real time from a receiver boat.

Before the group of students boarded the boats, they conducted a dry run off of the dock, with groups working separately in different environments. One team focused on the outdoor tank, and the other focused on the pier. Singer said, "They designed and fielded underwater communications experiments at sea."

"One of the strengths of the program is that we don't spoonfeed the students in terms of how they solved daily tasks," said Warren. "They can get a little frustrated when they pursue some options that don't work as well as they thought they would, but that's how real science occurs-you don't always nail it the first time you try an experiment."

Hunter Alloway, a graduate research student said it was "an experience that challenged and re-defined my understanding of acoustics." Emily Wong, a graduate research student added, "For me, the biggest challenge and victory was effectively communicating across the many teams at the camp and finding goals that were attainable and translated to the real world."

Another graduate research student, Anika Cho, said, "Beyond the technical training, OASiS was a fun trial-by-fire exercise in scientific teamwork. Working with a large team of students under a tight deadline challenged us all to communicate clearly across experience levels, prioritize under pressure, and adapt quickly when things went wrong."

Students attended from Cornell University, The University of Massachusetts at Dartmouth, George Mason University, Johns Hopkins University, Northeastern University, University of Rhode Island, University of Texas at Austin, University of Washington, Penn State University, University of California at San Diego and more.

Warren said, "We lucked out with the weather every year so far, so getting to run their experiment in the ocean is really a great reward for the students." He also noted that for a fair number of seasick participants it helped them learn how to work in less than optimal conditions, and also about the importance of relying upon multiple people to accomplish each task.

"OASiS is a wonderful opportunity for students to get hands-on access to ocean acoustics technology, facilities, faculty and peers," said Camille Wardlaw, a doctoral student in the Massachusetts Institute of Technology-Woods Hole Oceanographic Institution Joint Program. "Participating in this bootcamp not only gave me experience running experiments in the water, but also gave me friendly faces at conferences, lifelong mentors, and a supportive network of collaborators across the field." Wardlaw served as a teaching assistant and participated as a student for the past two years.

- Debra Scala Giokas