Ocean Ecology remains one of our six strategic priorities that are essential to achieving our strategic plan, Tabor 150: Navigating the Future. Bringing together Marion, the South Coast, and the Cape with our Tabor community of students, faculty, parents, and friends, our new science speaker series allows Tabor to showcase our unique high school marine and nautical science programs and how we are working to bring science leaders to Tabor, using the ocean an educational tool to study the world around us.
The Story
In the fall of 2015 I had a nice conversation with Tabor's Director of Communications, Kerry Saltonstall, about inviting scientists to present their research in Marine Science here at Tabor Academy. Kerry must have been thinking along the same lines as she suggested a series of speakers. Soon after the conversation, the Tabor Academy Science at Work Lecture Series was born.
The idea was to bring a presenter in that would be able to meet and greet students in classrooms and be on campus during the day, and then have the key presentation in the evening, to which the community, alumni, faculty, parents, and students would be invited. Several great choices were sent along and quickly Chris Linder was chosen to kick off the series with his ‘Science on Ice: Penguins and Permafrost’ presentation.
He started the series off with a bang, telling the intriguing story of his career spanning from the Naval Academy, to Woods Hole Oceanographic Institute, to Antarctica. Chris coupled his background in scientific research with his fantastic skill with photography to create
a great demonstration of his work.
Later that spring, Dr. Jennifer Francis P’14 ‘16 presented on crazy weather and the connection to climate change. Francis also took the time during the day to visit the Tabor students in their own classrooms. Her presentation was incredibly informative and skillfully demonstrated, and the event was well attended by students, faculty, alumni, and especially from a large group from the Woods Hole research community.
To kick off the 2015-16 academic year, we invited Dr. Gretchen Lebuhn as our third speaker for the science series. She gave a wonderful overview of her Citizen Science development and experience with bumblebees. She was also able to recruit students and community attendees to join the nationwide research mission.
Then On December 3, 2015, Dr. David Gallo spent the evening presenting a surfeit of information, including his favorite experiences as a researcher, to the very serious problems with climate change, to the work that yet has to be done for ocean exploration.
Coming up!
Our fifth presenter will be Dr. Amit Tandon. Dr. Tandon will visit us on April 28, 2016, at 6:30 pm in Lyndon South.
Dr. Tandon uses his knowledge of Fluid Mechanics and Physical Oceanography to address a myriad of problems involving mixing processes in the upper ocean. He uses analytical and numerical modeling to address the importance of mixing and mixed layer processes for ocean circulation and climate. His research interests span from small-scale turbulence and oceanic mixed-layer processes, to sub-mesoscale frontal gradients and mesoscale eddies, and their role in setting up the large scale balances in the ocean.
He has been published in Journal of Physical Oceanography, Ocean Modeling, Science (Online), Deep Sea Research, Journal of Geophysical Research-Oceans, Journal of Fluid Mechanics and Physica-D.
