Greetings From
SoMAS
SoMAS
SOMAS.STONYBROOK.EDU

TRIENNIAL REPORT 2018-2020

Making Scientific Research Count at Stony Brook University!

SoMAS Dean Paul Shepson

SoMAS Dean Paul Shepson

The School of Marine and Atmospheric Sciences (SoMAS) at Stony Brook University is the State University of New York’s designated center for marine sciences and a leader in marine, atmospheric and sustainability research, education, and public service. We are committed to meeting our responsibilities by applying our capabilities contributing to a resilient and sustainable environment.

During this triennial period, 2018-2020, the SoMAS continued to grow and evolve as a comprehensive coastal environmental research and educational program. We spent much of the 2018/19 academic year working on our new Strategic Plan, which lays out three main Goals for the next five years: to invest in and significantly grow the quality and impact of our research enterprise; to develop and inspire the next generation of leaders, who will have plenty of challenges to tackle, and; to lead efforts to understand, mitigate and adapt to climate change and other environmental problems. We began right away to implement pursuit of these goals. We have increased our proposal submissions and are having great successes, and we are working hard to grow the graduate programs. SoMAS has been leading the efforts to create a new campus-wide Center for environmental research and education, and organized and ran a workshop on December 6 at the Simons Center to help develop ideas for Center research foci. We expect this to lead to a new campus-wide center in 2021. A significant part of our research involves engagement with stakeholders in New York State, faced with environmental challenges that impact the local and regional economies. An example of our responsiveness is our efforts to upgrade the capabilities in marine ecology research at Flax Pond. The Flax Pond Marine Lab is being renovated, with sea water intake capabilities, and capabilities to operate part of the facility as a shellfish hatchery, and to conduct “multi-stressor” experiments with control of sea water variables, including temperature, salinity, and pH. This is just one effort in a long-term plan to invigorate and upgrade our research and education facilities.

SoMAS aims to be a world-class integrative program in marine, atmospheric and sustainability research and education, committed to a culture that promotes academic excellence, diversity, equity and inclusion. The word “integrative” here is essential, as the Earth effectively couples the atmosphere, the oceans, the terrestrial biosphere, and the built environments, and, to create sustainable human systems, we must understand the full Earth system and its connected interacting components. Here we summarize our activities and achievements of the last two years, but do so in the context of a revitalized vision for an impactful future for SoMAS.

Dr. Paul Shepson, Dean
School of Marine and Atmospheric Sciences / Stony Brook University / Stony Brook, NY 11794-5000 
Phone: 631-632-8781 / Fax: 631-632-8915 / Email: somas@stonybrook.edu
http://somas.stonybrook.edu

This report is divided into several sections that highlight a different aspect of the activities at SoMAS for 2018-2019.  A brief description of each section is below:

 

This report was compiled by Mark Lang with content provided by Dominique Barone, Christina Fink, Ginny Clancy, and Stefanie Massucci.

School of Marine and Atmospheric Sciences, SoMAS, at Stony Brook University, Stony Brook, NY 11794-5000, USA
Phone: 631-632-8700
somas@stonybrook.edu