By Joanna Moore

Dr. Maureen Conte's association with the Bermuda Institute of Ocean Sciences (BIOS) began in 1994 when she took over leadership of the Ocean Flux Program at Woods Hole Oceanographic Institution (WHOI). This program has been running for over thirty years, continuously monitoring the magnitude and composition of sinking particle flux in the Sargasso Sea. The studies are conducted from a mooring sited about 75km southeast of Bermuda. The close collaboration between BIOS and WHOI in this program raised the opportunity for Dr. Conte to join BIOS as a non-resident faculty member in 2004.

Dr. Conte holds degrees from both Johns Hopkins and Columbia Universities. Her research into oceanic particle cycling, oceanic particle flux and biogenic aerosols has taken her all over the world, from the UK to US, Norway to Bermuda. Her extensive experience and familiarity with BIOS' Ocean Flux Program makes her an excellent mentor for the Nippon Foundation (NF)-Partnership for the Observations of the Global Oceans (POGO) Scholars in their module on Moored Observatories, which will include topics such as mooring design, sensors and moored instruments, and remote communications. The training process will include regular research cruises; as Dr. Conte points out, "no amount of classroom experience can take the place of hands-on experiences in dealing with the situations that one encounters at sea. Getting the job done, especially in bad weather, requires technical and communication skills that just can't be learned sitting in a classroom".

Dr. Conte believes strongly in the partnership between BIOS and the Nippon Foundation. The NF scholars join a Center of Excellence that emphasizes the need to study all of the world's oceans. To quote Dr. Conte, "The oceans and atmosphere respect no political boundaries. The view from space of weather patterns, ocean currents and productivity patterns makes this abundantly clear. Sophisticated tagging methods that allow us to track pelagic fish migrations across the ocean demonstrate just how interconnected our fisheries are. We can clearly observe how pollution sourced from one area moves downstream to negatively affect another. And we are beginning to see indications of ever more serious threats from climate change."

Dr. Conte is keen that we drive this message home: "Only a strong, unified global community has the ability to tackle these issues, and that's why programs like the NF-POGO Centre of Excellence are so important." She said, because the problems are global, the solutions must be global.

"At a critical juncture in my early career, I had the opportunity to attend workshops where I got to know fellow scientists-in-training from many countries. More than twenty years later I still interact with many of them. Does this early career networking still make a difference to the success of professional interactions? You bet it does!"

The NF-POGO Scholars will be trained at BIOS to understand how these moored observations can identify changing patterns and processes in the world's oceans as a whole. These skills will prove invaluable to the emerging generation of scientists, making it possible for them to predict how the ocean will be affected by changing climate patterns. They will be able to apply this knowledge and experience locally, when they return to their home countries. Dr. Conte emphasizes the need for cooperation between oceanographic institutions around the world: "To coordinate these observatories and to maximize the scientific benefits, we need to develop a global network of investigators having common goals and with the expertise and skills to maintain these observatories". By working together at the NF-POGO Centre of Excellence at BIOS, the scholars will have established a network of scientists with the capacity to sustain the global collaboration in oceanography that is at the very heart of POGO's mission.