Research

While the rest of the world is asking questions, the NSU Oceanographic Center is finding answers. Since inception in 1966, the Oceanographic Center has a long history of conducting extramurally funded ocean research in a variety of topics and disciplines. The Oceanographic Center faculty, researchers, staff, and students pursue studies and investigations in marine biology and in observational and theoretical oceanography. Marine research remains at the forefront of the Center's many initiatives, with a distinct focus on coral reefs ecosystems and fish science and conservation.

The Center's faculty and staff are academics, professors, researchers and mentors for their students, and their cumulative efforts to promote a sustainable ocean are getting noticed. Their work is published in the peer-reviewed literature. The Center was recently awarded a $15 million stimulus grant from the federal government to build the nation's largest coral reef research center.

Research topics include coastal dynamics, ocean-atmosphere coupling, coral reef ecology (including assessment, restoration, and monitoring), conservation biology and ecology, biological oceanography, chemical oceanography, deep sea biology and ecology, Pleistocene and Holocene sea level changes, benthic ecology, marine plankton, microbial ecology, invertebrate systematics and phylogeny, calcification of invertebrates, cell ultrastructure, marine fisheries, sea turtles, molecular ecology and evolution, wetlands ecology, aquaculture, and nutrient dynamics.

Regions of interest include not only Florida's coastal waters and the continental shelf/slope waters of the southeastern United States, but also the waters of the Caribbean Sea, the Gulf of Mexico, and the Antarctic, Atlantic, Indian, and Pacific Oceans.