- Rich Camilli
- Woods Hole Oceanographic Institution
Department of Applied Ocean Physics and Engineering
I am interested in developing sensor technologies that enable observation of our natural environment in much the same way that biomedical engineering has advanced our ability to observe and understand the human body. As an undergraduate I studied biology at Cheyney University and while in graduate school at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology I studied environmental engineering. I received my PhD in 2003 and am now a scientist in the Woods Hole Oceanographic Institution’s Department of Applied Ocean Physics and Engineering (or WHOI AOP&E for short). At WHOI I am a member of the Deep Submergence Laboratory and my work tends to focus on developing robotic sensors for exploring and monitoring parts of the world’s oceans that are too deep for humans to venture. Although I tend to conduct my research in the deep ocean, many of the systems that I develop and use are also useful for research divers studying shallower environments like the reef ecosystem at the Aquarius habitat.
Robotic sensor development is an exciting field of work and very interdisciplinary. It involves elements of physics, electrical and mechanical engineering, mathematics, chemistry, and biology. My research has taken me literally all over the world, including on submarines deep into underwater volcanoes, on expeditions to the Arctic, and archaeological investigations of ancient shipwrecks in the Mediterranean Sea. Aside from oceanographic research I occasionally work with organizations such as NASA and the EPA on technology development for planetary exploration and environmental monitoring programs.
As an Aquanaut I will be using a sensor that I recently developed in partnership with Monitor Instruments Co., through a research grant from the National Ocean Partnership Program. This instrument, TETHYS, is a robotic chemical sensor that we will use to monitor the bio-chemistry of various reef organisms in much the same way that a physician monitors a patient’s vital signs during a surgical procedure. Tethys is the Titan sea goddess of ancient Greek mythology, but it is also the name of the Earth’s first ocean that surrounded Pangaea during the Mesozoic era. When my colleagues and I were designing this instrument I chose the name TETHYS as an acronym (TETHered Yearlong Spectrometer) because it is an underwater mass spectrometer that can monitor ocean chemistry for periods of a year or more. During this project the our team of Aquanauts will use the TETHYS sensor to study how the marine organisms influence reef chemistry and investigate the impact of greenhouse gases and other possible pollution sources in the rapidly changing reef ecosystems of the Florida Keys.
