2025 OOIFB Summer School on Acoustics

From July 14-18, 2025, the U.S. National Science Founded funded OOI Facility Board (OOIFB) hosted an immersive summer school at the University of Washington in Seattle, bringing together early-career ocean scientists to explore the science and applications of underwater acoustics using Ocean Observatories Initiative (OOI) data.

Co-chaired by Dr. Wu-Jung Lee and Dr. Shima Abadi of the University of Washington, the program combined targeted lectures, hands-on tutorials, and real-world exercises to build participant expertise in accessing, processing, and interpreting both active and passive acoustic datasets including those from echosounders, hydrophones, and bioacoustic sonars available through the OOI network.

Over five days, participants gained:

• Core knowledge on underwater sound propagation and the main factors influencing it.
• Familiarity with the range of acoustic instruments deployed in the OOI network.
• Practical skills in navigating OOI data portals to access and download acoustic and complementary oceanographic datasets.
• Experience working with OOI datasets in JupyterHub, building Python skills and reinforcing coding as a core part of the program.
• Insights into scientific questions that can be addressed using OOI data.
• Connections with a community of researchers using OOI data in their work.

Participants

This year’s program welcomed 23 advanced graduate students, postdoctoral fellows, and early-career scientists from diverse research backgrounds. While geared toward those with an interest in underwater acoustics, the school was designed to be accessible, with no prior deep expertise required and high-level primers on underwater acoustics provided.

Looking Ahead

Archived materials, including the full agenda and select summer school resources, will be made available in the coming months for the broader research community.

The OOIFB Summer School on Acoustics exemplifies how targeted training can build a knowledge base in ocean acoustics research and broaden the use of OOI data in science and education.

The 2025 OOIFB Summer School on Acoustics cohort at the OOI-RCA Sand Point Facility.

Students working through data exercises in the OOI JupyterHub environment. Credit: Holly Morin, OOIFB

Students working through data exercises in the OOI JupyterHub environment. Credit: Holly Morin, OOIFB

Dr. John Ragland works with participants to interpret outputs from a passive acoustic dataset. Credit: Holly Morin, OOIFB

Participants tour the OOI-RCA Sand Point Facility. Credit: Holly Morin, OOIFB