Launch Your Ocean Data Skills with EMBARK CyberTraining!

Applications will open in early November 2026 for the first cohort of EMBARK CyberTraining, a free, mentored, virtual training program designed to help U.S. based early career ocean professionals (ECOPs) develop skills in finding, accessing, and using ocean science data.

Participants will gain hands-on experience working with real ocean datasets and cloud-based computing tools while connecting with peers. The first course will consist of six two-hour sessions, held on Tuesdays and Thursdays from January 12–28, 2027.

Exercises will feature data from a variety of ocean observing systems and community data repositories, with each live session centered on a research scenario co-designed by an ECOP. Data from three NSF Ocean Observatories Initiative (OOI) arrays will be incorporated into the training, including exercises that use the OOI JupyterHub for data-proximate computing.

Additional datasets will come from the NSF Biological and Chemical Oceanography Data Management Office (BCO-DMO), the NSF Environmental Data Initiative (EDI), the Rutgers University Ocean Modeling Group’s ROMS Doppio Real-Time Operational Forecast System, and more.

Training exercises featuring OOI data will include:

• Visualizing CTD and water sampling data from OOI’s Global Irminger Sea Array alongside Argo float observations.
• Comparing mooring observations from OOI’s Coastal Pioneer Mid-Atlantic Bight Array with regional ocean model outputs and satellite data products.
• Using a pre-trained artificial intelligence (AI) model to begin processing imagery collected by OOI’s Regional Cabled Array.

EMBARK (Essential skills to minimize Moving large data By Accessing and Reusing data with software worKflows) CyberTraining is funded by the U.S. National Science Foundation with project PIs Stace Beaulieu (Woods Hole Oceanographic Institution), Sage Lichtenwalner (Rutgers University), and Liz Hetherington (Scripps Institution of Oceanography).

Interested in participating? Visit the EMBARK CyberTraining website or contact Liz Hetherington (ehetheri@ucsd.edu) for program details and application information.  For additional information, view the EMBARK CyberTraining poster.