NSU Horizons Fall 2017

31 NSU HORIZONS professor Tracey Sutton, Ph.D. “The deep sea is far from a deserted void—it hosts an amazingly diverse assortment of life and is critical to the health of our planet through the global cycling of carbon,” he added. “It is essential we improve our stewardship of our planet’s ‘inner space,’ and the first step is careful research.” The following NSU faculty members are involved in studies related to the Gulf of Mexico and the Deepwater Horizon incident. Sutton, is the director and principal investigator of the Deep Pelagic Nekton Dynamics (DEEPEND) Consortium within the Gulf of Mexico Research Initiative (GoMRI). DEEPEND is an $8.5-million research consortium of 11 insti- tutions and 80 members, with NSU as the lead institution. This ongoing work is an extension of work initiated shortly after the oil spill in 2010, at the request of the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration (NOAA). Tamara Frank, Ph.D., an NSU professor, is a coprincipal investigator and steering committee member in DEEPEND. Mahmood Shivji, Ph.D., an NSU professor, is also a coprincipal investigator in DEEPEND. Jose Lopez, Ph.D., an NSU professor, is also a co- principal investigator and steering committee member of the DEEPEND Consortium. Abigail Renegar, Ph.D., is an NSU research scientist and coprincipal investigator of the Clean Caribbean and Americas CoralTox project along with Richard Dodge, Ph.D., dean of NSU’s HCNSO. Renegar is also coprincipal investi- gator of the GoMRI project DeTOX, which is focused on understanding potential toxic effects of oil and dispersed oil in several ecologically important species. Interest in the Deepwater Horizon oil spill has never wavered, and the explosion of the offshore drilling rig has been the subject of documentaries and films. n Left, researchers aboard the R/V Point Sur are shown in the Gulf of Mexico. Center, Michael Vecchione, head of the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration National Systematics Lab, and NSU professor Tracey Sutton are pictured. Top right, NSU professor Tamara Frank, left, Michael Vecchione, Tracey Sutton, and Jon Moore sort shrimp, squid, fish, and gelatinous zooplankton. Bottom right, DEEPEND consortium program manager, April Cook, and M.S. candidate, Matthew Woodstock, enter the catch data. Photos courtesy of DEEPEND Consortium.