Here is part 4, the final installment, of the text of a presentation Amy gave at the National Federation of the Blind Annual Convention in Orlando, Florida (#NFB24) on July 6, 2024 This experience made me realize, a little late maybe, that what I really needed to be on a level playing field with my […]

Here is part 3 of the text of a presentation Amy gave at the National Federation of the Blind Annual Convention in Orlando, Florida (#NFB24) on July 6, 2024 As a scientist with first low, and then almost no vision, I’ve had to navigate a sea of obstacles to be the oceanographer I wanted to […]

Here is part 2 of the text of a presentation Amy gave at the National Federation of the Blind Annual Convention in Orlando, Florida (#NFB24) on July 6, 2024 So, what do oceanographers do? Many think we only study what are sometimes called, charismatic megafauna: Whales, dolphins, sharks. But Oceanography is actually a vast field […]

Here is part 1 of the text of a presentation Amy gave at the National Federation of the Blind Annual Convention in Orlando, Florida (#NFB24) on July 6, 2024 These are words you never want to hear on a ship at sea: “Attention, all personnel. Return to your staterooms immediately and lock all doors and […]

A thick fog blanketed Woods Hole on the morning of Saturday, June 1st as my husband David and I drove to WHOI to meet eight students riding down from the Perkins School for the Blind in Watertown. I was reminiscing about where I was this time last year—on a plane heading for Iceland for a […]

After pulling into Reykjavik, Iceland on June 24, formally bringing to a close our research cruise to the Irminger Sea, I had a chance to do some touring around the city and nearby natural wonders with shipmates Heather, Hilary and Alison. We rented a car for the day, and our first stop was a national […]

As a little kid, I was always fond of the song that went with the Disney attraction, “It’s a Small World After All.” I remember having a 45 rpm record of the song, which I would play over and over. I’m guessing that I saw the attraction at its debut at the 1964 New York […]

For the past several days, the focus of activity on board the Neil Armstrong has been on the OSNAP project. OSNAP stands for Overturning in the Subpolar North Atlantic Program, and is an international effort to measure all the currents moving northward across 60N latitude, as well as the heat those currents carry. As described […]

I find it so interesting that the object of my research is mostly invisible. No one, sighted or not, can “see” ocean currents below the surface. In the same way, no one can “see” the wind—we can see and hear the effects of wind—blowing leaves, horizontal snow, rattling windows. But the human eye can’t actually […]

We are a week into this cruise now, and the weather has still been amazingly cooperative. Every now and then, the winds pipe up to around 20 knots (short for nautical miles per hour—mariners and fliers measure distance in nautical miles while landlubbers use statute miles—the nautical mile is about 15% longer than a statute […]