Three Oregon State students signed up for a project in the university’s new humanitarian engineering program, the first question was, Have any of you made soap? Nervous laughter broke out when each one said “no.”
Laura Ferguson has dreamed of being a scientist since she was a child in Illinois, tromping through local streams. Her early explorations instilled a love of nature that led her to foreign countries and provided the necessary skills for her current post.
The United States has never been more connected to the global community than it is today.
At Oregon State University, researchers in fields as diverse as oceanography and agriculture study water in all its forms, liquid and frozen, fresh and saline, riverine and subterranean, perennial and ephemeral. And they have been doing it for almost 150 years.
The Marine Studies Initiative will build the university’s capacity to teach students, conduct more interdisciplinary research and provide service to coastal communities and businesses. A hallmark goal is to enroll 500 students on the Hatfield Marine Science Center campus by the year 2025.
In an Ocean Week speech on Capitol Hill in 2009, Jane Lubchenco laid out the goals: “Americans want clean beaches, healthy seafood, good jobs, abundant wildlife, stable fisheries and vibrant coastal communities … . This collection of services depends on healthy, productive and resilient ocean and coastal ecosystems.”