Acoustical Ocean Ecology

The Acoustical Ocean Ecology Group uses active acoustics, or sonar, to investigate how animals respond to constantly changing environments.

Benthic Biology and Ecology

The Benthic Biology Team studies the diversity of life on the seafloor, from exploring deep-sea habitats to measuring the effect of ocean change on the lives of marine animals.

Biodiversity and Biooptics

Gelatinous predators such as ctenophores, siphonophores, and hydromedusae display dazzling body forms and behaviors, and provide surprising linkages across the oceanic food web.

Bioinspiration Lab

The Bioinspiration Lab brings the ocean into the lab, and the lab into the ocean, by developing advanced imaging systems and algorithms to study marine life.

Biological Oceanography Group

The Biological Oceanography Team studies how life in the sea responds to climate change. We advance the field by improving methods to detect, observe, and understand variations of marine flora and fauna.

Carbon Flux Ecology

The Carbon Flux Ecology Team resolves the biology and ecology of sinking particles to advance our understanding of the ocean’s role in regulating the carbon cycle and climate.

Central & Northern California Ocean Observing System (CeNCOOS)

CeNCOOS is a collaborative that enables coastal monitoring, model forecasts, and integrated products to inform decisions about our regional ocean.

Chemical Sensors

This team develops sensor and float technologies to record fundamental ocean properties. Once a float is deployed, it takes measurements frequently, helping us understand our changing ocean.

Continental Margin Processes

This team investigates the movement of sediment across continental margins and how it shapes the existing submarine morphology.

Control, Modeling, and Perception of Autonomous Systems Laboratory

The Control, Modeling, Perception for Autonomous Systems (CoMPAS) Laboratory aims to develop and transfer technology for making ocean exploration more accessible and widespread, and to help answer several questions that remain open about our planet.

Data Integration and Interdisciplinary Oceanography

This team is generating new knowledge in oceanography through data integration, statistical analysis, and mathematical representation of physical/biological processes.

Enabling a Persistent Presence

This team is developing power capture and transfer technology to enable a long-term presence of instrumentation in the ocean.

Long-range AUV (LRAUV)

The Engineering Team is refining the LRAUV system and developing new capabilities to expand the breadth of ocean science applications that scientists can address with this new ocean robot.

Marine Robots’ Onboard Intelligence for Capturing Oceanographic Features

This team is developing onboard intelligence for autonomous underwater vehicles (AUVs) and autonomous surface vehicles (ASVs).

Midwater Ecology

The Midwater Ecology Team studies the animals of the oceanic water column directly, using undersea vehicles to carry cameras, instruments, tools, and samplers into their deep habitat.

Ocean Biogeochemical Sensing (OBS)

OBS develops and applies new sensing technologies to study ocean biogeochemical cycles, with an emphasis on the coastal ocean.

Ocean Soundscape

Exploring natural and anthropogenic sound in the ocean to advance marine ecology and inform stewardship of the sea.

SciComm Team

The SciComm team creates and shares content about MBARI's research and technology to inspire curiosity, concern, and love for the ocean with diverse audiences.

Seafloor Mapping Lab

The Seafloor Mapping Team collects multi-scale seafloor bathymetry and imaging data with precision navigation to produce efficient, high-resolution, and repeatable characterizations of deep-sea sites.

Seafloor Processes

SURF Center

The SURF Center (Sensors: Underwater Research of the Future) develops and deploys instruments that can autonomously collect and process water samples.

Video Lab

The Video Laboratory Team members are the stewards of MBARI’s extraordinary deep-sea video archives, which provide an invaluable, decades-long record of the diversity of ocean life.