Marine Scientists Awarded More than $29M for Gulf Research
UM :: Veritas
MIAMI, Fla. (November 19, 2014)—Researchers at the Rosenstiel School of Marine and Atmospheric Science were awarded more than $29 million in research grants from the Gulf of Mexico Research Initiative (GoMRI) to lead the Consortium for Advanced Research on the Transport of Hydrocarbons in the Environment (CARTHE) and to study the toxic effects of crude oil on fish that reside in the Gulf of Mexico. The Rosenstiel School was the only research institution to receive two of the 12 highly competitive GoMRI grants.
“We are thrilled that GoMRI awarded such a substantial portion of the overall research funds to the two exceptional research teams put together by our scientists in collaboration with many partners at various institutions,” said Rosenstiel School Dean Roni Avissar. “This will allow these two teams to conduct the critical research studies necessary to understand the impacts of oil spills from both oceanographic and biological perspectives.”
Under the leadership of Professor Tamay Özgökmen, the CARTHE research consortium received more than $20 million to continue the research necessary to predict the path of oil released into the environment and help guide the response to future oil spills. This second phase of CARTHE, which supports research through 2017, will help scientists develop and improve computational tools to accurately predict the fate of hydrocarbons found in crude oil that are released into the environment, and help guide risk management and response efforts in mitigation and restoration of the economy and the ecosystem in situations like the Deepwater Horizon oil spill.