Arthur B. Baggeroer is a Ford Professor of Engineering in the Departments of Mechanical Engineering and Electrical Engineering and Computer Science. He received the degrees of BSEE from Purdue University in 1963 and ScD from MIT in 1968.

He was been a consultant to the Chief of Naval Research at the NATO SACLANT Center (now NURC) in 1977 and a Cecil and Ida Green Scholar at the Scripps Institution of Oceanography in 1990 while on sabbatical leaves. He is a Fellow of the IEEE and the Acoustical Society of America. He received the IEEE Oceanic Engineering Society Distinguished Technical Achievement Award in 1991, was an elected member of the Executive Council of the Acoustical Society from 1994-1997, and was awarded the Rayleigh-Helmholtz Medal from the Acoustical Society in 2003. He was elected to the National Academy of Engineering in 1995 and awarded a Secretary of the Navy / Chief of Naval Operations Chair in Oceanographic Science in 1998.
He has served as a senior advisor to the Navy on numerous committees and panels. He recently chaired the NSB panel on Distributed Remote Surveillance (DRS).

Baggeroer was awarded the “Distinguished Alumni Award” of the Department of Electrical and Computer Engineering from his alma mater, Purdue University. He was recently awarded the ADM Charles Martel - David Bushnell Award by NDIA for ”outstanding technical contributions to the defense of the US in the field of UnderseaWarfare.” He has long been recognized as the outstanding academic for Anti- Submarine Warfare (ASW). Some of the Navy Committees he has been involved are:

1. the Naval Studies Board (NSB)
2. the Ocean Studies Board (OSB) of the National Academy
3. the Submarine Superiority Technical Advisory Group (He was a member of the original committee for ADM Demars which led to APB/ARCI.)
4. the Fixed Surveillance Systems Technical Advisory Group;
5. the SSIPT for N84 (twice)
6. the ”Red Team” special programs component for the Way Ahead for ASW
7. an advisory panel member for several programs for the Navy and DARPA
8. the Naval Research Advisory Committee.

He has been chief scientist on 15 oceanographic cruises with seven in the Arctic Ocean. His research has concerned signal and array processing for sonar, radar and seismic systems, ocean acoustic telemetry, global acoustics for ocean thermometry and ocean warming and matched field array processing. He also has had long affiliations with the Woods Hole Oceanographic Institution (WHOI) where he was director of the MIT-Woods Hole Joint Program from 1983-1988 and the MIT Lincoln Laboratory.

Tanja Bosak is the Cecil and Ida Green Assistant Professor of Geobiology at MIT and directs the MIT Laboratory for Geomicrobiology and Microbial Sedimentology that investigates the co-evolution of life and the environment on early Earth. 

The research in her group integrates physiological and ecological studies of modern microbes with field and laboratory experiments in microbial sedimentology to develop a quantitative understanding of various morphological and geochemical biosignatures found in sedimentary rocks.  Her laboratory also investigates microfossil record associated with some of the major climatic and geochemical oscillations in the Neoproterozoic.

Bosak received her PhD in Geobiology at the California Institute of Technology and was a Microbial Sciences Initiative Fellow at Harvard University before joining the MIT faculty. Her awards include the Subaru Outstanding Woman in Science Award from the Geological Society of America and Everhart Distinguished Graduate Student Lecturer Award from the California Institute of Technology.

J. Kim Vandiver is MIT's Dean for Undergraduate Research, Director of the Edgerton Center and Director of MIT's Undergraduate Research Opportunities Program (UROP), which involves 80% of MIT's undergraduate students in research projects with MIT research staff and faculty. In 1992 he founded the Edgerton Center at MIT, which provides resources for MIT students engaged in hands-on educational projects. The Center also runs a K-12 outreach program for local teachers and their classrooms.

Throughout his teaching career, Prof. Vandiver has stressed the importance of hands-on learning. He has worked to enliven the mainstream curriculum, incorporating more and earlier opportunities for students to solve real-life problems, engage in research, and develop relationships with faculty. In 1998 he was the recipient of the MIT President's Award for Community Service for the Edgerton Center's work with the Cambridge Public Schools. In 2001 he was honored as a MacVicar Fellow for excellence in teaching. In 2005, he received the Offshore Technology Conference Distinguished Achievement Award for Individuals. In 2006, he received the ASME A. Lubinski Best Paper Award for the Offshore Technology Conference. In 2011, he was honored with the Arthur C. Smith Award for meaningful contributions and devotion to undergraduate student life at MIT, and in 2012 he was honored with the MIT Gordon Y. Billard Award for special service of outstanding merit.

 

A member of the Ocean Engineering Department, now Mechanical Engineering, faculty since 1975, Prof. Vandiver chaired MIT's faculty from 1991 until 1993. His research focuses on the dynamics of offshore structures and flow-induced vibration. He teaches dynamics and mechanical vibration at the graduate and undergraduate level. Prof. Vandiver received his bachelor's degree in engineering from Harvey Mudd College of Science and Engineering, his master's degree in Ocean Engineering from MIT, and a Ph.D. in Oceanographic Engineering from the MIT and Woods Hole Oceanographic Institution Joint Program. He is a Registered Mechanical Engineer in the state of Massachusetts and is an active consultant in structural dynamics with the offshore engineering industry. He is also a certified flight instructor for gliders.

Carl Wunsch is Cecil and Ida Green Professor of Physical Oceanography in the Department of Earth, Atmospheric and Planetary Sciences. His degrees are from MIT in mathematics (SB, 1962) and in geophysics (PhD, 1967). He has been on the MIT faculty since that time.

Wunsch’s interests have ranged over much of physical oceanography and its geophysical linkages, including internal waves, tides, the oceanic mesoscale, and mixing processes. In recent years, his interests have been primarily focused on determining and understanding the general circulation of the ocean and its climate effects, by exploiting the technologies which have evolved in the last two decades, including satellite altimetry, acoustic tomography, tracers and expendable moorings.

He chaired the committee which led to the launch of the TOPEX instrument, was an instigator of the World Ocean Circulation Experiment and cochaired both U.S. and International Steering Groups for that program. Wunsch has been a member of the TOPEX-/POSEIDON Science Team, and is a member of the Jason-1 and GRACE Science Teams.

He has published extensively on paleoclimate records of various sorts, and on many theoretical topics in climate and physical oceanography. He is a member of the U.S. National Academy of Sciences; a Foreign Member of the Royal Society; the recipient of the Macelwane, Ewing, and Bowie Medals of the American Geophysical Union; the Public Service Medal of the National Aeronautics and Space Administration; the Henry Stommel Research Prize of the American Meteorological Society; and the Prince Albert 1er Medal.