Cape 20 Something

WHOI grad student earns Ph. D and respect for local scientists

"People in science aren’t doing it for fame or money."

"They do it because it’s really fun and they’re fascinated by all the questions," explained Stephanie Waterman (below, right), a recent graduate of the Woods Hole Oceanographic Institute/Massachusetts Institute of Technology Joint Program. After five and half years of scientific research with ocean currents and academic studies in Boston, Waterman was awarded her Ph. D in oceanography on January 20, 2009 from the Joint Program that celebrates its 40th anniversary of producing world-renowned scientists.

Since she was very young, Waterman certainly had been "fascinated by all the questions," particularly those posed by fluid mechanics. The Toronto native learned to sail as a youngster and remembers quickly becoming interested in how and why things moved like they did. "In order to understand how a sailboat works and moves forward, you have to learn a little bit about physics," she said. "When I was young I thought that was really fun so I wanted to know how to sail faster!” Little did she know that this youthful curiosity would develop into a lifetime passion for geophysical fluid dynamics and oceanography.

Waterman earned her B.S. in engineering from Queen’s University in Canada in 2001 and her M.S. in aeronautics from California Institute of Technology in 2002. She applied fluid mechanics to design airplane wings and boats, but later decided she was more interested in studying how these things could be applied to the earth. Waterman then went through the application process for the WHOI/MIT Joint Program, which typical takes between five and six years to complete. She was accepted and entered the program in 2003 with about 30 other students across various scientific disciplines, including biology, geology, and engineering. Waterman immediately began working on a pre-designed observational research project on a major ocean current near Japan, which was funded by the National Science Foundation.

"The Joint Program is quite unique from other academic programs because WHOI is not a school per se, it’s a scientific research institution. I felt like when I was working there I was much more of a scientist than a student. The ratio of scientists to students was about ten to one as opposed to the reverse," she explained. Waterman, who split her time between WHOI and MIT campuses, did her thesis research on The Kuroshio in the North Pacific, an equivalent ocean current to the Gulf Stream.

The research project involved many scientists from different institutions in both the United States and Japan. Waterman helped position, maintain, and retrieve the instruments in the waters off Japan, and she also took part in the data collection. "This observational research study of Kuroshio was much larger than me," Waterman said. "My particular little piece of the study had to do with understanding what process controls the variability of the current and how that variability affects things we care about, such as the strength and heat of the current." She found a very large variability in the ocean jet and now research will investigate where this variability is sourced.

Although Waterman completed her thesis work and has received her degree from the Joint Program, she is still passionately involved with the Kuroshio project. "The Ph. D was a necessary step for my education, but it wasn’t the purpose of the work. My involvement in the project still remains with understanding the system and communicating that with the oceanography community," she explained.

Being a full-time student and scientist certainly consumes a great deal of time, however, Waterman still manages to squeeze in sailing and summer cross-country bicycle trips with her boyfriend. She rode tandem across Canada, Great Britain, and circumnavigated Iceland. "Grad students are very busy and have lots of work to do, but at the same time they have lots of flexibility if they’re organized. Making time for these bike trips is exploiting my flexibility. It’s easy to get all wrapped up in work, especially if you like your work—but it’s important to like other things too," Waterman said. Her country to conquer this summer is still up in the air, but stay tuned by visiting her new website, AdventuresByTandem.com.

Waterman nostalgically packed up and said goodbye to Woods Hole a couple weeks ago. She will be moving to England on Sunday, but she had some kind words to say of our local village: "I think of Woods Hole as both a scientific place and a community, and both are very unique and very special. I feel quite fortunate to have been able to spend time in Woods Hole and meet those who are living and working there; they’re very inspiring people doing this work out of passion and fascination for the world."