Building bridges

by Jean-Olivier Irisson, on April 5, 2013

I spent a busy week in Miami meeting with people and building on the collaboration sponsored by the PUF.

Together with Marc Picheral and Robin Faillettaz, we interacted with Bob Cowen's group, Cédric Guigand in particular, to integrate the Underwater Video Profiler imagined by Marc in Villefranche within the In Situ Ichthyoplankton Imaging System built by Cédric in RSMAS. You will get to read more on this from Marc and Cédric shortly.

Bob, Robin and I discussed the sampling strategy and the data analysis of our scientific cruise this summer, during which the now-coupled ISIIS and UVP will be deployed.

I met with Claire Paris and her team of post-docs and PhD students. We had long and productive discussions regarding the instrument and software we will use to study the orientation of fish larvae next year. The Drifting In Situ Chamber (DISC) instrument has changed a lot since the last time I used it with Claire and her team have made progress with the software I initially wrote. Now that it has grown so much, we need to re-think it. It will be a busy and exiting time.

I also met with Chris Langdon and we discussed the possibility of a collaboration between his group and Jean-Pierre Gattuso in Villefranche, which the PUF program could sponsor.

On the education side, I had the pleasure to meet again with Arthur Mariano (around a wonderful lunch) and Andy Bakun, who both came to teach in Villefranche. We agreed they would come to give the same lectures next year and I am sure students will benefit greatly from this.

Andy Bakun let me teach a lecture on the response of ichthyoplankton (larval fish) to physical forcing in the ocean, within his "Physical oceanography" class. The short format of those lectures (1h15) was difficult to adjust to for me but I hope it was well received. I, at least, was very pleased to get such a large and interested audience!

Finally I met with Elizabeth Babcock and Martin Grosell to discuss future plans for teaching collaborations, involving statistics in particular. A lot of good ideas emerged and we will be happy if some of them at least come to life through the PUF.

So, overall, a very productive week. I am very glad this program allowed us to do so much. I will finish by thanking Claire who hosted me once again, and Bob Cowen and Su Sponaugle for the wonderful diner we all shared in their house.