 "Photo: Max Planck Florida Institute")
 "Photo: Deborah Silver")
 "Photo: Florida Atlantic University, Center for Ocean Energy Technology")
YEAR IN REVIEW
The year 2009 brought many advances to research at FAU. Some scientists gained new facilities, while others progressed on their research projects despite university-wide budget cuts. Here are three notable scientific achievements from the past year.
Nobel laureate leads a new research facility in Jupiter
Nobel Prize winner Bert Sakmann was named scientific director of the Max Planck Florida Institute — a new research facility on the Jupiter campus — in 2009. Sakmann, who has worked at Max Planck institutes in Germany for more than 40 years, was co-awarded a Nobel Prize in Medicine in 1991 with his research partner for their work with ion channels.
Each of the 80 Max Planck institutes — most of which are in Germany — have their own specific areas of research, such as social anthropology, biochemistry and coal research. The research at Max Planck Florida will focus on bioimaging.
“There are about six Max Plancks outside of Germany,” said Gary Perry, dean of FAU’s Charles E. Schmidt College of Science. “This one in Florida will be the first one in the United States.”
The next step is to hire researchers who will serve as faculty at the institute. According to Perry, Max Planck Florida will operate in two temporary buildings that were originally built for Scripps Florida, another research institution housed on the Jupiter campus. Since the buildings already have functional laboratories, research can begin as soon as new Max Planck faculty members are hired.
There are plans to begin construction on a permanent facility in spring 2010, with a forecasted completion in 2011.
Harbor Branch receives $22.5 million for research
The Harbor Branch Oceanographic Institute at FAU, a research facility in Fort Pierce, was awarded $22.5 million by the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration (NOAA) in May 2009. The award was given to create the Cooperative Institute for Ocean Exploration, Research and Technology, a new oceanic research institute operating out of Harbor Branch.
The facility is co-managed by FAU and the University of North Carolina-Wilmington, with other Florida schools and research facilities serving as limited partners. The research conducted there includes developing advanced technologies to be used underwater, understanding the vulnerable ecosystems of corals, and other ocean research.
“It’s very prestigious to get an NOAA Cooperative Institute,” said Shirley Pomponi, who has been with Harbor Branch since 1984 and was named the executive director of the cooperative institute. “It provides us with five years of funding for ocean engineering and research.”
This is the 22nd cooperative institute supported by the NOAA in the United States. The $22.5 million award is the single largest competitive research grant received by Harbor Branch at FAU.
SeaTech monitors the Gulf Stream to test ocean energy projects
In April, researchers from FAU’s Center for Ocean Energy Technology (COET) on the SeaTech campus put four devices off the coast of Fort Lauderdale that record the movement and changes in the Gulf Stream, an ocean current that starts off the coast of Florida and runs up toward Western Europe.
The information recorded on these Acoustic Doppler Current Profilers — which look like drum heads and are attached to the bottom of orange floats — will help the team better understand the ocean currents before testing aquatic technology in that area.
For example, COET Scientific Director Howard Hanson said there are plans to develop a section on the sea floor where companies can test underwater turbines, which look like windmills. Ideally, the movement of the ocean will cause the turbines to turn and harvest energy that could potentially power entire cities.
To determine how well one company’s turbine performs against another turbine, the strength of the current, the ocean temperature and the water’s salt content must all be considered, since the conditions may change from one test to another.
“We’re monitoring the current out there to get a more complete picture [of the Gulf Stream] than there was in the past,” Hanson said.
To get the current information, the research team will remove the profilers from the water and replace them. According to Hanson, the four profilers tested in 2009 stored the information collected onboard. The researchers will not know the results of the data until they take the devices out of the water.
The new ones being placed in early 2010 will contain acoustic modems, meaning that scientists on a boat near the profilers can retrieve the information remotely by using computers.
“We want to use sound waves to talk to them,” Hanson said about the profilers.
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