About Us
The Ocean Sciences Department is an inclusive, supportive, and innovative community of people involved in oceanography and other marine sciences. We offer undergraduate and graduate courses in these disciplines. Students have access to a wide variety of research facilities and equipment through faculty sponsors. In addition to research and instructional activities along the California coast, interests of the core faculty and their students include biological, chemical, and physical oceanography; sediment, marine, organic, and trace metal biogeochemistry; marine plankton, phytoplankton ecology, paleoceanography, aquatic microbial ecology, ecological modeling, and remote sensing (satellite oceanography); numeric modeling of coastal and basin-scale dynamics; midwater ecology and climatology, among others.
Explore Ocean Sciences News
The latest high-impact science in Ocean Sciences
Comb jellies proven to be the sibling group to all other animals
New research proves comb jellies are a unique lineage or “sibling group” whose ancestors diverged before the common ancestor of all other animals
Physical and Biological Sciences Division honors three prominent alumni
The Division of Physical and Biological Sciences is honoring three stellar alumni—atmospheric scientist Cora E. Randall, pediatrician Ramon Resa, and marine scientist Colleen Reichmuth—with the 2023 Distinguished Alumni Awards
One of the planet’s most important carbon sinks is revealing its secrets
Tiny organisms in the Southern Ocean play an outsized role in moderating Earth’s climate