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Original Air Date: June 5, 2020
Time: 2:00 PM Eastern
Length: 50 minutes
Ocean Today co-hosts Symone Barkley and Debi Blaney led this webinar on an expedition that deployed robots and lasers to explore sunken war ships! Educators, parents, and curious kids - of all ages are welcome to watch this archive at any time. We also visited two national marine sanctuaries where you can go and see the ships and we got a sneak peak of an amazing underwater 360 video. There was also a special guest appearance with Bruckner Chase LIVE from New Jersey, who provided beach and ocean safety information. The guests at this webinar were NOAA maritime archaeologists, Joseph Hoyt and Stephanie Gandulla, Please watch as they take you on an exciting virtual field trip into the depths - and our past.
Co Host: Symone Barkley
Symone serves as the National Ocean Service (NOS) Exhibits Manager and Education Specialist. She works to increase public awareness of products and services NOS provides through outreach at conferences, workshops, festivals, and other events. Symone hosts the Planet NOAA Podcast and Ocean Today, Every Full Moon, a collection of videos showcasing the beauty and mystery of the ocean realm while exploring various ocean topics. Through her support of NOS and NOAA education, Symone is committed to mentoring students, training educators, and creating authentic and effective systems to recruit and retain traditionally excluded groups in ocean science.
Co-Host: Debi Blaney
Debi Blaney is an ocean explorer, scientist, and education outreach specialist. A native of Germany, she started her education in Dortmund and Münster, Germany. She holds a B.S. in Biology from the University of Iowa and an M.S. in Neuroscience from Georgetown University. Debi has extensive experience in neuro-scientific research, as well as science education and outreach in the fields of space and ocean exploration. Since early 2016, Debi has worked as a Senior Education and Outreach Specialist at NOAA’s Office of Ocean Exploration and Research to help improve ocean literacy and inspire future generations of explorers and scientists. Debi lives in the Washington, DC, area, and when she is not working, she enjoys traveling and being outdoors, especially scuba diving and rock climbing.
Joseph Hoyt
Hoyt is a maritime archaeologist with NOAA’s Office of National Marine Sanctuaries. He specializes in archaeological recording of deep water shipwrecks, has worked on several NOAA projects in the Thunder Bay, Florida Keys and Monitor National Marine Sanctuaries since 2001. In 2004, he was awarded the North American Rolex Scholarship through the Our World Underwater Scholarship Society. He has worked on underwater archaeology projects in North and South America, Europe, the Great Lakes, Atlantic and Pacific Oceans, and several inland rivers. Joe is an avid underwater photographer and technical diver, and has participated in documentary expeditions for the BBC’s Planet Earth and PBS television series. For the last 10 years Hoyt has been the Chief Scientist investigating WWII era shipwrecks off the coast of North Carolina. In 2014 Hoyt led a team of researchers that discovered the final resting place of a WWII Battlefield off the coast of North Carolina, consisting of a German U-boat, U-576 and its victim, the Nicaraguan freighter Bluefields. Hoyt earned an MA in Maritime History and Nautical Archaeology from East Carolina University and serves on the Advisory Council for Underwater Archaeology.
Stephanie Gandulla
Stephanie Gandulla is a maritime archaeologist and the Research Coordinator for NOAA's Thunder Bay National Marine Sanctuary, based in Alpena, Michigan. She has participated in maritime archaeology projects around the world including the Great Lakes, the South Pacific, Sweden, Jamaica, and the Arctic. As a NOAA Scientific Diver, she enjoys exploring and documenting the dozens of historic shipwrecks in Lake Huron's sanctuary waters.
