Last week, MBARI scientists, engineers, and communicators attended the inaugural MidSEC 2026 Conference, held June 13–19 at Bäckaskog Castle in Sweden. This conference marked the primary in-person gathering of the Midwater Science and Engineering Community (MidSEC), a new worldwide initiative based with the purpose of uniting the worldwide midwater analysis and engineering neighborhood to advance collaboration, information sharing, and coverage influence for the most important habitat on Earth.
MidSEC 2026 introduced collectively researchers, engineers, policymakers, information managers, science communicators, and conservationists for shows, technology showcases, and centered dialogue periods. Ten MBARI workers attended the conference, sharing the institute’s many years of midwater analysis and technology experience with our friends from world wide.
Karen Osborn—curator of polychaetes, peracarids, and plankton on the Smithsonian National Museum of Natural History and an MBARI adjunct—co-led the conference’s organizing committee. MBARI Senior Scientists Bruce Robison and Kelly Benoit-Bird had been a part of a distinguished group of six audio system from main worldwide ocean analysis organizations who delivered plenary talks in the course of the conference. A variety of further MBARI workers additionally introduced work spanning various disciplines from imaging innovation and midwater ecology to underwater video evaluation and outreach. Several former MBARI workers, together with previous interns and postdoctoral fellows, additionally participated in MidSEC 2026, highlighting MBARI’s management in the sphere of midwater science.
MBARI was a co-sponsor of the MidSEC 2026 conference, underscoring the institute’s dedication to collaboration. MBARI researchers hope the MidSEC workgroup will construct a stronger, extra linked midwater science neighborhood, one that may coordinate extra successfully on analysis, conservation, and training about this huge and understudied realm.
For further info or photographs relating to this text, please electronic mail [email protected].