Dr. Houshuo Jiang is an oceanographer and Senior Scientist at the Woods Hole Oceanographic Institution (WHOI), one of the world’s leading centers for ocean research and exploration. His work takes students into a part of the ocean that most of us rarely think about—the incredible world of tiny marine organisms and the water that surrounds them.
Dr. Jiang studies how organisms such as plankton move, swim, feed, sense their environment, and interact with ocean currents. Although many of these creatures are extremely small, they play an enormous role in marine ecosystems and the health of our planet.
What makes his career especially fascinating is the way he combines oceanography, biology, physics, mathematics, engineering, and computer technology. He uses sophisticated computer modeling and fluid dynamics to investigate movements and interactions in the ocean that can be difficult or even impossible to observe directly.
Dr. Jiang earned his undergraduate and master's degrees from Nanjing University in China before coming to the United States, where he earned his Ph.D. in Oceanography from Johns Hopkins University. Today, in addition to his research at Woods Hole, he helps educate and train future ocean scientists through the MIT-WHOI Joint Program in Oceanography.
His career demonstrates that exploring the ocean doesn't always mean diving to the bottom of the sea. Today's oceanographers use advanced technology, mathematics, computer simulations, laboratory experiments, and observations from the ocean to investigate some of the most complex environments on Earth.
When Dr. Jiang joins us, students will have the opportunity to learn about careers in oceanography, the hidden world of microscopic marine life, how technology is changing ocean exploration, what it's like to be an ocean scientist, and some of the mysteries about our oceans that scientists are still trying to solve.
