HBCU Educator at Sea
We are no longer accepting applications to sail on the JOIDES Resolution (JR) as an HBCU Educator. However, educators interested in serving as the JR’s Onboard Education Officer and learning shipboard science alongside the expedition’s science party and translating their learning experiences for students, families and the general public should visit the On-Board Education Officer webpage for upcoming opportunities. Also, please visit School of Rock if interested in experiencing scientific ocean drilling research with the experts.
The Historically Black Colleges and Universities (HBCU) Educator at Sea was a pilot diversity activity funded through the U.S. Implementing Organization (USIO) for the Integrated Ocean Drilling Program (IODP) that ended in 2010. This initiative provided a mechanism that enabled an HBCU educator from a science or education department to gain first-hand experience of science and life at sea, translate scientific results into useful teaching resources, and introduce IODP as well as careers in scientific ocean drilling to colleagues, teachers and students.
Past HBCU Educators at Sea
2009 HBCU Educator at Sea:
Dr. Nasseer Idrisi
Nasseer sailed on board the JOIDES Resolution (JR), the scientific drilling vessel used by the Integrated Ocean Drilling Program (IODP), as the first Historically Black College and University (HBCU) Educator at Sea. As such, he promoted the exciting scientific capabilities and people involved in IODP research and operations, as well as the science and science support careers to underrepresented minorities (particularly HBCU students); he also helped reach out to HBCU institutions and minority-serving teachers and their students (eighth grade and high school); helped raise the profile of the HBCU Fellowship; created educational materials related to the expedition; and spread the word that IODP science and the JR are perfect vehicles for earth systems science education.
Nasseer was part of IODP Expedition 324 – Shatsky Rise Formation which began in Yokohama, Japan on 4 September 2009 and ended in Townsville, Australia on 4 November 2009. For additional information, visit Nasseer’s Expedition 324 blog page!! (http://joidesresolution.org/blog/84).For Nasseer’s latest video on board the JR, go to http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ZIdaJoTyLCM.
Nasseer is part of the research faculty at the University of the Virgin Islands where he studies the connectivity of larval stages of coral reef organisms among reefs and their distributional patterns. He received his Bachelor’s of Science from the University of Basrah, Basrah, Iraq in 1984 in the field of Aquatic Biology. He received his Master’s of Science also from the University of Basrah in1989 in the field of marine biology, where his thesis was on the bioenergetics of the larval stages of the shrimp, Caridina babaulti basrensis. Nasseer received his Ph.D. from the SUNY College of Environmental Science and Forestry, Syracuse, NY in 1997 in Aquatic Ecology and the topic of his dissertation was the impact of zebra mussels on the pelagic food web in a lake ecosystem. Nasseer then went on to do his post-doctorate at the University of Miami, in Miami, FL in biological oceanography studying zooplankton dynamics in the Arabian Sea, in the Indian Ocean.
Concurrent with conducting research, Nasseer places high priority on the development and enrichment of students’ learning experiences alongside formal classwork, both at the undergraduate and graduate levels. It is Nasseer’s belief that the learning experience at the college level should be an interactive process between students and the lecturer. In order to keep ideas fresh in the minds of students, active discussions need to take up an adequate amount of the lecture time. Nasseer’s main interests are in developing new ideas in ecology by building upon ideas developed in other disciplines. These approaches should be used to solve scientific problems.
