Welcome to the 2025 COBRA Master Class! We are so excited to help all of you learn how to lead deep-sea research expeditions, and to learn from you what the future of deep-sea research needs!
Goals
Welcome to COBRA
Introduction to the Master Class and how it will work!
Understand the tools of the trade for deep-sea research, including what they are capable of, how much they cost, how they are distributed across the world, the balance between government and privately funded assets, etc.
Understand the options out there, making sure you have what you need to get the work done, coordination with other organizations, etc.
Pre-Class Activities
In this first “kickoff” week, we are going to take things slow and make sure everyone is comfortable with the tools we will be using during this virtual class. There are five tasks we are asking you to complete within the week, at your own pace:
Watch this 3-minute video about COBRA Note: if you want to learn more, check out this longer recording
Introduction to the COBRA AccelNet
Log in to COBRA’s Slack channel for this Master Class #master-class-2025
First, check out the video introductions from the instructors of the Master Class.
Second, record your own introduction in the channel, using the video camera icon at the bottom of the “send a message…” entry field. Tell us your name, where you are coming from, what your position is, and something that you are really hoping to get out of the class.
Third, watch video introductions from the other fellows as they come in over the week!
Create a PubPub Account at https://www.pubpub.org/ and send a message to Rosalynn Sylvan on Slack once you’ve made it so she can add you to the COBRA PubPub community.
Complete this survey by FRIDAY JANUARY 10 to help us get a pre-class assessment of your feelings about leading deep-sea expeditions. This survey should take less than 5 minutes to complete and is anonymous. We will ask the same questions at the end of the Master Class to help us understand how your feelings have shifted.
We’ve assigned teams to start researching assets around the world and how to secure shiptime/assets (e.g., vehicles) for the following countries/organizations. You will have in-class time to work on this, but any prep work you can do ahead of time will be useful. Reach out to your partner and click on your names for guidelines in the COBRA PubPub on key information you should seek:
Jesse & Leland - IFREMER (France) & Institute of Marine Research (Norway)
Paula & Elizabeth - NIO (India) and NOAA/Ocean Exploration Research (USA)
Overview of Master Class goals and expectations, Julie Huber
Overview of Dream Cruise project concept and how that will be woven in, Randi Rotjan
14:10 (5 min): Q&A about expectations
14:15 (40 min):
Deep-Sea Research Assets, Julie Huber (20 min)
Q&A/Discussion (20 min)
14:55 (5 min): Break
15:00 (35 min): Team Breakouts
In 6x2-person team breakouts to discuss & make pub-pub of assets. Bring any materials/links that you found about your countries/organizations/assets with you to work on filling out the pub. Instructors to rotate among groups (20 min)
Bell, K.L.C., Quinzin, M.C., Poulton, S., Hope, A., & Amon, D. (Eds.). 2022 Global Deep-Sea Capacity Assessment. 2022. Ocean Discovery League, Saunderstown, USA.
The purpose of the COBRA Master Class is to train early career COBRA Fellows in deep-sea expedition leadership. One of the tools we use to equip Fellows with the skills and tools to successfully design, propose, and execute deep-sea oceanographic field research, is the ”Dream Cruise” capstone project, where Fellows will apply what they learn over the course to the development of an expedition concept that can later be leveraged into a proposal, paper, or related activity.
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