From tracking down famous sunken ships to building drones that study whale populations, the Duke University Marine Lab (DUML) has plunged headfirst into some of the ocean’s most important questions over its nearly 90-year history.
Originally founded as a summer research institution in 1938, DUML is now a year-round center for research, education and training that hosts roughly 1,000 individuals annually, including students, scientists and other visitors.
The Pivers Island campus is located 150 yards from the town of Beaufort, offering researchers proximity to the ocean and a markedly different experience than the University’s main campus in Durham.
On an average day at the Marine Lab, students may tour the campus’s oyster farm, take a boat out on the water and work in one of DUML’s research laboratories, building an ocean sensor or studying the evolving practices of seafood production and consumption in local communities.
Arthur Sperry Pearse, professor of zoology and marine biology and the Marine Lab’s first director, chose the site in the 1930s to give his students the opportunity to conduct hands-on research.
Now, Duke students from any undergraduate major are able to spend an entire semester living at the Marine Lab, taking classes and studying the ocean alongside master’s and doctoral students and faculty.
Setting sail
Pearse’s vision for DUML was unique. At the time of its founding, “the field of marine biology was really in its infancy,” according to Andrew Read, Stephen A. Toth professor of marine biology and current director of the Marine Lab.
While pioneering a new academic field, Pearse and other professors from Duke’s zoology department began making visits to the North Carolina coast to collect marine animals for their students to study — and scouting locations for the soon-to-be founded Marine Lab.
They settled upon the 24-acre Pivers Island, whose relatively close proximity to Durham, convenient location next to what is now the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration’s Lab and strategic position within the habitat range of both northern and southern marine species made it the ideal place to realize Pearse’s vision.
By 1938, a boathouse, research laboratory and three dormitories were built, and Pearse assumed the role of the program’s director — a position he held until 1945.
Professor of Zoology C.G. Bookhout, known around the Marine Lab as “Bookie,” took over the directorship from Pearse and expanded DUML to resemble its current status as a widely respected center for research and learning.
Bookhout received support from the National Science Foundation to construct the Eastward, one of the first research vessels in the country to be operated by an academic institution. This idea — that universities could support maritime research by hosting research vessels — was original to Bookhout and revolutionized the role of universities in oceanographic research, according to Read.
The Eastward launched in May of 1964 and proceeded to spend nearly 4,000 days at sea supporting the studies and research of many students and faculty both from and outside of Duke.
Read said that it was also at this time — in the ‘60s and ‘70s — that the Marine Lab, with support from the National Science Foundation, expanded from a summer research institution into a year-round facility.
Watershed moments
In 1973, a DUML research team made waves with a groundbreaking discovery: the long-lost USS Monitor, a Union combatant ship from the Civil War hidden 220 feet below the Atlantic Ocean.
John Newton, marine geologist and marine superintendent of the Cooperative Oceanographic Program of DUML, led a team on the Eastward conducting a sonar survey in the waters off of Cape Hatteras, N.C. Using side-scan sonar technology developed by Harold “Doc” Edgerton, professor of electrical engineering at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology, the team discovered the ship over a century after it sank.
The discovery was publicized across major news and television networks, such as The New York Times and the CBS Evening News with Walter Cronkite. It became a critical point in the history of academic oceanographic research, bringing the Marine Lab international recognition and generating more support for its development.
The program flourished over the ensuing decades. As environmental issues began to gain prominence in research and studies, Duke’s School of Forestry and Environmental Studies merged with the Marine Lab to form the School of Environment in 1991. A few years later, Peter Nicholas, Trinity ’64 and former chairman of the University’s Board of Trustees, and his wife Ruth “Ginny” Nicholas, Trinity ‘64, donated $20 million to support the development of the school, which was renamed the Nicholas School of the Environment in 1995.
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This moment proved pivotal for the Marine Lab to expand its focus from just oceanography, marine biology and deep-sea biology to more generally trying to “understand environmental problems associated with the ocean” and trying to “fix and solve some of those environmental problems,” Read said.
Today, natural scientists and social scientists work in tandem at DUML to study how humans interact with and depend on marine ecosystems.
In 2006, Cindy Van Dover became the Marine Lab’s first female director and kicked off a beloved tradition of hosting an annual open house at the Beaufort campus, strengthening the lab’s relationship with the neighboring community.
Anchors aweigh
Now, a small cohort of undergraduates reside at the Marine Lab each school year, diving into research and courses across marine biology, ecology and conservation.
“We serve as a home for faculty, recent staff [and] students who are interested in oceans,” Read said.
With numbers on the rise, students from across disciplines are flocking to Beaufort — and Read is eager to welcome even more to the Marine Lab’s growing community.
“We have students from many majors who come and spend a term here in the regular academic year,” he said. “We occasionally get a Pratt student; we'd like to see more of them.”
The Marine Lab isn’t just for full-semester students — Durham-based courses and student groups can take advantage of DUML facilities through overnight field trips and summer programs. In particular, courses like Biology 205, Marine Megafauna and Biology 271, Marine Biology and Ecology have made Beaufort trips a fixed component of the class. Visiting students stay in Marine Lab dorms, take a boat out on the water, tour the oyster farm and get to experience a snapshot of what a semester at DUML could look like.
The lab’s resources are growing. Leading its fleet of ships is the Shearwater, a new, state-of-the-art research vessel that carries faculty and students out to sea for overnight adventures in training, education and marine research. Other boats currently in use include the Richard T. Barber and Kirby-Smith.
The Marine Lab’s alumni network runs deep, with many big names in marine science tracing their roots back to Beaufort. Take Sylvia Earle, Graduate School ’56 and ’66, a National Geographic explorer-in-residence who pioneered Jacques Cousteau’s Aqua-Lung scuba device and became one of the world’s most celebrated oceanographers.
Earle returned to Duke in September to speak at the Summit for Ocean Stewards hosted by student group Sustainable Ocean Alliance. She highlighted the role Duke’s marine biology community had on her development as a scholar and researcher and encouraged students in the audience to take advantage of the facility’s offerings to become the next generation of marine scientists.
“One of the things that I learned here at Duke — when somebody says you can't do that … we learned that you can look them in the eye and say, ‘why not?’” Earle said at the event.
As Duke sails into its second century and the Marine Lab nears its 90th birthday, DUML is charting a course beyond its roots in science and marine research. Climate change, sea level rise and coastal storms have emphasized the need for further development in environmental justice and conservation efforts, and Read believes the Marine Lab can and should continue thinking about solutions to these questions.
“There's a lot for us to do as we think about the next 50 or 60 years,” Read said. “We have a lot of work in front of us.”
Chloe Joy Chang is a Trinity sophomore and a staff reporter for the news department.