IOOS DMAC Tech Webinar - NOAA PMEL and low cost ocean profilers - May 28 at 3pm ET

[Mathew Biddle - NOAA Federal]

Hello IOOS DMAC community,

Please join us on Thursday, May 28 (TOMORROW) at 3 pm Eastern for this month's IOOS DMAC Tech Webinar on PMEL's efforts in the development of a low cost ocean profiler.

We will be using Webex for the webinar. Please see the connection information below. The presentation section of this webinar (but not the discussion) will be recorded and posted to the IOOS DMAC website (see the DMAC Webinars tab).

Connection Information:

IOOS DMAC Tech Webinar
https://nos-noaa.webex.com/nos-noaa/j.php?MTID=m40845915fcf37a406d7e0e230ac11ac0
Thursday, May 28, 2026 3:00 PM | 1 hour 20 minutes | (UTC-05:00) Eastern Time (US & Canada)
Occurs the last Thursday of every month effective 1/29/2026 until 12/31/2026 from 3:00 PM to 4:20 PM, (UTC-05:00) Eastern Time (US & Canada)
Meeting number: 2825 144 6395
Password: K5PtfhiZy79 (55783449 when dialing from a phone or video system)

Join by video system
Dial 28251...@nos-noaa.webex.com
You can also dial 207.182.190.20 and enter your meeting number.

Join by phone
+1-415-527-5035 United States Toll

Access code: 282 514 46395

We look forward to seeing you there!

Thank you,

IOOS DMAC Team

--

Mathew Biddle, Physical Scientist
NOAA/NOS
US Integrated Ocean Observing System Office
1315 East-West Highway
Silver Spring MD 20910

240-533-9470

ORCiD: 0000-0003-4897-1669

http://www.ioos.noaa.gov/

[Mathew Biddle - NOAA Federal]

Friendly reminder, this is TODAY at 3pm ET (so, ~30 minutes from now). 

[Mathew Biddle - NOAA Federal]

Starting now. Below is the abstract and bio for Noah:

Abstract:

The ocean observational community faces the challenge of needing to increase in situ observations to better observe and predict an immense volume of space, that in many areas is rapidly changing, while being constrained by flat funding levels.  In response to this challenge, NOAA-PMEL is exploring innovative methods to quickly propagate and support high-quality, low-cost tools throughout our community.  With a target price point under $5,000 USD, the Low Cost Profiler (LCP) is a fraction of the cost of similar profiling floats on the market today. It was developed to be easily built, configured, and deployed by air, ship or hand. The LCP can be configured pre-mission to perform in different observational roles, including drifting, timed release and moored, making it a unique tool for autonomously profiling the upper 200m of a water body.  The LCP uses a direct-drive buoyancy engine to reduce mechanical complexity and incorporates OEM manufacturer calibrated sensors to enable deployments at scale.  Developed as an open source technology solution, the LCP is PMEL’s first exploratory effort to reduce costs while expanding community access to high quality ocean observations through an opensource model approach

Bio: 

Noah Lawrence-Slavas is the principal mechanical engineer for the NOAA’s Pacific Marine Environmental Laboratory where he leads diverse engineering teams, collaborating with principle scientific investigators, to innovate and develop new tools for scientific research.  Noah is passionate about applied research and development, and he thoroughly enjoys the process of turning an idea into an operational product.  Noah is particularly interested in how to rapidly develop, and scale, our ability to observe the environment by leveraging partnerships and holistic instrument design to deliver high quality, well described, and useful data directly to scientists. His current research focuses on the development of ocean carbon sensors, and expanding the spatial and temporal coverage of ocean observations through the use of robotic vehicles and small low-cost platforms.