[SEMCO] public lecture at Sea Education Assoc: Voyage to the White Shark Cafe

[Doug Karlson]

Public Lecture to investigate the mysteries of the ‘White Shark Café’



Sea Education Association (SEA) will host a public lecture, “Voyage to the White Shark Café,” on Sunday, Dec. 16, at 2 pm. Jan Witting, Professor of Oceanography, will deliver the lecture, the final of SEA’s Fall Lecture Series. The lecture will be held at James L. Madden Center Lecture Hall, Sea Education Association, 171 Woods Hole Road, Falmouth. It’s free and open to the public. Light refreshments will be served.


About the Lecture
Thanks to the use of electronic tags and blue ocean research voyages, researchers are shedding new light on the behavior of great white sharks.

After feeding along the West Coast, adult great white sharks join in a massive, long-distance migration every winter to a remote sub-tropical patch of ocean midway between Hawaii and Baja that researchers have dubbed the “White Shark Café.”  We know about this migration thanks to the use of satellite tags on these top predators, however the question of why they go there remains unanswered.

Is there something special about this tract of the open Pacific Ocean that attracts the sharks? SEA Professor of Oceanography Jan Witting recently returned from a research cruise aboard the R/V Falkor with the Schmidt Ocean Institute, where a multi-institute team of scientists used an unprecedented array of tools from autonomous drones to ROVs to study the ocean around the sharks to shed new light on this mysterious pilgrimage.

About the Lecturer
Professor of Oceanography Jan Witting joined the Sea Education Association in 2001 after receiving his BS and his PhD in Marine Biology at Northeastern University, with a research focus on coral feeding ecology, an important link in benthic-pelagic coupling in tropical waters. Jan’s background includes designing and constructing autonomous underwater vehicles, teaching at the Discovery Bay Marine Lab in Jamaica and at Northeastern University, and extensive participation in research cruises in the Atlantic Ocean and Caribbean Sea.


About Sea Education Association/SEA Semester®<http://www.sea.edu/?utm_source=press_release&utm_medium=email&utm_campaign=lecture> Sea Education Association (SEA) is an internationally recognized leader in undergraduate ocean education. For 45 years and more than one million nautical miles sailed, SEA has educated students about the world’s oceans through its Boston University accredited study abroad program, SEA Semester. SEA/SEA Semester is based on Cape Cod in the oceanographic research community of Woods Hole, Massachusetts and has two research vessels: the SSV Corwith Cramer, operating in the Atlantic Ocean, and the SSV Robert C. Seamans, operating in the Pacific. In 2016, SEA was honored with the National Science Board’s Public Service Award<http://www.sea.edu/sea_currents/single/sea_honored_with_national_science_board_award?utm_source=press_release&utm_medium=email&utm_campaign=lecture> for its role in promoting the public understanding of science and engineering.



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Doug Karlson
Marketing & Communications Coordinator
Sea Education Association
P.O. Box 6 • Woods Hole, MA 02543
t: 508.540.3954 x523
www.sea.edu | #SEASemester
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