Scripps Institution of Oceanography
For more than a century, Scripps Institution of Oceanography has been dedicated to providing exceptional educational opportunities. Scripps’s excellence in scientific research is accompanied by its leadership in education, with undergraduate and graduate courses in a variety of disciplines.
Scripps is one of the oldest, largest, and most important centers for marine, earth, and atmospheric science research, education, and public service in the world. Its preeminence in these fields is reflective of its excellent programs, distinguished faculty and research scientists, and outstanding facilities.
Scripps was founded in 1903 as an independent biological research laboratory and became an integral part of the University of California in 1912. In 1925 the laboratory was given the Scripps name in recognition of donors Ellen Browning Scripps and E. W. Scripps. In 1939, Scripps began offering both undergraduate and graduate courses on the Scripps campus for a degree program through UCLA. UC San Diego began offering graduate degrees in earth science, marine biology, and oceanography in 1961 and an undergraduate specialization in earth sciences in 1964.
In all, Scripps occupies fifty-four buildings on 170 acres along the Pacific coastline below the mesa on which the UC San Diego main campus is located. The institution enrolls more than 243 graduate students, and has more than 1,300 employees. Annual expenditures exceed $187 million.
Research at Scripps encompasses physical, chemical, biological, geological, and geophysical studies of the oceans, earth, and atmosphere. Among the hundreds of research programs that may be under way at any one time are studies of air-sea interaction, climate prediction, earthquakes, the physiology, ecology, and genetics of marine organisms, marine chemistry, beach erosion, the marine food chain, the geological history of the ocean basins, and the multidisciplinary aspects of global change, conservation, and the environment.
Scripps operates the largest academic research fleet in the nation, including the research vessels Roger Revelle, Melville, New Horizon, Robert Gordon Sproul, and the research platform FLIP. In 2015, Scripps will begin operation of the newest oceanographic research vessel, the Sally Ride. These vessels, equipped with a variety of instruments to explore the oceans, constitute mobile UC San Diego laboratories and observatories that serve students and researchers from Scripps, UC San Diego, and institutions throughout the world. Research cruises range from short missions offshore San Diego to months-long expeditions into the most remote areas of the world’s oceans, and are supported by mariners, technicians, and shoreside staff in the Scripps Ship Operations and Marine Technical Support department. During a student’s tenure at Scripps, she or he will have the opportunity to go to sea on Scripps’s research vessels, and perhaps even organize a student-led expedition as part of the unique UC Ship Funds Program, which enables students to propose, plan, and execute their own research at sea aboard a Scripps-operated vessel.
Investigations supported by contracts and grants—primarily federal—cover a wide latitude of marine and earth science research. Scripps is organized into three research administrative sections: Biology, Earth, and Oceans and Atmosphere. The three sections are composed of smaller disciplinary and multidisciplinary research units: the Cecil H. and Ida M. Green Institute of Geophysics and Planetary Physics; Center for Marine Biotechnology and Biomedicine; Climate, Atmospheric Science, and Physical Oceanography Division; Geosciences Research Division; Integrative Oceanography Division; Marine Biology Research Division; and Marine Physical Laboratory. Other specialized groups include the Center for Marine Biodiversity and Conservation and the Center for Observations, Modeling and Prediction at Scripps.
The California Sea Grant College Program, a systemwide program with thirty to fifty projects and approximately forty trainees supported on California campuses and in several specialized research units, is headquartered at Scripps. The Southwest Fisheries Science Center (SWFSC), located on the Scripps campus, is one of thirty major laboratories and centers operated by the National Marine Fisheries Service, a component of the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration of the U.S. Department of Commerce. Also, the Inter-American Tropical Tuna Commission is colocated at SWFSC.
Birch Aquarium at Scripps provides a wide variety of educational courses in the marine sciences for students from primary grades to high school. UC San Diego students may become involved in work-study programs or serve as volunteers or aquarist trainees. A limited number of students can be accommodated for a four-unit course in independent study by arrangement with a faculty member and the aquarium director. Aquarium staff also coordinate a UC San Diego graduate/undergraduate course called Communicating Ocean Sciences to Informal Audiences (COSIA) once each academic year. The aquarium’s resources include natural habitat groupings of marine life from local and Gulf of California waters. The museum exhibits present basic oceanography and earth science concepts and explain research undertaken at Scripps. The aquarium is open from 9:00 a.m. to 5:00 p.m. daily.
Scripps’s educational program includes undergraduate and graduate education. Approximately ninety professors are complemented by an academic staff of more than 350 scientists. Scripps offers undergraduate degrees (BS) in earth sciences and marine biology, a contiguous BS/MS in earth sciences, an interdisciplinary minor in marine science, and a professional master’s degree in marine biodiversity and conservation. Many Scripps scientists also teach courses in divisions and programs such as biology, engineering, and environmental systems. More than thirty-six hundred undergraduate students are enrolled in courses taught by Scripps faculty each year.
The Scripps graduate program has grown hand in hand with the research programs. Graduate students are typically admitted as candidates for a PhD degree although coursework and thesis master’s degree options also exist. Graduate educational programs are divided into three programs: Climate, Oceans, and Atmosphere (consisting of the Applied Ocean Science, Climate Sciences, and Physical Oceanography curricular groups); Geosciences of the Earth, Oceans and Planets (consisting of the Geological Sciences, Geophysics, and Marine Chemistry and Geochemistry curricular groups); and Ocean Biosciences (consisting of the Biological Oceanography and Marine Biology curricular groups and the Chemical Biology track).
Graduate students come to Scripps with extremely varied interests and backgrounds—ecologists, geologists, chemists, molecular biologists, physicists, engineers, and theorists from the United States and many foreign countries. One thing they have in common, however, is that they come to Scripps with a very strong understanding of science. Most students select positions as research assistants when they enter the program—a practice that not only gives them an early involvement with research, but also provides salaries and tuition remission. The student-faculty ratio at Scripps is about three to one; consequently, classes tend to be small, and the student has the opportunity to work closely with his or her thesis adviser. Oceanography, marine biology and earth sciences are interdisciplinary fields that allow for informal exchange and interaction on a variety of levels.
While at Scripps, students have access to some of the nation’s most sophisticated and specialized laboratories and facilities for oceanographic and earth science studies covering a wide range of disciplines from biology and physiology to geophysics and atmospheric sciences. Scripps offers facilities for detailed experimental studies, including two large experimental aquarium rooms. The Marine Science Development Center is equipped with a wide selection of materials and hardware for self-use or assistance by engineering staff who provide design and engineering assistance in support of research projects for Scripps faculty, staff, and students. The Hydraulics Laboratory features a 90-foot stratified flow channel and a 150-foot wind-wave channel, and various researchers operate and make available specialized instrumentation such as scanning electron microscopes and other high-precision instruments. Among the many computer resources is access to the San Diego Supercomputer Center. The Scripps Archives is the University of California’s major collection of marine science materials, with outstanding collections in oceanography, marine biology, and marine technology. It also specializes in atmospheric sciences, fisheries, geology, geophysics, and zoology. The various marine life and geological specimens housed in Scripps’s Oceanographic Collections comprise a vast and unique “library” available for scientific studies both within Scripps and at other institutions and are the world’s largest university-based oceanographic collections. Two underwater research areas that are part of the UC Natural Reserve System are adjacent to the Scripps campus and the institution has a 1,084-foot research pier that enables a scientific diving program, small boat deployment, and research and data collection efforts.
In 2009, Scripps opened the Robert Paine Scripps Forum for Science, Society and the Environment, a stunning oceanfront facility serving the Scripps community and others for meetings, events, and conferences.
The combination of a renowned scientific staff and state-of-the-art facilities at Scripps provides an extraordinary opportunity for each student to be exposed to cutting-edge science and actively participate in ocean and earth science research.
See “Scripps Institution of Oceanography” for further details on study programs, requirements, degrees, and courses.
For additional information please contact:
Scripps Institution of Oceanography
University of California, San Diego
9500 Gilman Dr. # 0208
La Jolla, CA 92093-0208
(858) 534-1694
siodept@sio.ucsd.edu