Prof. Brian Arbic

Brian Arbic is a physical oceanographer. With his research mentees and with collaborators from other institutions, Arbic performs research on oceanic tides, waves, and currents, and the role of the ocean in weather and climate (https://arbic.earth.lsa.umich.edu).  Arbic and collaborators have also researched tsunamis, including the megatsunami caused by the dinosaur-killing Chicxulub asteroid, and interplay between ocean tides and the evolution of the Earth/Moon system over geological time. Arbic’s research is funded by several USA government agencies--NASA, Office of Naval Research, National Science Foundation, Department of Energy, and National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration (NOAA).  

From 1990-1992, Arbic was a US Peace Corps volunteer secondary school math and physics teacher in northern Ghana, following a brief stint as a Peace Corps volunteer in Liberia that was cut short by civil war. As outlined in this article, the connections Arbic made in Ghana led many years later to the founding of the Coastal Ocean Environment Summer School In Nigeria and Ghana (COESSING; https://coessing.org). The school has been running for one week every year since 2015, and it currently alternates between Nigeria and Ghana. It serves about 150 participants, facilitators, and organizers every year. The school curriculum has evolved towards prioritizing hands-on research projects. From 2025-2028, the school will serve as a networking and education hub for a nine million US dollar research project, funded by Schmidt Sciences, on ocean biogeochemistry in the Gulf of Guinea. The school is an endorsed project of the United Nations Ocean Decade for Sustainable Development. COESSING has inspired similar schools in Anglophone East Africa and Francophone West Africa. Our long-term vision is to help build a truly global collaborative science enterprise with summer schools in many STEM fields and in many places across the global south.