Science in Motion: Adriano’s Journey to Offshore Wind Farms

September 3, 2025

Adriano Giangiardi, a graduate student in Professor Chen’s Marine Ecosystem Dynamics Modeling Laboratory at the School for Marine Science and Technology (SMAST), University of Massachusetts-Dartmouth (UMASSD), joined the 22nd National Science Foundation (NSF) Long-Term Ecological Research (LTER) cruise on Nantucket Shoal, navigating waters that intersect the offshore wind farm. This NSF-funded program, led by Dr. Heidi Sosik at Woods Hole Oceanographic Institution (WHOI), brings together a coalition of researchers from the University of Massachusetts Dartmouth, University of Rhode Island, University of Connecticut, Wellesley College, and WHOI to advance the frontiers of marine science.

*Group picture of people who attended the 22nd dedicated NES-LTER cross-shelf transect cruise between Martha’s Vineyard and the continental shelf break. (Photo by ship’s crew, 2025).*

The mission of NES-LTER is both ambitious and vital: to unravel how planktonic food webs evolve across space and time under changing physical conditions, and to understand how these shifts ripple upward through the ecosystem, influencing productivity at higher trophic levels. By integrating sustained observations with cutting-edge models, the program sheds light on the processes that govern pelagic food webs, trophic interactions, and ecosystem resilience in a rapidly changing ocean.

*Adriano, doctoral student Alex Cabanelas, and Dr. Mei Sato, who set the Time-Depth Recorder (TDR) to collect temperature and depth data (Photo by Heidi Sosik, 2025).*

Onboard, Adriano worked alongside doctoral student Alex Cabanelas and Dr. Mei Sato to deploy a Time-Depth Recorder (TDR), a critical instrument for capturing fine-scale temperature and depth profiles. These data form the backbone of efforts to monitor hydrographic changes across the wind farm and to track biological responses, including chlorophyll concentrations during episodes of high-salinity intrusion on the continental shelf.

One particularly memorable moment was Adriano standing beside a towering offshore wind turbine, a striking symbol of the intersection between renewable energy development and marine research. The image captured by Anh Pham in 2025 reflects not only the scale of the technology but also the resolve of young scientists like Adriano to study and safeguard the ecosystems entwined with it.

*Adriano next to a wind turbine (Photo by Anh Pham, 2025).*

The cruise culminated in a group effort—a cross-shelf transect spanning from Martha’s Vineyard to the continental shelf break—where Adriano joined a diverse team of oceanographers, ecologists, and modelers. The group photo, taken by the ship’s crew, embodies the collaborative spirit of NES-LTER: a shared commitment to understanding the sea, its mysteries, and its future.

Adriano’s participation was supported through Dr. Chen’s NSF NES-LTER grant (subcontracted from WHOI) and a Graduate Student Fellowship through the DOE-funded ARROWS program.