USC Wrigley Institute for Environmental Studies

Last updated
USC WIES Wrigley Institute Logo.jpg
USC WIES

The USC Wrigley Institute for Environmental Studies is an environmental research and education facility run by the University of Southern California. It is an organized research unit that encompasses a wide range of faculty and topics across the university as well as operating a marine laboratory at the edge of Two Harbors, California on Catalina Island approximately 22 miles (35 km) south-southwest of Los Angeles.

Contents

The USC Wrigley Institute has specialized programs in environmental microbiology, geobiology, ocean biogeochemistry, living marine resources (including fisheries and aquaculture), climate change, coastal environmental quality and the urban ocean. The Institute is also home to the USC Sea Grant Program, part of the National Sea Grant Program through the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration.

History of the Wrigley Institute

USC established the Philip K. Wrigley Marine Science Center on the island at Big Fisherman's Cove following a grant of more than 14 acres of land from the families of Philip Wrigley and Paxson Offield[ when? ]. In 1995, William and Julie Wrigley continued their family legacy by providing USC with the capital to initiate the Wrigley Institute for Environmental Studies. Their gift provided for an endowed directorship, an endowed chair and the renovation of the Wrigley Marine Science Center. Today, the USC research complex on Catalina Island is the centerpiece of the Wrigley Institute, with additional staff and offices on the University of Southern California's University Park Campus in downtown Los Angeles.[ citation needed ]

In addition, USC administers the Tyler Prize for Environmental Achievement. USC also manages the USC Sea Grant Program, a federally funded program of research, education and outreach. The Sea Grant program at USC places special emphasis on the "urban ocean." [1]

Current leadership and initiatives

The Wrigley Institute of Environmental Studies is currently led by Interim Director Dr. John Heidelberg. Early in his career, Dr. Heidelberg led the collaboration to sequence the genome of Vibrio cholerae, the bacterium that causes cholera, one of humanity's most ancient and deadly scourges. He was later a fundamental team member in the development of shotgun metagenomics sequencing technologies used throughout the world’s oceans. He continues to develop and employ novel sequencing methodologies, contributing to fundamental discoveries about the nature and properties of microbial life in the sea.

Currently, Heidelberg and his staff are focusing research on healthy oceans, coastal megacities, and sustainable solutions. A primary goal is to use the Wrigley Marine Science Center on Catalina Island to become a testbed for sustainable solutions. [2] Signature programs include the San Pedro Ocean Time-Series monitoring program in the waters off the coast of Los Angeles, kelp biodiesel research, sustainable aquaculture, graduate fellowships and a premier scientific diving program.

Past leadership

Since the founding of the Wrigley Institute in 1995, past leadership has included:

USC Wrigley Marine Science Center

The Wrigley Institute manages the USC Wrigley Marine Science Center, located on the West End of Catalina Island and bordering the Blue Cavern State Marine Conservation Area.

USC provides daily weekday boat transportation for the USC community to the Catalina facility from the Southern California Marine Institute on Terminal Island. [3]

USC Wrigley Sustainability Prize

The institute launched a pitch competition in 2017 for sustainable businesses called the USC Wrigley Sustainability Prize. [4] The event highlights innovative start-up ideas from all disciplines and rewards concepts that could result in meaningful environmental change. Winning teams receive prize money to help translate their ideas into action. [5] Past student businesses have included:

Catalina Hyperbaric Chamber

Based at the USC Wrigley Marine Science Center, the USC Catalina Hyperbaric Chamber is an emergency medical facility on Catalina Island for the treatment of scuba diving accidents. The chamber facilities are on the waterfront of the Wrigley Marine Science Center and adjacent to a helipad that is licensed for day or night helicopter landings. The chamber itself is large enough to treat several patients at once and provides enough room for staff and volunteers to perform cardiopulmonary resuscitation (CPR) and advanced life support for patients who arrive in cardiac arrest.

The Catalina Chamber Crew works closely with the Los Angeles County Medical Alert Center (MAC) and operates as an extension of the Los Angeles County-USC Medical Center Department of Emergency Medicine. The chamber is managed by a fulltime member of the USC Wrigley Marine Science Center, and it is staffed all day, every day, by a rotating team of trained volunteers. Financial support comes from Los Angeles County; from donations by individual contributors, dive clubs and dive boat operators, and from special fund raising events. [9]

Wrigley Advisory Board members

The advisory board has 21 members, including Wrigley family members. [10]

Related Research Articles

<span class="mw-page-title-main">University of Southern California</span> Private university in Los Angeles, California

The University of Southern California is a private research university in Los Angeles, California, United States. Founded in 1880 by Robert Maclay Widney, it is the oldest private research university in California, with an enrollment of more than 49,000 students.

The University of Maryland Center for Environmental Science (UMCES) is a multi-university scientific research center within the University System of Maryland dedicated to environmental science, estuarine studies, and marine science.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Two Harbors, California</span> Unincorporated community in Los Angeles County, California, United States

Two Harbors, colloquially known as "The Isthmus", is a small unincorporated community island village on the island of Santa Catalina Island, California, United States, with a population of 298. It is the second center of population on the island, besides the city of Avalon. It is mainly a resort village. It has only one restaurant, one hotel and one general store. The village has about 150 permanent residents who live on the isthmus year-round. One notable feature was the one-room schoolhouse which closed in 2014.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">USC School of International Relations</span> International affairs school of the University of Southern California

The University of Southern California School of International Relations (SIR) is the third-oldest school of international relations in the world. A subdivision within the USC Dana and David Dornsife College of Letters, Arts, and Sciences, the school is known for teaching, and hiring faculty who concentrate in a variety of worldviews.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Arieh Warshel</span> Israeli chemist, biochemist and biophysicist (born 1940)

Arieh Warshel is an Israeli-American biochemist and biophysicist. He is a pioneer in computational studies on functional properties of biological molecules, Distinguished Professor of Chemistry and Biochemistry, and holds the Dana and David Dornsife Chair in Chemistry at the University of Southern California. He received the 2013 Nobel Prize in Chemistry, together with Michael Levitt and Martin Karplus for "the development of multiscale models for complex chemical systems".

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Ronald B. Linsky</span>

Ronald Benjamin Linsky was an American marine biologist who served as Executive Director of the National Water Research Institute (NWRI) for 15 years, where he was responsible for overseeing an institute dedicated to supporting cooperative research to create new sources of water and to protect freshwater and marine environments. Under his leadership, NWRI grew into the third largest water research institute in the United States.

The academics of the University of Southern California center on The College of Letters, Arts, and Sciences, the Graduate School, and its 17 professional schools.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Santa Catalina Island (California)</span> Channel Island off the coast of California

Santa Catalina Island is a rocky island, part of the Channel Islands, off the coast of Southern California in the Gulf of Santa Catalina. The island covers an area of about 75 square miles. It features a diverse and rugged landscape, including rolling hills, canyons, coastal cliffs, and sandy beaches. The island's highest peak is Mount Orizaba, rising to an elevation of 2,097 feet. The island is 22 mi long and 8 mi across at its largest width. The island is situated in the Pacific Ocean, approximately 29 mi south-southwest of Long Beach, California. Politically, Catalina Island is part of Los Angeles County in District 4. Most of the island's land is unincorporated and is thus governed by the county.

Otto Schnepp was an Austrian-American scientist.

The Southern California Marine Institute (SCMI) is a multi-campus research facility and non-profit oceanographic institution headquartered in Terminal Island, California.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Aquaculture of giant kelp</span> Cultivation of seaweed

Aquaculture of giant kelp, Macrocystis pyrifera, is the cultivation of kelp for uses such as food, dietary supplements or potash. Giant kelp contains iodine, potassium, other minerals vitamins and carbohydrates.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">USC Institute of Armenian Studies</span>

The USC Institute of Armenian Studies is an educational center dedicated to the study of modern Armenia, based at the University of Southern California in Los Angeles. It operates as a branch of the university's Dana and David Dornsife College of Letters, Arts, and Sciences. The current director of the institute is Salpi Ghazarian, who assumed the position in 2014.

The Center for the Political Future is a non-partisan center housed in the University of Southern California's Dornsife College of Liberal Arts and Sciences. The center was established in order to combat uncivil political discourse and promote bipartisan, fact-based dialogue on national issues. The Center for the Political Future hosts conferences, offers a Fellows program, hosts an ongoing dialogue series called Political Conversations, and provides a neutral ground for political discourse in "off-the-record policy workshops" with top experts from relevant disciplines, among other programs.

Carolyn Marino Malone is an American medievalist and academic. She is professor of art history and history at USC Dornsife College, Los Angeles, California, with a PhD in Art History and Medieval Studies (1973) from the University of California, Berkeley. Her research interests are English and French Romanesque and Gothic architecture and sculpture. She has published books on sculptural finds at Canterbury Cathedral, the abbey of St Bénigne in Dijon, the façade of Wells Cathedral, and monastic life in the Middle Ages. She served as Vice-President (1996-1997) and President (1999) of Art Historians of Southern California; Domestic Advisor to the Board of Directors of the International Center of Medieval Art (1984-1987); and was on the board of directors of the Medieval Association of the Pacific (1986-1989). She is a member of the Society of Architectural Historians.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Dana Dornsife</span> American entrepreneur

Dana Dornsife is an American entrepreneur, patient-advocate and philanthropist in the areas of health care, education, the environment and social justice. She is the Founder and Chief Mission and Strategy Officer of Lazarex Cancer Foundation, a nationwide non-profit organization that helps advanced-stage cancer patients find and access treatment through Food and Drug Administration clinical trials. Dornsife and her husband, American businessman David H. Dornsife, are philanthropists who have donated hundreds of millions of dollars to charitable causes and were named among the nation’s Top 50 most generous donors in 2016 by The Chronicle of Philanthropy. The couple made the list of America's Top 50 Donors of 2020 as well according to Philanthropy 50, an annual ranking compiled by The Chronicle of Philanthropy. They ranked #27 for giving $59 million.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Roberta Marinelli</span> American oceanographer

Roberta Marinelli is an oceanographer and Professor in the College of Earth, Ocean and Atmospheric Sciences at Oregon State University. From 2016 to 2022, she was Dean of this college.

Christian Robert Grose is an American political scientist. He is a professor of political science and public policy at the University of Southern California, academic director of the USC Schwarzenegger Institute for State and Global Policy, and served as director of the Political Science and International Relations PhD Program from 2015 to 2018. He studies behavioral elite decision making in politics, racial and ethnic politics, public policy, voting rights, political representation, and legislative politics.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Geraldine Knatz</span>

Geraldine Knatz is a maritime expert, academic, and author. She was the first female port director of the Port of Los Angeles, appointed in January 2006 by Los Angeles Mayor Antonio Villaraigosa. As Los Angeles port director she formulated and implemented the Clean Truck Program, and the San Pedro Bay Ports Clean Air Action Plan. She is a professor of Practice at the University of Southern California, with a joint appointment to the USC Viterbi School of Engineering and the USC Price School of Public Policy.

Karl E. Huggins is an American decompression researcher and author of a set of air decompression tables for reduced risk and multi-level repetitive diving based on the US Navy tables modified to avoid Doppler ultrasound detectable vascular bubble production. He developed the algorithm used by the first commercially successful microprocessor-based decompression computer, the Orca Edge, based on the US Navy decompression algorithm derived by Robert D. Workman, but taking all six tissue compartments into account when calculating residual nitrogen for multi-level and repetitive dives.

References

  1. "Home > USC Sea Grant > USC Dana and David Dornsife College of Letters, Arts and Sciences".
  2. "Sustainable Campus Initiative". dornsife.usc.edu. Retrieved May 2, 2019.
  3. "Transportation to Catalina Island". dornsife.usc.edu. Retrieved May 2, 2019.
  4. "USC Wrigley Institute | USC Wrigley Sustainability Prize > Wrigley > USC Dana and David Dornsife College of Letters, Arts and Sciences".
  5. Key, Jim (March 6, 2018). "Top honor in USC Wrigley Sustainability Prize awarded to team planning to reduce carbon emissions". dornsife.usc.edu. Retrieved May 2, 2019.
  6. Hillberry, Rhonda (November 8, 2018). "How to help the environment: Turn cooking oil into renewable fuels". phys.org. Retrieved May 2, 2019.
  7. "USC Wrigley Sustainability Prize 2017". dornsife.usc.edu. Retrieved May 2, 2019.
  8. "Research bid to recycle aircraft waste takes flight > News > USC Dornsife". dornsifecms.usc.edu. Retrieved 2019-05-08.
  9. "Home > USC Catalina Hyperbaric Chamber > USC Dana and David Dornsife College of Letters, Arts and Sciences". dornsife.usc.edu. Retrieved 2019-05-12.
  10. "USC Wrigley Institute | Advisory Board > Wrigley > USC Dana and David Dornsife College of Letters, Arts and Sciences". dornsife.usc.edu. Retrieved 2019-05-08.

33°26′41″N118°28′57″W / 33.444686°N 118.482383°W / 33.444686; -118.482383