Responding to regional and global needs, APL-UW investigators are pursuing major research and development initiatives across a breadth of areas. Here, we highlight some new areas of expertise — the coupling of physical and biological systems in the marine environment, robotics and autonomy, and marine renewable energy. We also feature a traditional strength: acoustics research — both in the ocean and in the human body.

I have the great honor to work with an extraordinary staff at APL-UW. We are all grateful for our home institution, the University of Washington, and our federal sponsors, especially the U.S. Navy, DoD, NSF, NASA, NOAA, and NIH. — Jeff Simmen, APL-UW Executive Director

Patients suffering from two common afflictions — abscesses and hematomas — may someday soon find relief with ultrasound therapies that liquefy targeted tissue inside the body with no damage to the intervening tissue.

These instruments are advancing ocean acoustics research. Each were developed under the Office of Naval Research DURIP, a DoD-university partnership to support invention of instruments needed to conduct cutting-edge research.

Swarms of ocean robots that float, sink, and rise in unison measure oceanographic properties. In the North Pacific they captured the evolving three-dimensional structure of de/re-stratification events in response to storms.

A study of ecosystem variability in the North Atlantic is informed by data from an unlikely oceanographic research platform: white sharks.