This award will facilitate the organization of a national conference in New Orleans, LA to explore key research questions and issues related to the recent oil spill in the Gulf of Mexico. The organization of the conference is led by the alliance of Alabama, Louisiana, and Mississippi which was formed after hurricanes Katrina and Rita in 2005. The conference will serve as a catalyst for bringing together the people, tools, and research ideas necessary to develop long term collaborative approaches to research related to oil spill and disaster prevention, response, mitigation, recovery, and planning.
Intellectual Merit This conference builds on the existing cyberinfrastructure and potential for collaboration among the three states (AL, MS, and LA) for hazard management, coastal vulnerability studies, and risk reduction. It will enable planning and discussion to coordinate intermediate and long term research priorities and to build public-private sector partnerships regionally and nationally. In addition, the conference will have a poster session in which researchers from the Gulf Coast academic institutions and recent NSF Rapid Response Research Awardees will discuss the ongoing research related to the oil spill.
Broader Impacts This conference will provide broad focus and coordination for the Gulf oil spill related research efforts in the neighboring states of AL, MS, and LA. The event will strengthen existing collaborations, forge new collaborations within and beyond the three states, and help to train students in cross-disciplinary research that is relevant to the region. The researchers and students will engage in efforts to inform and educate the citizens, and will positively impact on the policy and decision making process.
The Gulf of Mexico oil spill caused by the Deepwater Horizon explosion surpassed the Exxon Valdez event to become the largest and most damaging oil spill in U.S. history. The spill brought to the forefront the need for a comprehensive approach to address research questions raised by this and similar disasters, including preparation, response, short- and long-range planning, mitigation, recovery, and protection. The need for an inclusive post-oil spill conference to determine the most relevant scientific ideas relating to research on the spill, regardless of source was of critical importance in the months following the oil spill. Accordingly, the conference sought to identify leading-edge research questions across and among the many disciplines that could provide insights on the oil-spill and its aftermath. The conference was designed to identify the unresolved scientific issues from the spill and the research needed to better prepare for such events in the future, focusing on fostering collaborative research and building partnerships to study these issues across and among disciplines and institutions in LA, MS, and AL and elsewhere. The Conference attracted 380 attendees from across the Gulf Coast area and beyond. A total of 44 posters were on display throughout the two days of the conference, including more than 20 that were associated with NSF RAPID awards related to the oil spill. The conference provided opportunities for researchers to explore areas for collaborative, interdisciplinary research related to the oil spill. As an example of successful collaborations, three conference participants, along with their collaborators, competed for and were awarded $47 million in research funding from British Petroleum for oil spill research projects based in Louisiana and Mississippi.
