Marine Partnership to Receive $17 Million

A five-year, $17.7 million grant to study physical and ecological processes in a poorly understood segment of the ocean off the coast of California and Oregon, will allow researchers at the University of California, Santa Barbara (UCSB) and three other universities to conduct this major joint research effort. It is the largest single grant ever made by the David and Lucile Packard Foundation. Called the "Partnership for Interdisciplinary Studies on Coastal Oceans: A Long-Term Ecological Consortium," or "PISCO," the group is already beginning studies of a 1,200-mile long zone of near-shore that, until now, has been largely ignored by both oceanographers and marine ecologists. In this partnership, UCSB joins Oregon State University, Stanford University and the University of California, Santa Cruz.