Ocean Science Community Gathers at Bigelow Laboratory for Annual Consortium Meeting

Maine has one of the longest coastlines in the U.S. and one of the fast-growing seaweed farming industries. It’s highly dependent on marine industries and yet vulnerable to sea level rise and warming ocean temperatures. The state also houses one of the most diverse algae culture collections in the world and one of the nation’s few state maritime academies.

Grappling with these challenges and opportunities is a strong network of institutional leaders, researchers, resource managers, and entrepreneurs. Since 2024, the Maine Marine Science Consortium has provided space for that network to regularly gather, share successes and lessons learned, and brainstorm how to leverage their resources to support the ocean science community broadly.

This month, representatives from over two dozen organizations gathered at Bigelow Laboratory for Ocean Sciences for the group’s third annual meeting. Participants spent the morning highlighting current organizational priorities. In the afternoon, they broke into working groups to strategize how to coordinate activities, followed by an employee mixer in the evening. A lunch-and-learn in the middle provided time to discuss the current state of federal science funding and opportunities for energizing state support for marine R&D.

“When I moved here, I was impressed by the breadth of exciting activity already underway across the state, but I also saw an opportunity for the ocean science community to be even stronger through greater coordination and collaboration,” said Bigelow Laboratory President and CEO Deborah Bronk. “That vision proved essential in early 2025, when the science community needed to come together and found that speaking with a unified voice made a real difference.”

For the last three years, the group has gathered annually at Bigelow Laboratory and hosted quarterly employee mixers, which rotate between member organizations. Each participant brings their own areas of expertise and priorities, whether that’s translating research into commercial opportunities or training the next generation of ocean scientists.

“Meetings like this allow us to make face-to-face connections to identify opportunities that can support student experiences,” said Holly Parker, director of the Schiller Coastal Studies Center at Bowdoin College, emphasizing the group’s value for educators. “We have lots of students who want to work in this space, but we don’t always have the capacity to mentor all of them. Being part of this group allows us to point students in the right direction to get the skills and experience they’re looking for.”

One of the biggest outcomes of the MMSC has been the emergence of the Maine Ocean Leaders Team, a network of organizational executives, including Bronk, working together to engage legislators and advocate for federal research funding.

Because of the efforts of that group, this month’s meeting became an impromptu celebration of the recent passage of a congressional appropriations bill that maintains funding for several scientific agencies.

“A lot of things we depend on as organizations are in this bill,” said Glenn Prickett, president and CEO of Gulf of Maine Research Institute. “Our collective impact helped secure this real victory, which reflects how much power there is in a big idea coming from lots of groups speaking with one voice.”

Over lunch, public affairs specialist Mike Conathan, a member of Bigelow Laboratory’s board, reiterated that message, emphasizing the need to build on the momentum and start brainstorming priorities for the next year. It’s one example, he says, of the “collaborative power” of the MMSC.

“Even as someone who has worked in this space for a long time, what is striking about these meetings is seeing how much activity there is in Maine and what a diversity of organizations we have, all doing incredible work and supporting each other,” Conathan said. “It’s frankly remarkable.”

Photo Captions:

Photo 1: Members of the Maine Marine Science Consortium gathered at Bigelow Laboratory on January 16, 2026.

Photo 2: Holly Parker, director of the Schiller Coastal Studies Center at Bowdoin College, spoke during the gathering.

Photo 3: Public affairs specialist Mike Conathan, a member of Bigelow Laboratory’s board, addressed the group.