Antarctic Undersea ROV 09

Originally from upstate New York, Michele Cross is a special education teacher who currently teaches an Introduction to Science class and a variety of English classes at Corning East High School in Corning, New York. When not in the classroom, Mrs. Cross can be found coaching both tennis and soccer for her school district. Likewise, she enjoys cycling, hiking, and gardening in the summer months and snowshoeing and cross-country skiing in the winter. She particularly loves spending summers with her niece and nephew in Colorado. While climbing her first 14,000-foot mountain a couple of summers ago, she learned that her hair could stand on end even in the midst of hail and rain due to the highly charged air around her! Mrs. Cross is thrilled beyond belief to be given this opportunity, and she hopes that it will inspire her students to dream great dreams!

Dr. Stacy Kim is a research professor in Benthic Ecology, or how organisms that live on the seafloor interact to form communities. She has worked with Dr. Adam Marsh in both Antarctic and hydrothermal vent ecosystems, and will be diving on this project to help collect worms, as well as to continue assembling data to examine long term changes in Antarctic ecosystems. When she is not studying human impacts in marine communities and developing technology for underwater research, Stacy enjoys backpacking, climbing, and beach volleyball.

Bob Zook is an engineer with Coastal Conservation and Research, Inc. Mr. Zook first worked as a logistics support contractor in Antarctica in 1997, but now works in Antarctic research. Mr. Zook is the chief engineer that designed and developed the remotely operated vehicle (ROV) called SCINI (Submersible Capable of Under Ice Navigation and Imaging). The SCINI ROV will be used in 2010 on the IceAged project. He is also working with the ANDRILL (http://www.andrill.org/) project in Antarctica to develop an ROV that can dive deeper.