Current Research
Building Lasting Pathways in Offshore Wind Fisheries Science in Massachusetts
Funded by the Massachusetts Clean Energy Center
ROSA and Fat Moon Creative will develop and implement a communications strategy for offshore wind fisheries research results. The strategy will be designed to benefit the research community, state and regional fisheries and energy managers, and the Massachusetts fishing industry through scientific webinars, tailored communication products, and a dedicated port tour throughout Massachusetts in 2027 to maximize reach to the fishing industry.
Regional Offshore Wind Fisheries Data Governance for the New York-New Jersey Bight
Funded by New Jersey Research & Monitoring Initiative
ROSA is leading a two-year project to map how data move from collection to archival. With input from the fishing industry, regulators, researchers, and ocean developers, we will develop cumulative impact assessment frameworks and pilot workflows for finding, accessing, and combining the data they require.
Expected products include three species-specific CIA frameworks, data pipelines and workflows for each species, guidelines for fishery monitoring data pipelines, an information portal, and recommendations for repositories and data sharing consistent with FAIR and CARE principles, including options for sensitive data that cannot be fully public. Final reports and materials will be released publicly under a CC0 license. The work will be coordinated with the Regional Wildlife Science Collaborative, MARCO, NROC, and ROSA’s Advisory Council and Research Advisors.
Prior Research
National Offshore Wind Research and Development Consortium Grant Project
In fall 2022, a collaboration led by the National Renewable Energy Laboratory, including the Responsible Offshore Science Alliance (ROSA) and the University of Maine, received a grant from the National Offshore Wind Research and Development Consortium for a project titled “Co-Design Solutions for US Floating Offshore Wind Farms and Fishing Compatibility.” This project’s aim is to enhance coexistence of fisheries and floating wind by bringing together engineers and fishermen to codesign floating wind turbine platforms, mooring lines, dynamic cables, and anchors. The project team will be collaborating with fishermen from North Carolina to Maine. This effort is scheduled to kick off in March 2023 and continue until September 2025.
ROSA is heading up the Mid-Atlantic component of the study, working with Dewey Hemilright, long-time commercial pelagic longliner and industry leader, and John Nappo, recreational fisherman and fishing tackle shop owner on Long Island, New York. John is also a professor of maritime technology at Kingsborough Community College.
August 2025: The U.S. Department of Energy’s National Renewable Energy Laboratory (NREL) released the report Focal Fisheries Requirements for Floating Offshore Wind Co-Design in the Gulf of Maine and the Mid-Atlantic Bight.
We are proud to highlight ROSA’s recent work on the collaboration led by the National Renewable Energy Laboratory, and partner University of Maine, with the release of the report “Focal Fisheries Requirements for Floating Offshore Wind Co-Design in the Gulf of Maine and the Mid-Atlantic Bight”.
National Science Foundation Convergence Accelerator Grant Project
ROSA worked with Rutgers’ University and other organizations from 2021-2022 on a National Science Foundation Convergence Accelerator grant for the project, “Regional climate change projections to enable equitable ocean planning for the blue economy.” The main focus of the initiative was to collaboratively design web tools that empower community members to integrate climate information into their decision-making, and make projections of climate impacts actionable and useful for the ocean economy in the Northeast US.
Rutgers was the lead institution and other collaborators included:
- Pacific Northwest College of Art and the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration
- Rutgers Educational Opportunity Fund
- The Nature Conservancy
- University of Connecticut
- University of Massachusetts
- University of Wisconsin
