Jon Lewis will be one of six Ocean Discovery Lecturers for the International Ocean Discovery Program for 2023–24. He will share a combination of research and reflections on one of the most productive research initiatives in the geosciences over the last 50 years. His talk, "Inside IODP: Tales of Tectonics at the Nankai Trough and the Culture of Scientific Ocean Drilling," will be available to academic departments that apply by May 22, 2023.
Lewis has been active with IODP since 2007 when he sailed on Expedition 315 as a structural geologist. He then continued to serve scientific ocean drilling by serving three year terms on the US Science Advisory Committee and on the Science Evaluation Panel. These roles afforded him the opportunity to understand how this major research endeavor functions as a STEM ecosystem.
He will provide a glimpse under-the-hood of the internal workings that have sustained the program for so many decades. He will also share a number of impactful derivatives of this ecosystem, including a traveling outreach program, a teacher professional develop program, and a program that serves as an entry point for undergraduates curious about seagoing STEM.