User:J20MT/sandbox

• Comment: I was conducting clean up, copy editing and reviewing when author resubmitted. Missing citations for WP:BLP information, and the Research and Career section needs to be rewritten in a neutral tone without original research as to the impact the subject has had on the field, where the subject is not mentioned in the sources info. Future reviewers, please check the facts carefully in citations. Bobby Cohn (talk) 01:37, 31 July 2024 (UTC)

• Comment: Good job on adding citations, likely meets WP:NACADEMIC, but inline WP:External links need to be removed and statements of fact need inline citations, especially if paragraphs don't otherwise have citations. Bobby Cohn (talk) 21:09, 30 July 2024 (UTC)

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Doug Webb in 2022

Douglas C. Webb, founder of Teledyne Webb Research, was appointed as Oceanographer Emeritus at the Woods Hole Oceanographic Institution (WHOI) for his role in advancing knowledge of the ocean. His visionary leadership. fundamentally changed the field of oceanography. He pioneered the development of buoyancy systems (floats and gliders) which have revolutionized the way scientists approach gathering ocean data.

Early life and education

Douglas C. Webb was born in 1929 in Ontario, Canada. Webb received a B.S. degree in electrical engineering from Queen's University at Kingston, Ontario, Canada in 1952.

Webb attended the University of Manchester to earn a master of science degree under Tom Kilburn. Kilburn led the development of a succession of innovations leading to modern computers. The first, in 1951, was a development of the Manchester Mark 1 known as the megacycle machine or Meg, that replaced the vacuum tube diodes with solid state ones. While Kilburn led one design team working on Meg, he led another with Dick Grimsdale and Webb, on a research project examining the use of transistors. The 48-bit machine they completed in November 1953 was the world's first transistor computer Webb received his M.S. degree in electrical engineering from University of Manchester, Manchester, U.K., in 1954.

Career and research

After graduating, Webb joined the Ferranti Electric Company, in Manchester, U.K. Webb then went to the Olivetti Lab in Italy, who produced Italy’s first fully transistorized computer and helped bring mainframe computers to the commercial market.

In the early 1960s, Webb began to focus on methods to study deep ocean currents, while recognizing one of the hurdles facing oceanographic community research – the limited size of the research fleet. In 1962 he joined the Woods Hole Oceanographic Institution (WHOI), Woods Hole, MA, USA. When Webb moved to Woods Hole, he began working with Henry Stommel, a significant contributor to the advancement of the field of physical oceanography resulting in revolutionary advancements in marine technology and ocean exploration.

At WHOI, Webb used his knowledge of transistor technology to develop accurate timing for acoustically tracking Lagrangian floats, and began exploring the possibility of using the global deep sound or SOFAR channel to deploy and track neutrally buoyant floats over 1,000-kilometer distances.

In 1973, twenty SOFAR floats were deployed to study the mesoscale eddy field in the Mid-Ocean Dynamics Experiment (MODE) in 1973. Throughout the 1970s, hundreds of SOFAR floats were deployed in the Atlantic Ocean to study its dynamics.

In addition to SOFAR floats, several other technologies emerged from Webb’s lab including the vector-averaging current meter (VACM), created by Robert Weller and Russ Davis, and the Neil Brown CTD.

In 1982, Webb left WHOI to form Webb Research Corporation, to pursue the development of instruments to observe the vast scale of the ocean.

He first focused on the development of the Autonomous Lagrangian Circulation Explorer (ALACE), a float that rises and falls through the water column as it drifts freely through the ocean for up to six years. ALACE floats came to life through the combined vision of Webb and Russ Davis at the Scripps Institution of Oceanography. There are about 4,000 profiling floats in the ocean, known collectively as Argo. They relay data via satellite into an open-access database every 10 days managed by scientists from 30 countries. Over the last 20 years of the Argo program, the floats have made over 2 million ocean profiles, or four times as many profiles as all other ocean observing tools combined.

In the late 1990’s, Webb developed and tested the first Slocum glider in Tuckerton, New Jersey, working with Rutgers University oceanographers. The Slocum glider was given its namesake after Joshua Slocum, who was the first man to circumnavigate the world alone. The buoyancy gliders serve as platforms, equipped with CTDs and other sensors, it glides through the ocean sampling the vertical and horizontal structure of the ocean.

Webb Research Corporation was sold to Teledyne in 2008 and became Teledyne Webb Research.

In 2009, building on the success of progressively longer missions, Teledyne Webb Research and Rutgers University deployed the “Scarlet Knight” – where Rutgers undergraduates piloted a Slocum glider across the Atlantic Ocean basin in what became noted as one of the most important robotic achievements in history, with the “Scarlet Knight” being displayed in the National Museum of Natural History’s Sant Ocean Hall.

Slocum gliders continue to evolve and enable ocean research across the globe, and are used to study hurricane intensities, sediment transport during storms, ocean acidification, coastal water quality, tracking marine mammals and the locations of plankton and fish in the water column around Antarctica, to list a few applications.

Awards

In 1988, Webb was the recipient of the Woods Hole Oceanographic Institution Henry Bryant Bigelow Medal in Oceanography. Established in 1960, the Bigelow Award is presented "to those who make significant inquiries into the phenomena of the sea."

In 2005, Webb received the IEEE Oceanic Engineering Society’s Distinguished Technical Achievement Award.

In 2017, Webb was honored as the first recipient of the Woods Hole Oceanographic Institution’s Center for Marine Robotics Innovators Award. The same year, Webb also recieved the American Geophysical Union's Ocean Science Award, which is presented biennially and recognizes outstanding leadership or service to the ocean sciences by a senior scientist.

In 2021, he was appointed as Oceanographer Emeritus at the Woods Hole Oceanographic Institution.

Works

Webb is the author or coauthor of 41 publications. He is the inventor or coinventor of several U.S. patents.

Publications

• Morozov, Andrey K.; Webb, Douglas C. (October 2022). "Experimental Marine Vibrator With a Helmholtz Bubble Resonator in the Frequency Range 5–16 Hz". IEEE Journal of Oceanic Engineering. 47 (4): 984–994. Bibcode:2022IJOE...47..984M. doi:10.1109/JOE.2022.3172403.
• Morozov, Andrey K.; Webb, Douglas C. (1 September 2018). "Underwater bubble low frequency source for Arctic acoustic tomography, navigation, and communication". The Journal of the Acoustical Society of America. 144 (3_Supplement): 1819. Bibcode:2018ASAJ..144.1819M. doi:10.1121/1.5068026.
• Morozov, Andrey K.; Webb, Douglas C. (1 October 2016). "Deep water sound sources for ocean acoustic tomography and long-range navigation". Journal of the Acoustical Society of America. 140 (4_Supplement): 3135. Bibcode:2016ASAJ..140.3135M. doi:10.1121/1.4969823.
• Morozov, Andrey K.; Webb, Douglas C. (1 March 2018). "Experiments with the Underwater Bubble Low Frequency Sound Resonator". The Journal of the Acoustical Society of America. 143 (3_Supplement): 1762. Bibcode:2018ASAJ..143Q1762M. doi:10.1121/1.5035772.
• Morozov, Andrey K.; Webb, Douglas C. (1 August 2007). "Underwater tunable organ-pipe sound source". The Journal of the Acoustical Society of America. 122 (2): 777–785. Bibcode:2007ASAJ..122..777M. doi:10.1121/1.2751268. hdl:1912/2519. PMID 17672628.

Patents

• US 8875645B1, "Variable buoyancy profiling float", published 2014-11-04 
• US 8265809B2, "Autonomous underwater vehicle with current monitoring", published 2012-09-11 

Personal life

In 1957, Webb married Shirley F. Lyons, a classmate from Ontario, Canada. The couple spent five years in Milan before moving to the Woods Hole Oceanographic Institution located in Falmouth, MA, in 1962.