Jack Barth

Executive Director, OSU Marine Studies Initiative and Professor, Oregon State University

Dr. Jack Barth is the Executive Director of Oregon State University’s Marine Studies Initiative, a program to unite  marine-related research, teaching, and outreach and engagement across OSU and the state of Oregon. The mission of the Marine Studies Initiative is to create a healthy future for our ocean and the planet through transdisciplinary research and teaching that emphasizes collaboration, experiential learning, engagement with society and problem solving. Jack is also a Professor of oceanography in Oregon State University’s College of Earth, Ocean, and Atmospheric Sciences (CEOAS). He received a Ph.D in Oceanography in 1987 from the  Massachusetts Institute of Technology and Woods Hole Oceanographic Institution Joint Program in Oceanography. Dr. Barth is a Fellow of The Oceanography Society and of the American Meteorological Society. 

Jack Barth’s research seeks to understand how coastal ocean circulation and water properties shape and  influence coastal marine ecosystems. He has led a number of research, technology development and ocean  observing system projects off Oregon and around the world. Dr. Barth's present research includes a focus on the  characteristics and formation of low-oxygen zones off Oregon. His research team uses autonomous underwater gliders, robots beneath the sea surface, logging over 120,000 km of measurements—equivalent to about 3 times  around the Earth—over the last 15 years. From 2004 to 2007, he was a member of the National Science Foundation’s Observatory Steering Committee that launched the Ocean Observatories Initiative (OOI)  including the Endurance Array installed off Oregon and Washington. From 2013-2016, he served on the U.S. West Coast Ocean Acidification and Hypoxia Science Panel, and, from 2018-2022, he co-chaired Oregon’s Ocean Acidification and Hypoxia Coordinating Council. He is a member of the North Pacific Marine Science Organization (PICES) MONITOR Committee, responsible for coordinating ocean observations across the six PICES member nations.