Profs and Pints Baltimore presents: “Robots as Ocean Explorers,” a look at what new technology is teaching us about the seas, with James Bellingham, professor of exploration robotics at Johns Hopkins University, executive director of its Institute for Assured Autonomy, and co-author of How Are Marine Robots Shaping Our Future?

[Doors open at 5. The talk starts at 6:30. The room is open seating.]

The ocean is Earth’s last great frontier, still largely unexplored despite being vital to our climate, economy, and security.

Today, however, that’s changing, thanks to fleets of intelligent marine robots that map the seafloor, track shifting currents, monitor ecosystems, and operate where no human can survive.

Such robots are not just tools of discovery. They’re redefining our relationship with the planet.

Join James Bellingham, a pioneer in ocean robotics, for an in-depth look at how marine robots are transforming science, industry, and even the Navy. He’ll describe how ocean robots are expanding our understanding of the climate and planetary systems, illuminating the hidden dynamics that drive weather and sustain life on Earth, and playing an important role in our efforts to derive food and energy from the seas.

You’ll learn how the Navy has long been a quiet engine of ocean innovation, and how its investments in ocean research helped create the platforms and technologies that now underpin everything from climate studies to undersea infrastructure.

For more than 30 years, Dr. Bellingham has been a global leader in the development of small, high-performance autonomous underwater vehicles (AUVs), resulting in a class of systems that are now widely used within the military, industry, and science communities. He has been instrumental in innovations for ocean observing and has spent considerable time at sea, leading two dozen AUV expeditions in locations across the Antarctic, North Atlantic, Mediterranean, South Pacific, and Arctic.

His talk will tell the story of how, from the depths of our own oceans to the hidden seas of distant worlds, robots are helping us explore, protect, and perhaps even find company in the vast blue that surrounds us. (Advance tickets: $13.50 plus sales tax and processing fees. Doors: $17, or $15 with a student ID.)

Image: The submersible robot ROV Hercules at work on the ocean floor (Mountains in the Sea Research Team; the IFE Crew; and NOAA/OAR/OER).