Texas A&M University and the University of Haifa announced joint plans to establish a major Mediterranean observatory to study oceanography and the atmosphere.
The planned observatory, announced on Dec. 14, will cost more than $5.5 million and will be called the Texas A&M-University of Haifa Eastern Mediterranean Observatory.
The observatory will draw on the expertise of Texas A&M faculty conducting similar research efforts in the Gulf of Mexico. The Mediterranean and Gulf of Mexico “are viewed as similar bodies of water and thus provide unique opportunities for comparative analysis of their related impacts on the environment, industry and people of their regions,” according to the statement issued by Texas A&M.
“This teaching and research partnership is a critical step for Texas A&M University on its way to becoming a $1 billion-a-year research giant,” said the chancellor, John Sharp. “Who wouldn’t want to work with Israel — literally the subject of the book ‘Start-Up Nation’ — where innovation is not only necessary, it is valued?”
The Haifa observatory will, according to the statement, “receive and transmit data from two moorings in the Levant Basin of the eastern Mediterranean Sea.”
The joint project also will bring faculty from both universities together for symposiums, joint research projects and other programming. — jta