Volume 12, Number 3, 2004
Ferris Webster, a pioneer in developing a global view of data management in the field of oceanography, has retired after 20 years with the College of Marine Studies.
In addition to his significant contributions to international data management, Webster has inspired numerous students to pursue graduate degrees in oceanography, provided direction to the College and conducted research on the large-scale interactions between the ocean and the atmosphere and their effect on global climate.
"I have enjoyed working for the College of Marine Studies [CMS]," Webster, who retired at the end of 2003, says. "I was attracted to the open and informal atmosphere, which provided many opportunities for faculty and students to interact with each other. I am pleased that even though CMS has grown over the years, the atmosphere has not changed."
Colleagues say that may be due, in part, to Webster's own policy of maintaining an open door, describing him as always readily available to lend an ear to both fellow faculty members and students.
"There is no substitute for being able to walk down the hall to a colleague's office and ask for impromptu expert advice," Jonathan Sharp, professor of oceanography, says. "He has been a valuable guide over the years for advice and opinions on national and international science policy and translation of science for public consumption."
Upon arriving at the College in 1983, Webster immediately put his administrative skills to work as director of the Oceanography Program, a position he held until 1994 and again from
1999-2003. Oceanography is one of the four graduate program areas in the College. It emphasizes research on physical, geological, biological and chemical problems in marine environments ranging from the Delaware Bay to the depths of the ocean.
As director, Webster was known for encouraging a high level of teamwork and cooperation among faculty members to improve the overall program and for making use of cost sharing as a way to stretch the budget and increase opportunities for graduate students and faculty.
"Ferris guided the Oceanography Program with a steady hand during the years in which most of the current faculty were hired," Sharp says.
Former students say Webster's courses, which included such topics as the physical properties of the ocean, ocean currents and circulation and the ocean's role in climate variability, were popular. In his lectures, they say, he engaged the class in thought-provoking discussions and reinforced abstract concepts with practical examples and analogies--even showing a televised debate on global warming to illustrate the pros and cons of this complex subject.
"Dr. Webster's classes have had a positive and lasting impact on me," Magdalena Anguelova, MS '97M, '02PhD, says. "His enthusiasm for the role of oceans in the climate system was contagious and convinced me to do my dissertation research in the field of climate variability and its causes."
Anguelova, who now works as a postdoctoral fellow at the Naval Research Laboratory in Washington, D.C., credits Webster with giving her the support and guidance she needed to complete her studies while having the added pressures of being a wife and mother. "I am proud to say he was my mentor, and I will always be deeply thankful for his excellent advising," she says.
In addition to teaching, advising and conducting research, Webster has focused on developing ways to manage the huge amounts of oceanographic data generated by ships, satellites, drifting buoys and moored instruments, which are tethered to the bottom of the ocean.
"In the 1970s, scientists began to study the physics of the world's oceans in earnest," James Crease, an adjunct professor in the College who has known Webster for 45 years, says. "Although there was active collaboration between groups, the programs were regional in scale. It was only in the 1980s that an integrated global research program developed, which in turn required a global view of data management.
"Ferris was one of the first scientists to recognize that it was just as important to manage the large streams of data produced around the world as it was to collect the data in the first place."
Webster led the development of the College's Ocean Information Center to track the voluminous and scattered information being collected by dozens of nations around the world. Since its establishment, the center has been at the cutting edge of technology.
Crease notes that Webster's work on data management was not limited to oceanography but included the broader field of environmental science, encouraging the integration of data from research in geology, geophysics and meteorology.
"Ferris has been a significant pathfinder in the field of data management," Crease says. "In particular, he has successfully influenced a wide circle of national and international colleagues as to the importance of this field."
Webster has served the scientific community as a member of numerous advisory boards and committees.
Currently, he is a member of the Climate Monitoring Working Group, which observes the global climate system for the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration (NOAA). In addition, he chairs the World Data Center System, a network of more than 50 data centers in a dozen nations serving the geophysical and environmental research community. As an outgrowth of that work, he chairs an ad hoc group on data and information within the International Council of Scientific Unions, which promotes the full and open exchange of data and information for science and education.
Before coming to UD, Webster was associate director for research at the Woods Hole Oceanographic Institution in Woods Hole, Mass., and was assistant administrator for research and development at NOAA.
He says he plans to continue living in Lewes, Del., and to pursue his research on global climate at the Ocean Information Center.
--Kari K. Gulbrandsen, EG '91M