iSchool's Winslow Burleson Helps Bring Blue Economy Innovation from Ocean State to Desert
Diver Brandon Carr interfaces with an underwater robot outside of Ocean Space Habitat at Biosphere 2 during a recent test of the technology in an Arizona "ocean." Photo by Jona Silvertein.
Diving technology co-invented by iSchool Professor Winslow Burleson successfully demonstrated "underwater camping" possibilities at the University of Arizona's Biosphere 2 recently, notes an ecoRI story, "Diving Technology Brings Blue Economy Innovation from Ocean State to Desert."
The technology, with was jointly invented by Michael Lombardi, was patented in 2018.
Their invention, which is a “tent”—or “underwater habitat”—provides "a relatively dry and protected space for divers to enter, remove their equipment, and carry out any number of tasks before returning to the surface," according to the article.
During the recent tests at Biosphere 2, the Ocean Space Habitat system was deployed by a small team, then Burleson entered the habitat using life support carried independently, and stayed overnight. The total cumulative time spent underwater by Burleson, along with safety divers, was 26 hours.
“I was able to get comfortable enough to sleep through the night and be reliant on the ultra portable self-contained life systems engineered for the habitat,” Burleson says in the article. “This capability results in… less expense than conventional fixed habitats and saturation diving, and exposes a new cross section in human intervention that might make advances in marine sciences possible.”
Burleson is a social inventor, a scholar, researcher, artist, and educator with expertise in Human Computer Interaction and the Learning Sciences. He has been recognized as a Distinguished Member of the Association for Computing Machinery, a pioneering innovator advancing the digital age. The National Academy of Engineering recognized him as one of the “nation's brightest young engineering researchers and educators.” Prior to joining University of Arizona he was an Associate Professor at New York University where he served as PI for the NSF Experiential Supercomputing: A Transdisciplinary Research and Innovation Holodeck grant, the only large-scale NSF CISE MRI awarded nationally in 2016. He earned a BA in Bio-Physics from Rice University, MSE in Product Design from Stanford University, and Ph.D. in Media Arts and Sciences from MIT. He has authored over 100 scholarly articles, holds eleven patents, and twice received Time Magazine’s Top Inventions of the Year Awards.