Abstract
The Gulf of Mexico Research Initiative (GoMRI) was founded in the wake of the Deepwater Horizon oil spill (DWH) with a commitment of $500 million in non-penalty funds by BP to conduct science to understand the impacts of oil spills on the environment and to public health. Now in its tenth and final year, GoMRI leadership and investigators are wrapping up ongoing projects and synthesizing the enormous amount of research collected over the past decade. Specifically, the goal of GoMRI’s synthesis effort has been to answer five key questions: What was the state of the science before Deepwater Horizon? What have we learned? What major gaps in knowledge still exist? How can we best apply what we have learned? Where do we go from here? To that end, GoMRI developed eight Core Areas of scientific focus aligned with GoMRI research themes. Leads for these Core Areas held a series of workshops designed to be working sessions to aggregate all research results in the Core Area, eventually leading to published reports and research articles. In 2014, GoMRI partnered with the four Gulf of Mexico Sea Grant Programs to create the Oil Spill Science Outreach Team. The team’s mission has been to conduct extension and outreach activities within the Gulf of Mexico and beyond to bring the science of oil spills to people whose livelihoods depend on a healthy Gulf. As the synthesis activities have progressed, members of the team have worked closely with the Core Area leaders to begin developing outreach publications that consolidate, summarize, and improve public access to 10 years of synthesized science and discovery. Audience members will learn about the results of GoMRI’s synthesis efforts that have helped society better understand oil spills and impacts of DWH to the Gulf of Mexico.
