Tune into this episode of Shorewords with Dr. Kate Musemeche in conversation about her new book, Lethal Tides: Mary Sears and the Marine Scientists who helped win World War II. Dr. Kate’s book blends the early establishment of physical oceanography with naval history. The podcast provides an account of researchers who pivoted from studying plankton, barnacles and crustaceans to providing voluminous information to the Joint Chiefs of Staff on the tides, currents, waves and sediments that armed forces were likely to encounter as they landed on remote, and often under-studied, Pacific islands. This effort was led by Mary Sears, “the conscience of oceanography” whose work was posthumously acknowledged in 2000 with the launch of USNS Mary Sears, the first oceanographic survey ship named after a woman.

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“What did the council decide on item 42?” — answered with the speaker and the moment.

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