The Skidaway Institute of Oceanography was founded in 1968 when Robert C. Roebling donated his Modena Plantation on the northern tip of Skidaway Island near Savannah to the State of Georgia for the establishment of a marine research institution. The Institute staff today numbers around eighty, including scientists with terminal degrees in a wide variety of fields.
The research focus at Skidaway Institute includes not only the deep ocean but also the continental shelves and estuaries, two regions where humans interact most intimately with the sea. The Institute maintains several unique facilities for enhancing marine research and is located on the bank of the Skidaway River, a pristine saltwater, tidally-dominated channel with access to a diverse range of estuarine and coastal habitats. Skidaway Institute offers resident and visiting scientists a stand-alone research campus , and the resources to accomplish a great variety of different types of research. |
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Research labs, listed below, occupy approximately 60,000 sq ft. on the main campus. An additional 12,000 sq ft. of seawater and freshwater culture/experimental facilities are also maintained. |
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SkIO has played a lead role in the design, installation and maintenance of power, communications and instrument systems deployed at the offshore platforms for the South Atlantic Bight Synoptic Offshore Observational Network (SABSOON) coastal ocean observing system. Hourly updated observations are posted on the project web site and sent to the National Weather Service for inclusion in regional marine forecasting models. SABSOON has been formally incorporated into the Southeast Atlantic Coastal Ocean Observing System ( SEA-COOS ) which is being developed as a regional coastal ocean observing system that is envisaged as a component within the national Integrated Ocean Observing System (IOOS). |
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The largest marine sciences library collection in Georgia, is housed on SkIO's campus with 6100 sq ft under roof containing holdings of 4000 book volumes and 17,000 serial volumes, over 110 journals, access to more than 300 databases and full-text resources available through the state's GALILEO internet network. |
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 Ten small apartments and cottages accommodate more than 150 visitors per year, with individual occupancies ranging from days to months. Visitors include students, faculty and staff from other University of Georgia System campuses and from other US research and educational institutions, as well as international students and faculty.
SkIO has received an NSF grant to build a 16-bed housing unit designed to support field research courses when needed, primarily during the summer, while being flexible enough to accommodate individuals and smaller groups for the remainder of the year. The new housing is intended to be part of a larger construction effort at the Institute, in order to provide much-needed classrooms, teaching and research laboratories for visitors and students. More information about housing at SkIO is available at http://www.skio.usg.edu/local/bo/housingpolicy.php |
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 The SkIO Computer Information Systems has personnel with 20 years of IT experience. CIS has over 13 terabytes of data storage; high-speed optical networking covering the entire campus; a self-supported email system; web hosting; ftp hosting; discussion group hosting; and campus wide wireless networking which includes all of our housing units. It has a complete and portable disaster recovery system; support for Windows; Mac; UNIX and Linux environments; clustering; network monitoring systems; centrally managed antivirus; automated server side user data storage for all users; disk to disk data redundancy; and tape data backup and archiving. |
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| Modern gigabit campus LAN servicing SkIO, and other USG labs (University of Georgia, Georgia Southern and Georgia Institute of Technology) and federal partners (NOAA) and their faculty/staff in direct support of research, academic and administrative projects. |
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 The Graphics Department at Skidaway Institute offers a variety of visual arts services including print production, figure development, slide and flatbed scanning, digital photography, and color printing all archived for easy retrieval and updating. |
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 Providing state of the art engineering services, the engineering staff offers over 30 years of accumulative experience in electrical and mechanical engineering and project development. From concept to deployment, services provided include the systems level and detail level design, fabrication, testing, installation, and maintenance of small to large scale projects. |
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In keeping with the self-sustaining necessities of early Institute days when the only access was by boat, SkIO remains remarkably self-sufficient by maintaining the physical plant and grounds with in-house machine, carpentry, plumbing and electrical shops. |
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Biochemistry/Toxicology 
The Skidaway Institute 
