Facilities

Features

The School for Marine Science & Technology's (SMAST) has two facilities located in New Bedford, MA. Research is conducted at the school's two-story, 32,000-square-foot New Bedford building located at 706 S. Rodney French Boulevard as well as the 64,000-square-foot facility at 836 S. Rodney French Boulevard with docking facilities on Clark's Cove, Buzzards Bay. Both facilities include classrooms, labs, and offices for faculty, staff, and students.

 

SMAST conference room

SMAST Conference Facilities

Contact us for reservations involving a large meeting. SMAST's Conferencing Suite is ideal for boardroom-style and business meetings, theater-style lectures, and large-scale talks and other events. Learn more.

Lab Manager Forrest Kennedy in Seawater Lab at SMAST East.

Expanded Seawater Lab

The 6,000-square-feet lab, located in SMAST East, is designed to allow scientist the ability to conduct multiple experiments simultaneously and is configured with the flexibility to accommodate faculty members’ research needs.

 

Glider Blue in test tank

Acoustic-Optic Test Tank

SMAST's 90,000-gallon acoustic-optic test tank designed for development and testing of underwater measurement concepts and devices, and as a resource for local academic, government, and industrial researchers and product developers.

 

SMAST's R/V Lucky Lady

R/V Lucky Lady

The R/V LuckyLady, a 50-foot, diesel-powered research boat with winch and wire for sampling, is ideal for approved faculty and student research projects as well as other academic activities for half-day or full-day trips to local sites such as Buzzard’s Bay, the Islands, and Cape Cod Bay. Learn more

Additional features

  • 2,200 square-foot seawater research lab at SMAST West, which contains plentiful raw, filtered, heated or chilled seawater.
  • Greenhouse for the growth and long-term maintenance of aquatic photosynthetic organisms under natural light.
  • Temperature-controlled rooms for long-term behavioral and physiological experiments and acclimation of marine organisms for culture and reproduction.
  • Classrooms equipped for video conferencing and distance learning.
  • Docking pier extended into Clark's Cove, permitting the loading and unloading of vessels and shallow-water sampling, and housing the pumping station that supplies water to the seawater research lab.
  • State-of-the-art research laboratories.

Technology

  • Autonomous underwater vehicles (AUVs) are used to measure temperature, salinity, oxygen and other parameters as they ply the oceans, sometimes for weeks permission. ‌
  • Coastal radar measures surface waves on fishing grounds hundreds of kilometers offshore.
  • A dedicated supercomputer performs modeling runs of ocean and climate scenarios that represent years of real time.
  • Seafloor video equipment surveys the entire Northwest Atlantic sea scallop resource.
  • Estuarine and ocean equipment take samples from the marine environment that are analyzed ashore by mass spectrometers and an array of auxiliary instrumentation. 

Research labs

 

Department of Estuarine and Ocean Sciences

Department of Fisheries Oceanography