By Evan Howard for CICOES Magazine

Sylvia Musielewicz retired from CICOES in September 2023, after 17 years as a research scientist supporting the NOAA Pacific Marine Environmental Laboratory’s Carbon Program.

Following service with the Peace Corps in Kenya working in agroforestry, and employment as a research scientist at Harvard studying aquatic records of paleoecological conditions, Sylvia was hired by JISAO in 2006 to help develop NOAA’s then brand-new marine carbon dioxide observatory network on moorings. Sylvia played an essential role in expanding the moored program into a globally distributed observatory network spanning more than 40 time series sites.

Specifically, Sylvia has made the following key contributions:

• Supported deployments and operations for dozens of coastal and coral reef moorings and associated chemical sensors spanning the US (Samoa to New Hampshire and Alaska to Puerto Rico) and world (Australia to Iceland), both in person on “buoy rides” and by remotely supporting more than 100 partnering scientists, including training many in field operations.
• Authored more than 15 peer-reviewed publications, and contributed to hundreds of publicly archived datasets and synthesis products that are widely used by the global marine science community for original research, ocean and climate modeling, and global climate assessments such as the Global Carbon Budget and Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change Reports.
• Developed quality control procedures for oxygen, chlorophyll, pH, and other auxiliary data–greatly expanding publicly available time-series of these parameters–and worked closely with the Carbon Program’s software developers to define and enhance data processing and quality control pipelines, user interfaces, and software tools.
• Contributed to the technology transfer and commercialization of the Moored Autonomous pCO₂

As a testament to the impact of her work, at a recent meeting of the National Ocean Acidification Network participants shared their appreciation for Sylvia’s consistent and kind support, a work ethic that always went above and beyond to support their operations, and recognition that the many successes of the moored carbon program would have been impossible without her contributions. Indeed, the observational network she helped grow is beginning to transition from a research project to an official operational program within NOAA, which promises to support ocean acidification and global carbon research for decades to come.

Beyond these contributions, her wonderful sense of humor is deeply appreciated by her colleagues and will be missed. Similarly Sylvia is admired for her ability to craft solutions for both conceptual and practical needs (like her home-made mud pizza oven!).

We celebrate Sylvia’s career and wish her a joyful retirement in Bellingham. If you’d like to express your appreciation for her collaboration and contributions, please write a note or add a picture at https://www.kudoboard.com/boards/w55HRDv0.