Northshore magazine showcases the best that the North Shore of Boston, MA has to offer.
Issue link: http://read.uberflip.com/i/60293
ne Science Hard Wired An elecrophysiology rig cuts an imposing and complicated figure. The Marine Corp. Northeastern University's Marine Science Center is becoming a leader in urban coastal sustainability. By Jeanne O'Brien Coffey was founded at East Point by Louis Agas- siz, a Harvard professor who maintained his summer cottage and laboratory in the seaside village. More recently, Dr. Jane Lubchenco, the Obama administration's undersecretary of commerce for oceans and atmosphere, as well as administrator of the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration, did groundbreaking research in experimental marine ecology in Nahant in the 1970s. It should come as no surprise, then, J 68 nshoremag.com May/June 2012 that Nahant, which marine scientists lov- ingly refer to as "The Rock," is once again becoming a home for cutting-edge oce- anic research. This time, it's Northeast- ern University's Marine Science Center taking the helm; by 2017, Northeastern expects the MSC to be a global leader in the field of urban coastal sustainability. From the outside, the science center is certainly unique. The facility is housed partly in a bunker built during World War II for defense of Boston Harbor and partly in barracks that are remnants of the Cold War Nike missile squadron. Inside, MSC is assembling a team of professors and re- searchers with diverse backgrounds and photographs by adam detour utting into the atlantic at the northern edge of Boston Harbor, Nahant has long been a natural spot for marine research. More than 150 years ago, the sci- ence of American marine biology