COMCEPTS

Combined Ocean Mixing Course, Experiments, and Practices for Turbulence Sampling

COMCEPTS is a summer course entirely created by students for students who want to learn more about ocean turbulence and mixing. Turbulent mixing is one of the main mechanisms through which the ocean distributes heat, momentum, nutrients and other passive tracers. Measuring ocean mixing, however, requires specialized instrumentation and knowledge not typically covered in turbulence courses at the graduate level, which is exactly why COMCEPTS was created.

With the goal of connecting theory and practice under the framework of peer-to-peer mentorship, participating students are provided with a theoretical foundation of what ocean turbulence is and how we measure it and then get to practice collecting turbulence data at sea; process and analyze it and write a report about it. The teaching is primarily done by other graduate students and complemented with guest lectures by senior scientists.

The first iteration of COMCEPTS was held in 2025, and planning is underway for COMCEPTS 2027.

Exampled of topics covered in COMCEPTS