4

Current and Future Employment Landscape

The current and future employment landscape for workers with expertise in ocean acoustics has never included as many sectors of the economy. This expertise used to be largely considered the province of the military and defense-supported academic sectors, but it is now more widely in demand to support public and private organizations focused on issues such as port security, renewable energy, commercial fisheries, or non-defense research. This chapter reviews that landscape for workers with either formal or on-the-job training in ocean acoustics based on the results of the committee’s information-gathering panels and community survey. It begins with an overview of the types of activities and areas where ocean acoustics is found in the workforce, then reviews employment opportunities within three areas: government (federal, state, local, and military), private sector, and academia/research. The final section examines the state of the workforce, including the ability to meet current and future demands for ocean acoustics expertise.

AREAS OF OCEAN ACOUSTICS EXPERTISE IN THE WORKFORCE

Outside of academia, a variety of civilian and military agencies, independent research institutions, and private-sector companies rely on workers with expertise in ocean acoustics. Commercial firms that design, manufacture, test, and market ocean acoustics instrumentation clearly have a direct need for a steady supply of engineers and scientists with acoustics expertise. Most organizations, including several branches of the military and civilian government, are users of instrumentation for passive monitoring (listening) or active sensing (interrogating the ocean). These organizations require workers who can acquire, process, analyze, and interpret acoustics data. Regulatory and management organizations require bioacoustics expertise to assess the potential impacts of sound on marine life. Another sector, which partially overlaps with some military and civilian government organizations, focuses on ocean acoustic modeling supporting defense applications, shipbuilding, environmental compliance, or marine construction. Finally, some organizations require ocean acoustics expertise because they either fund basic or applied research activities that use acoustic tools or regulate the use of acoustics in the marine environment.

Based on the ocean acoustics activities listed in Table 4-1, employees with expertise in ocean acoustics may comprise a wide range of endeavors, including regulators who oversee compliance with federal statutes, engineers who design new sensors or test the sound radiation patterns of ships, technical staff and researchers who conduct marine surveys and engage in oceanographic fieldwork, physicists and oceanographers who formulate new sound propagation models, data scientists who manage large data libraries, and program officers who judge proposals and fund ocean acoustics research. This list is not exhaustive, and employment opportunities exist for those with

TABLE 4-1 Ocean Acoustics Activities of Employers

NOTE: The key numbers are used with Tables 4-2 and 4-3.

formal education at levels ranging from certificates through Ph.D. and/or skills acquired from on-the-job training. Ocean acoustics opportunities may also be open to those trained in a variety of allied fields, including marine mammal science, public policy, geophysics, electrical or ocean engineering, data science, and wave physics.

GOVERNMENT (MILITARY AND CIVILIAN) EMPLOYMENT

In this report, government employers include both military and federal executive branch components and state and local governments. It is likely that federal government (military and civilian agencies combined) ocean acoustics employees outnumber those in academia and the private sector, although the committee could not find statistics to confirm this inference.

Military Organizations

Military organizations, such as USN (including the Marine Corps), USCG, and Army Corps of Engineers, employ both civilians and military personnel with ocean acoustics expertise. Those working with the military may operate and maintain active acoustic systems and interpret the resulting data; deploy passive acoustic sensors and analyze data; formulate and interpret sound propagation models; analyze sound radiation patterns from ships and submarines; and conduct research on bioacoustics, advanced data science topics, or novel acoustic systems needed to support national security. This study’s sponsor (ONR) employs experts in ocean acoustics to identify, evaluate, and fund opportunities in all of these areas, plus advanced sensor development, signal detection and processing, and cutting-edge topics. Military organizations typically have in-house environmental compliance teams that also include ocean acousticians. These teams prepare documentation (such as environmental impact statements) for military acoustics that often have no parallel in civilian practice, and they therefore require expertise in sound propagation, bioacoustics, and the unique characteristics of military sound sources and vessel noise. Box 4-1 provides a sample of the USN components, beyond ONR, that also provide support for ocean acoustics.

Components of OAR, such as the Pacific Marine Environmental Laboratory and Uncrewed Systems, employ ocean acousticians who conduct research on ocean noise, ambient sound, new sensors, and bioacoustics or acquire acoustics data in support of the needs of OAR. The National Marine Fisheries Service (NMFS) (also part of NOAA), FWS, and BOEM all regulate the use of active ocean acoustics and sound production related to anthropogenic sources (e.g., vessels, pile driving, seismic airguns) to comply with certain environmental statutes (e.g., Marine Mammal Protection Act, Endangered Species Act [ESA]). NSF provides funding for proposal-driven science. Researchers who receive NSF grants may use active acoustics to characterize the ocean or seafloor or communicate with devices or passive acoustics to monitor earthquakes or marine life. They may also conduct original research on bioacoustics, data science, fundamental sensor development, or acoustic data interpretation. DOE sometimes sponsors projects that use ocean acoustics tools. Table 4-2 provides a list of U.S. government organization users of ocean acoustics, with applications and their associated activities.

The ocean acoustics staffing needs vary within each of these organizations: NSF and DOE require program officers who understand the use of ocean acoustics, without needing deep expertise in the topic. BOEM employs acousticians with experience in bioacoustics, sound propagation modeling, and the regulatory framework. USGS, like NOAA OAR, primarily employs oceanographers, geophysicists, and hydrographers who use and interpret data from active or passive acoustic instrumentation. USGS also employs scientists who use acoustics as a deterrent for invasive species (e.g., Asian carp) on inland waterways.

For both military and federal government positions, U.S. citizenship is a critical requirement, and some employees must also obtain security clearances. These requirements can limit the applicant pool for some positions, although a panelist from the military-affiliated national laboratory who was interviewed during the committee’s information gathering had ample suitable applicants and did not see the citizenship requirement as an impediment to hiring.

Other panelists from federal regulatory agencies cited significant challenges in recruiting for positions that require an understanding of ocean acoustics. For example, BOEM, which founded a Center for Marine Acoustics in 2020, had difficulties identifying applicants with sufficient expertise in modeling ocean sound propagation. The regulatory branch of NMFS has sometimes struggled to hire and retain ocean acousticians with the physics experience needed to analyze the effects of acoustic exposure on marine animals. Barriers to filling these positions may include the citizenship requirement, a lack of awareness that these federal organizations hire ocean acousticians, the nature of regulatory work, and certain characteristics of federal employment (pay, work location, hiring practices, or bureaucratic challenges). Even if a new hire does not have the specific expertise sought by a federal regulatory agency, an effective strategy noted during an information-gathering panel was developing ocean acoustics knowledge in employees through on-the-job training.

In contrast, a panelist who leads a military-affiliated national laboratory group in ocean acoustics did not report challenges with recruitment. The laboratory makes extensive use of internships to identify potential employees during their academic training and seeks employees from a broad range of technical disciplines, some seemingly unrelated to ocean acoustics. The citizenship requirement has not interfered with hiring appropriate employees.

State and Local Government

State and local governments and law enforcement increasingly also require expertise in ocean acoustics. These government agencies may survey local water bodies with geophysical or hydrographic tools, evaluate projects that use active acoustic sources in state waters (e.g., consistency determinations for the Coastal Zone Management Act), conduct passive acoustic monitoring, or participate in acoustic deterrence projects. Law enforcement is starting to rely more frequently on ocean acoustics tools for imaging or detection associated with search and rescue missions in inland and ocean water bodies. This category had no conversations or survey responses, as it is a small sector with specialized and increasing ocean acoustics needs.

PRIVATE-SECTOR AND ACADEMIC EMPLOYMENT

Private-sector employers as defined here include all NGOs or non-military organizations, with the exception of academic institutions. They may be for-profit companies engaged in any aspect of ocean acoustics or non-profit research institutions or NGOs. Table 4-3 summarizes their ocean acoustics activities and competencies.

Private-sector panelists who met with the committee reported success in hiring and retaining employees. These employers cast a wide net, attracting a combination of physicists, oceanographers, and geoscientists for many positions. Internships, usually through universities, were seen as critical to identifying potential employees and introducing them to the work and culture of the organization sometimes years before they were hired. One challenge brought to the committee’s awareness is the large range of job titles used to advertise ocean acoustics positions. This sometimes makes it harder for people to easily identify opportunities fitting their expertise.

ACADEMIC/RESEARCH EMPLOYMENT

Ocean acoustics has few tenured or tenure-track faculty positions, and, based on sheer numbers, this is not a large employment sector compared to sectors outside of academia. Ocean acoustics differs from some other physics-based fields in having substantial federal grant support, especially through defense agencies. This means relatively more research faculty (typically funded mostly by grants or contracts) than tenured/tenure-track faculty in ocean acoustics and some allied fields. At some universities and in some departments, research faculty advise graduate students, teach courses, and are principal investigators on grants, but other universities reserve those roles for tenured/tenure-track faculty. As most research faculty rely on grants or contracts (“soft money”) to fund

their activities, these positions, although more abundant, can also be less secure over longer periods than tenured faculty lines, which are mostly funded by universities (“hard money”).

Together, tenured/tenure-track faculty positions and research faculty positions constitute most of the ocean acoustic employment at academic institutions. As most employees who eventually work in any ocean acoustics sector receive formal education at these institutions, the impact of this cohort on the overall field is far greater than the absolute numbers might imply. Many who work in or teach ocean acoustics in academic institutions have

their primary home in another discipline, such as marine biology, geophysics, or electrical engineering (Chapter 3). As so few university positions become available each year, finding enough applicants is usually not difficult. U.S. citizenship can be required for certain funding opportunities, but the survey results show that academic institutions often have many employees who are not U.S. citizens.

Some academic institutions have additional technical staff who conduct experiments related to ocean acoustics, build new sensors, or work with sound propagation models. Even staff who do not specialize in ocean acoustics and are not counted as ocean acousticians may have basic knowledge that they use in applications such as incorporating acoustic releases into seafloor landers, tracking marine animals, or deploying pingers (locators) on over-the-side instrumentation, such as piston corers.

Another category of academic employment in ocean acoustics is technical staff on research vessels. U.S. federal fleet research vessels not operated by NOAA are usually managed by universities or non-profit research institutions, often through the UNOLS. These vessels are primarily used by grantees of the NSF, although NOAA, ONR, and other funders also sponsor or run expeditions. Technical staff must have knowledge of the variety of sonar, oceanographic (e.g., Acoustic Doppler current profiler), navigational, and location (e.g., ultrashort baseline) acoustics permanently installed on ships. In some cases, they must also be familiar with seismic systems and specialized acoustic systems provided for a single expedition. Since the onset of the COVID-19 pandemic, it has become increasingly difficult to retain technical staff and hire new staff for these research vessels; challenges may include long periods at sea, long workdays, insufficient shore-based work when ships are undergoing maintenance or between assigned expeditions, lower pay than private-sector ocean acoustics positions requiring the same level of skill and training, and the need for expertise to operate and troubleshoot so many disparate acoustics systems far from port or real-time technical support. Another challenge for these support positions in the past has been a lack of an obvious career path leading to higher-level work and greater responsibility.

STATE OF THE WORKFORCE

This chapter focused on existing employers, job categories, and needs in various sectors. Critical questions that should be addressed are whether there are sufficient suitable applicants for current positions (current employment) and future shifts (future employment) and whether workforce needs are likely to change in predictable ways in the future (future employment).

In the Ocean Acoustics Education and Expertise survey, respondents strongly indicated that ocean acoustics experts are too few for perceived future workforce needs. Marine bioacoustics is the topic most frequently identified as an area of future need and was also highlighted by Guan et al. (2021). This need is mostly related to human use of the ocean and the impact of the blue economy on marine life, although the survey conveyed a need for highly trained researchers to address knowledge gaps related to marine animal hearing and the physical effects of sound on marine life. The ocean acoustics workforce that supports certain industries is also expected to undergo transition. For example, the types of surveys needed for oil and gas exploration differ from those required for offshore renewable energy or seabed sequestration site studies. The effects of industry transitions on the total number of available jobs are unknown. The scale, scope, and rate of changes for this ocean acoustics workforce are difficult to assess.

At the time of this report’s completion, the largest number of unfilled positions requiring a background in ocean acoustics was for technical staff on marine research vessels and within the ocean technology industry. Depending on the employer’s specific needs, these positions could be filled by employees holding an A.S. as engineering technicians or specialists; a B.A. in aspects of engineering, geoscience, or physics; or an M.S. that combines disparate fields and skill sets. Internships through programs such as MATE, managed by UNOLS, exposes recent

degree recipients to career paths supporting ocean acoustics on marine vessels, but changes in how these positions are filled and their working conditions may be necessary to address the shortage of technical staff.

Federal regulatory agencies (e.g., BOEM, NMFS) have also struggled with finding employees with ocean acoustics expertise. As the parameters for federal positions are dictated by the Office of Personnel Management, not the agencies themselves, the best strategy may be wider publicity about the range of work they do and their need for a highly skilled, interdisciplinary workforce. Highlighting that staff with ocean acoustics expertise may rapidly acquire stature and influence within a regulatory agency, given the lack of employees with similar backgrounds, may appeal to some potential hires. The capacity and autonomy to publish peer-reviewed papers at the intersection of policy and technical analysis may also make the positions more attractive to some applicants.

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