Douglas Webb, an esteemed oceanographer emeritus from Woods Hole, Massachusetts, and the founder of Teledyne Webb Research, received recognition earlier this month for his lifelong contributions to science. The ceremony took place at the Teledyne Marine facility in North Falmouth, Massachusetts. Teledyne staff members Clara Hulburt, Shea Quinn, and Clayton Jones spoke about Webb’s legacy as an engineer, scientist, innovator, and world changer. Webb was also honored by Rutgers University’s undergraduate class of 2024 with a letter of appreciation.

Webb contributed significantly to developing low-frequency acoustic sound sources, such as SOFAR, RAFOS, and Tonpilz for water mass tracking, long-range navigation, and tomography. He played a key role in the development of vertical current meters to measure water chimney convection and profiling floats. He commercialized this development, which became part of the Argo program, the most successful ocean observing program, contributing critical information about climate and sea level change. Webb invented and developed the Teledyne Slocum gliders, for which he pioneered the buoyancy systems, revolutionizing how scientists approach ocean data gathering.

When he toured the Teledyne Marine facility, Webb was shown the “REDWING (Research and Education Doug Webb Inter-National Glider)” Slocum Sentinel glider named in his honor. REDWING will attempt the first-ever global circumnavigation by a subsea glider later this year, led by Rutgers undergraduates.

Learn about REDWING here.