[ Dr. Mahdi Abdelguerfi: ] I am thrilled to have wrapped up my third summer as a visiting scientist at the U.S. Naval Research Laboratory (NRL), located at the NASA John C. Stennis Space Center (SSC). This summer provided an incredible opportunity to deepen the research collaboration between the Department of the Navy (DoN) and GulfSCEI.

I want to express my sincere gratitude to Dr. John Sample, Superintendent of the Ocean Science Division at NRL-SSC, for welcoming me so warmly into his division. Special thanks also to Dr. Elias Ioup, Director of the Geospatial Science Center, for generously hosting me within his team.

One of the greatest highlights was reconnecting with several GulfSCE alums who are now excelling as full-time scientists at NRL-SSC. It was wonderful catching up and seeing the incredible impact being made by Dr. Elias Ioup, Dr. Austin Schmidt, Johny Lopez, Brent Barre, Norm Schoenhardt, Bradley Landreneau, and Corey Maryan.

Looking forward to our continued collaboration and pushing the boundaries of ocean and geospatial science together!