The mission of the Oceans Department is to discover, educate, and innovate to support a known, sustainable, and equitable ocean. Faculty, staff, students, and postdoctoral scholars advance ocean research, education, and impact through interdisciplinary collaboration, technology development, user-inspired research, and immersive education and training. The Oceans Department brings together ocean sciences – including biological, physical, and social sciences – and technology to advance exploration and knowledge of our blue planet and pursue solutions that tackle the most pressing challenges in climate and sustainability.
Degree programs
Undergraduate opportunities
Stanford undergraduate students interested in ocean research can pursue oceans-related courses and majors via the Department of Biology, Earth Systems or Civil and Environmental Engineering.
Stanford Undergraduate Admissions
Biology
Earth Systems
Environmental Systems Engineering
Oceans research at Stanford
Our faculty and students engage with partners on ocean research across the university.
Center for Ocean Solutions

We partner with the Center for Ocean Solutions at the Woods Institute for the Environment to translate research insights into solutions at scale with collaborators across the globe.
Hopkins Marine Station

Many of our faculty work at Hopkins Marine Station in Pacific Grove where students and researchers come together to ask big questions, explore new ideas, and discover how and why things work.
Oceans news
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Stanford undergraduates taught by professors of oceans William Gilly and Christopher Francis study science and literature on the same fishing vessel that novelist John Steinbeck chartered to the Sea of Cortez in 1940.
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A microscopic kingdom in peril? Rising seas could threaten South Carolina's 'subterranean estuaries'
Co-authored by scientists in the Oceans Department, new research published in Environmental Microbiology examines how the microscopic organisms that exist in the groundwater below beaches play a critical role in capturing and filtering everything from agricultural run-off to pollution from leaky septic tanks.
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"The turtles are moving northward six times faster than the average for marine animals. So, our loggerhead, our sentinel loggerheads, are teaching us about this new ocean, this new warming ocean there," said professor of oceans Larry Crowder.