It is with deep sadness that we share the news that Dr. John “Wes” Tunnell passed away on Saturday July 14, 2018 after battling cancer. Tunnell was a marine ecology and biology professor at Texas A&M University-Corpus Christi and an early orchestrator of the Harte Research Institute (HRI) for Gulf of Mexico studies.
Scientists at the Harte Research Institute (HRI) for Gulf of Mexico Studies at Texas A&M University-Corpus Christi are leading a historic effort to study the spill’s impact from the deepest waters of the Gulf of Mexico to the people who live on its shores.
The Harte Research Institute (HRI) for Gulf of Mexico Studies at Texas A&M University-Corpus Christi will receive approximately $1.25 million over the next three years to work with Mexican colleagues in the southern Gulf of Mexico to look for residual impacts from the Ixtoc I oil spill of 1979-1980 on coastal areas, fisheries, and the deep sea.
More than 2,400 researchers from 214 institutions have collected more than 18 terabytes of data from more than 200 scientific studies investigating life in the Gulf of Mexico.