Cape Abilities Partnership with Woods Hole Oceanographic Institution

Lisa Magnuson

Cape Abilities has teamed up with Woods Hole Oceanographic Institution to create jobs for people with disabilities.  A group of Cape Abilities participants are working in a lab at the Institution’s Woods Hole campus creating electrodes that are a key component of Magnetotelluric (MT) instruments used to collect data that image deep into the earth.

These instruments are likely to be used off the Pacific Northwest coast of the United States where geologic conditions mirror the area in Japan that suffered a catastrophic earthquake.

A grant of $1.5 million from the National Science Foundation is providing the funds for the MT instruments.  Senior Scientist Dr. Rob Evans turned to Cape Abilities as a means of incorporating people with disabilities into the project to produce 20 new MT instruments. The Cape Abilities team will assemble the 150 electrodes for the MT’s. Trevor Harrison of Cape Abilities manages the project.

This pilot project may well pave the way for more partnerships between Cape Abilities and the Woods Hole Oceanographic Institution.