About

THE COESSING TIMELINE:

BACKGROUND AND HISTORY:

Drew Testing

The Coastal Ocean Environment Summer School In Nigeria and Ghana began with an exploratory “scouting trip” made in August 2014 by Professor Brian K. Arbic  and Research Scientist Dr. Joseph Ansong of the University of Michigan to the University of Ghana (UG), Regional Maritime University (RMU), the Department of Fisheries and Aquatic Sciences in the University of Cape Coast (UCC), and several departments at the Kwame Nkrumah University of Science and Technology (KNUST).  Together with our Ghanaian and Nigerian colleagues, we have held summer schools every year since 2015. As COESSING enters its tenth year we remain true to our vision, mission, and five core values.

In-person schools have been held annually in Ghana from 2015-2019, and in 2023. In 2022 and 2024, in-person schools were held in Nigeria. We held online schools in the years 2020-2023. For the next four years (2025-2028) we plan to alternate in-person schools between Ghana (odd years) and Nigeria (even years).

Arbic was a US Peace Corps Volunteer Secondary Math and Physics Teacher at Damongo Secondary School from 1990-1992.  Ansong was a student in Arbic’s Damongo classroom and worked as a postdoc in Arbic’s lab at University of Michigan from 2011-2017.  Ansong returned to Ghana, as a faculty member in the UG Department of Mathematics, in 2017.  Some background on Arbic and Ansong’s time together in Ghana in the 1990s and 2010s can be found here.  Another participating US professor, Emily Shroyer of Oregon State University, was also a Peace Corps Volunteer Teacher in Ghana (Half Assini Secondary School, 2001-2003).

FUNDING: 

Many thanks to our funders! These include the US National Science Foundation (NSF), the University of Michigan, Regional Maritime University (RMU), the International Centre for Theoretical Physics, the Gordon and Betty Moore Foundation, the US Office of Naval Research, Schmidt Sciences, and others . See webpages for specific years for more details, including grant numbers.

We also wish to acknowledge several instructors who used some of their own individual funding to travel to the school.

COASTAL OCEAN ENVIRONMENT SUMMER SCHOOL IN THE PRESS:

Ghana News Agency, August 2, 2016

Koowa Media, August 2016

News Ghana, August 2016

2016 Ocean Sciences Meeting, Poster presentation, February 2016

2018 Ocean Sciences Meeting, Oral presentation slides, February 2018

Independent Newspapers, August 2022

UNILAG Media, August 2022

NNN News Nigeria, August 2022

Remote sensing in earth systems sciences, July 2022

GhanaWeb, August 2023

Ocean Decade, June 2024

PARTICIPANT INITIATIVES

Plastic Punch – started by Richmond Kennedy Quarcoo (COESSING participant 2015-2019): an international team of dedicated professionals aimed at protecting the environment from plastic waste, providing better waste management solutions, while improving people’s living conditions. Plastic Punch is a non profit organization launched in January 2018 in Accra, Ghana.

SELECT COESSING SUCCESSES

  • Senam Tsai, a co-organizer of the 2017 summer school, is now a graduate student studying with Stephan Howden at University of Southern Mississippi.
  • Jennifer Moskel wrote an MS thesis (link to thesis) at Oregon State University on the impacts of our summer school on participants from the US, Europe, and Africa.  
  • The Python workshops that have been held at COESSING since 2018, have been a large success, introducing participants to the basics of Python computing. Several participants have used their Python knowledge to further their careers.
  • Several past participants have returned to help run the school, including Oladipo Mumin and Daniel Quaye who were Python instructors in 2022 and 20203, Richmond Kennedy Quarcoo as an instructor and organizer from 2019-2024, and Roland Ovbiebo as an organizer of the lightning talks in 2022.

CREDITS FOR WEBSITE, PHOTOS, AND LOGO: 

The coessing.org website was created by Anne Canavati, a University of Michigan (U-M) undergraduate, while the summer school logo that we used from 2016-2022 was designed by U-M student Jessica Hicks. Canavati and Hicks were part of a cohort of six Michigan undergraduates (also including Liz Oliphant, Jayson Toweh, Erich Eberhard, and Mark Finlay) who attended the 2016 school and separately researched environmental case studies in Ghana. This six U-M student team came up with the acronym COESSING. Paige Martin has been a COESSING instructor, and has maintained the website, for the summer schools since 2017. Carly Frank has also been an instructor and has helped with the website since 2023. The new COESSING logo that we have used since 2023 was designed by Bosede Lydia Ogunwuyi (LinkedIn, Instagram), a student of Federal University Oye-Ekiti and a 2022 COESSING participant.

The flyer at the top of this page was designed by Jane Candy and Fawwaz Hafizh as part of their internship with the The Consortium for Ocean Leadership, while undergraduates at the University of Chicago.

We thank many people for photos of the 2023 and 2024 schools. Photos from the 2022 school were taken by Greg Wagner, Tashiana Osborne, Lois Anderson, and numerous participants. Photos from the 2019 school were taken by Paige Martin, RMU Photographer John Ayensu, and Jackie Wrage. During the 2018 school, photos were taken primarily by instructors Paige Martin, Nefertiti Smith, Christian Buckingham, Stephen Howden, and Dimitris Menemenlis, as well as Nigerian participant Darasimi Ogunsola. Photos from the 2017 school were taken primarily by Robert (Nick) King from CRDF Global, RMU Photographer John Ayensu, and several instructors, including Paige Martin and Dimitris Menemenlis. Most of the photos of the 2016 school were taken by Anne Canavati, University of Michigan student Elizabeth Oliphant, and instructor Drew Lucas.  Most of the 2015 photos were taken by the RMU photographer John Ayensu and by instructor Winn Johnson.

Our social media pages are maintained by Babalola Oluwabukola (X), Samuel Akpan (Facebook), Michael Ugom (LinkedIn), Precious Akpan (Instagram), Many (Youtube)