The Coastal Ocean Environment Summer School in Ghana (https://coessing.org) is an international collaboration aimed at building capacity in oceanographic and environmental sciences in Ghana specifically, and Africa more generally. Marine issues of great importance to Ghana include fisheries, piracy, pollution, shipping and port management, and the recent advent of offshore oil drilling.
 We held schools in 2015, 2016, 2017, 2018, 2019 and ICTP co-organized the school in 2018. We hold the school every year, alternating between Regional Maritime University and University of Ghana, which are both located in Ghana’s capital city of Accra. In 2020, for the 6th summer in a row, we will host a summer school. It will be the third school hosted at the University of Ghana.

During the summer school, around 100 African participants receive a broad general training in marine and environmental sciences. At the same time, a subgroup of participants receive more specific training in their areas of interest, through conducting a short research project on specialized topics related to ocean biogeochemistry, ocean modeling, satellite oceanography, data analysis, and seagoing oceanography. The emphasis in this project track is on hands-on research rather than on lectures. Project track participants will thus have a chance to spend an entire week working closely under the guidance of the instructors, deepening their knowledge of their topic of interest, and presenting their projects on the last day of the school.


We believe that repeat visits are the key to establishing meaningful long-term connections between western and African scientists. Our long-term goals for the school include developing a research and education network of marine and environmental scientists in several African countries.

Topics:
• Coastal ocean dynamics
• Environmental science
• Oil and gas basin development
• Shoreline geomorphology
• Organic and isotope biogeochemistry
• Satellite and field oceanography
• Numerical modeling of the ocean
• Data analysis techniques

Speakers:
Prof. E. L. Shroyer, Oregon State University, USA
Prof. Adam Simon, University of Michigan, USA
Prof. Aline Cotel, University of Michigan, USA
Dr. Paige Martin, Columbia University, USA
Prof. Andrew Lucas, Scripps Institution of Oceanography, USA
Dr. Madeline Foster-Martinez, University of New Orleans, USA
Dr. D. Menemenlis, Jet Propulsion Laboratory, USA
Dr. E. Nyadjro, Mississippi State University, USA
Dr. J. K. Ansong, University of Ghana, Legon
Dr. W. Johnson, Naval Research Laboratory, USA
Dr. C. Buckingham, Universite Bretagne Occidentale, France
Dr. S. Howden, The University of Southern Mississippi, USA
Dr. A. M. Lamptey, University of Ghana, Legon
Prof. B. K. Arbic, University of Michigan, USA
Dr. R. Farneti, Abdus Salam ICTP, Italy