Keene Haywood is the director of the exploration science program at the University of Miami’s Abess Center for Ecosystem Science and Policy. The program offers a Master’s degree in Exploration Science through the Master of Professional Science (MPS) program at the UM-Rosenstiel School of Marine and Atmospheric Science (RSMAS). He holds a PhD in Geography and MFA In Science and Natural History filmmaking.
Expedition Blog 4 / Dec. 6 / By Dr. Keene Haywood
Driving south down the main high way on the island of Abaco, the slightly rolling terrain of pine trees and low vegetation makes for a somewhat hypnotic drive as early morning light filters past the long slender trunks and across the green expanse. Some 20 miles south of the town of Marsh Harbor, one turns off the highway onto a rocky, bumpy road that leads west across the island.
Another world exists parallel to this forest of whispering pines. Below is a labyrinth of caves, the likes of which are only beginning to be fully understood and mapped. Dan’s Cave and Ralph’s Cave are two entrances into this otherworldly realm that few people have entered. Named after the hunters who originally found the caves decades ago, one goal for our current project is to survey and map these complex and beautiful water filled passages, exploring the edges of what is known and unknown. But the project has other dimensions of exploration as well.
Exploration—the word tends to mean different things to different people, but it seems to always seems to elicit the same emotion: wonder. What is out there? Why? What is around the next bend, the next passage? What are the social and ethical implications of revealing the unknown? Who “owns” the intellectual property and economic benefits that may be revealed? The list goes on. Trying to encapsulate this wonder and the moral and practical questions into a discipline is what exploration science seeks to do.
As the director of the exploration science program at the University of Miami, I often am often asked just what is this discipline? Broadly, the approach takes elements of observation, documentation, and communication and combines them with this wonder to develop new knowledge about our world. This program seeks to ground students in all three areas, encouraging them to embrace new technologies, follow their curiosity, and pull together multi-disciplinary approaches to answering what is out there and why, all while considering the historical and ethical context of exploration.
