Bigelow Research Associate David Drapeau will lead the Laboratory’s July 30 Café Scientifique, titled “Travels with Henry: Exploring the Gulf of Maine by Remote Control with Bigelow Laboratory’s Robot Submarine,” beginning at 6 p.m. in the Boothbay Harbor Opera House at 86 Townsend Avenue in Boothbay Harbor.

Drapeau will discuss the Gulf of Maine missions of the Laboratory’s autonomous, battery-operated underwater glider, christened Henry in honor of Henry Bryant Bigelow, the 20th century scientist considered by many to be the founder of modern oceanography in the United States. Much of Bigelow’s pioneering work focused on intensive studies of the Gulf of Maine.

“This summer is the fifth anniversary of Henry’s launch,” said Drapeau, a member of the research team in the Bigelow Ocean Observing and Optics Laboratory. “He’s deployed on regular missions across the Gulf of Maine to collect data on a transect between Portland, Maine and Yarmouth, Nova Scotia.

“So far, he’s logged over 210 days at sea, making it possible for us to collect much more information about the ocean environment than we could if we had to rely exclusively on surface ships.”

Henry is designed to use a variety of customized sensors to provides subsurface data down to 200 meters, and has been a major help in augmenting the Laboratory’s long-running Gulf of Maine North Atlantic Time Series, which documents changes in nutrient concentration, phytoplankton biomass, and rates of carbon fixation in this biologically productive part of the ocean.

Drapeau holds a master of science degree from the University of Connecticut. He joined Bigelow Laboratory in 1995 and has been part of the scientific team on numerous multi-institutional oceanographic expeditions including the Geotraces expedition in the South Pacific and the Great Calcite Belt expeditions in 2010 and 2011.

The laboratory’s Café Scientifique talks are free and open to the public, with beer, wine, and sodas available for purchase. The complete 2013 summer Café Scientifique program is available on the laboratory’s website.