Michael Lombardi: Immersed in Science

FISHING AND BEING ON THE WATER with family while growing up influenced Michael Lombardi to study marine biology. He and a friend got certified to dive during his junior year of high school, thinking it would be a useful tool for his desired field. Lombardi had no idea what professional diving meant or where it would take him.

Michael Lombardi, Portable underwater habitats, treat diving as a science

Melissa Ilardo

Melissa Ilardo, PhD, is passionate about working in the distinct field of genetic analyses on individuals, primarily in Indigenous populations who have adapted to unique lifestyles or environments.

Ilardo with community members from the Bajau village

Pieter-Jan van Ooij

Pieter-Jan van Ooij, MD, PhD, is the head of the Department of Research, Innovation, and Education at the Royal Netherlands Navy’s Diving Medical Centre (DMC).

Subjects participate in a study about pulmonary oxygen toxicity after Table 6 treatments in Amsterdam.

Alejandro Garbino

Born in Uruguay in 1982, Alejandro Garbino, MD, PhD, has been fascinated with air and sea since he was young. His passion for the air stemmed from an uncle who flew banner airplanes along the beach.

Garbino monitors physicians in dive training in a hyperbaric chamber

Silvia Ferrari

Known for her work in developing sophisticated algorithms and methods for managing and coordinating complex systems, Silvia Ferrari has applied her expertise to integrating scuba diving technology with robotic systems.

PhD student Sushrut Surve experiments with the RealTHASC

Lung-on-a-Chip

Researchers at the University of Colorado Boulder’s Shields Lab — led by Wyatt Shields, PhD, an assistant professor ofchemical and biological engineering — are investigating how engineered microparticles, specifically designed for use in biomedicine, can be used in areas such as biosensing, where they bind to certain molecules or cells to enable drug delivery and the detection of biological conditions.

Abby Harrell diving

Decompression Bubbles, Cardiac Health, and Dive Safety

In 2021 Peter Buzzacott, PhD, of  Curtin University in Perth, Australia, received DAN’s Alfred Bove Research Grant for Cardiac Health in Scuba Diving. What began with a simple proposal has since developed into a training network for the next generation of scientists and led to a research network between Curtin University and Fiona Stanley Hospital in Western Australia. 

The Curtin University and Fiona Stanley Hospital hyperbaric dive research team includes Dr. Neil Banham, Beth Jones, Aren Leishman, Kagan Ducker, Frauke Tillmans, and Luke Haseler.

Hayden Hess: Passion and Purpose

The Center for Research and Education in Special Environments (CRESE) at the University at Buffalo in New York is at the forefront of environmental physiology research, investigating how various environmental stressors impact human health and performance.

A diver wearing a heavy drysuit, dive helmet, and chemical-resistant gloves.

Emmanuel Dugrenot

Emmanuel “Manu” Dugrenot, PhD, a senior researcher at Divers Alert Network (DAN), brings cutting-edge physiological research to the development of safety protocols for both technical and recreational diving.  His research […]

Dugrenot dives on rebreather

Looking Into the Lungs

During medical school Peter Lindholm joined a laboratory researching aviation, space and underwater physiology, where he developed a passion for breath-hold dive physiology, about which he wrote his doctoral thesis. As one of the physicians for the Swedish Sports Diving Federation (SSDF), he was involved in developing breath-hold dive protocols and training the first instructors of competitive breath-hold diving. After clinical training as a radiologist, Lindholm moved to San Diego, California, where he leads a research group focused on dive physiology and dive medicine.