Ph.D. Candidate Masako Tominaga has logged nearly a year at sea (~310 days) while completing her graduate studies in Oceanography at Texas A&M. Since starting the master’s program in 2002, Masako has participated in seven research cruises, including three IODP expeditions. On her recent cruise to the Indian Ocean, she spent nearly two months onboard ship studying the Ninetyeast Ridge with her graduate advisor, Professor Will Sager, and five fellow graduate students.

Masako came from her native country of Japan to Texas A&M primarily because she wanted to work under Dr. Sager, a marine geophysicist who loves to explore the ocean. Sager has been on 38 research cruises, serving as chief scientist on 17 of those. Masako’s research interests are marine geophysics and geology, applied geophysics, mid-ocean ridge magmatism and volcanism, geomagnetic polarity time scale, geomagnetism, downhole logging, and rock magnetism and paleomagnetism.

Since 2003, Masako has worked as a graduate research assistant in the department. She hopes to finish her Ph.D. by the end of this year and plans to stay in academia. She recently was selected as one of five 2007-2008 Schlanger Ocean Drilling Fellows by the Joint Oceanographic Institutions' US Science Support Program, associated with IODP at Texas A&M, and she won the Outstanding Student Paper Award at the Fall 2007 meeting of the American Geophysical Union.

"My thesis advisors and many other faculty and fellow students in this program are very encouraging about pursuing my academic goals. I also appreciate Dr.Sager’s understanding of my research collaboration with people in outside institutions to make wider connections and my research abilities more versatile." Masako said.