Camille Pagniello
- @cpagniel
- | Dr/she/her/elle
The Marine Innovation Lab for Leading-edge Oceanography (MILLO) based in the Department of Ocean and Resources Engineering (ORE) at the School of Ocean and Earth Science and Technology (SOEST), University of Hawaiʻi at Mānoa is actively recruiting 1-2 MS/PhD students for Fall 2026.
We are prioritizing students whose research interests fall within one of the following areas:
- artificial intelligence (AI) for marine conservation,
- edge computing in wildlife behavior and ecology,
- underwater acoustics, and
- ocean instrumentation.
The following projects are available and are anticipated to have funding support:
- a multi-stage, artificial intelligence pipeline to detect fish herbivory from underwater video,
- embedded detection and localization algorithms for underwater acoustics, and
- development of an underwater video-audio array.
Please read each project’s description carefully to learn more about the ideal candidate’s background. Applicants at the PhD level are expected to expand on the scope of Project #1 or combine Project #2 and #3.
We are always open to supporting students who want to tackle new, challenging ocean-related problems within the MILLO Group’s three research themes if we feel that we can provide the appropriate support and resources. Such students will need to secure their own funding.
All applicants will be expected to apply to all scholarships and fellowships for which they are eligible including, but not limited to:
- NSF Graduate Research Fellowship Program,
- Science, Mathematics, and Research for Transformation (SMART) Scholarship,
- National Defense Science and Engineering Graduate Fellowship Program,
- Dr. Nancy Foster Scholarship, and
- DOE Computational Science Graduate Fellowship.
We will assist the top candidates with these applications as well as those to the graduate program at University of Hawai’i at Mānoa.
We are also prioritizing students that can be admitted as MS and/or PhD students in ORE. Prospective students should closely review the admission and degree requirements for a MS and PhD in ORE. The ORE MS degree is ABET-accredited and as such, has extensive undergraduate pre-program requirements.
We recognize that students without formal engineering backgrounds may possess the technical skill set necessary to conduct research within the lab's three overarching themes. For such exceptional prospective students whose research interests closely align with those of the MILLO group, but do not meet the admission requirements in ORE, we will consider accepting students through the Department of Oceanography (OCE). However, these students will typically have their own funding support through scholarships, fellowships and/or grants.
Interested in joining the MILLO group for your graduate studies? Please complete the interest form on our website: https://pagniello-lab.github.io/join-us.html. Email inquiries will not be returned.
Note, completing this interest form is not a formal application to the MS or PhD program in ORE or OCE. We conduct pre-screening of candidates, followed by zoom interviews, technical interviews and reference checks. The top candidates are invited to formally apply to the degree program. We do recruitment this way to ensure transparency and save folks application fees.
For Fall 2026, please submit the interest form by September 1, 2025, at 5:00 pm HST. Late interest form submissions are unlikely to be considered unless students have secured their own funding.