53rd United States Japan Natural Resources Aquaculture Panel Scientific Symposium

The NOAA Office of Aquaculture invites scientists interested in providing oral presentations on research related to the theme at the 53^rd UJNR Aquaculture Panel Scientific Symposium to be held in Baltimore, Maryland, United States. The UJNR Aquaculture Panel is a cooperative research exchange between the U.S. and Japan, jointly addressing environmental and technical issues that affect the aquaculture industries of both nations.

The 53rd UJNR Aquaculture Scientific Symposium is the second year of the current three-year theme of "A New Era for Sustainable Aquaculture, the next 50 years of research, education and collaboration." This year’s meeting will focus on "New Technologies for Production Systems." 

With an increasing global demand for seafood and a rapidly growing aquaculture industry, the integration of the latest system technologies will be important for all sectors of commercial marine aquaculture to improve system management and profitability.

This year’s presentations from invited speakers will focus on science and innovation in topics such as:

• Offshore aquaculture systems
• Recirculating Aquaculture System (RAS) technologies
• Satellite and remote sensing applications
• Acoustic monitoring of offshore aquaculture
• Uncrewed marine and aerial systems
• Digital twins and predictive modeling
• Artificial Intelligence (AI) applications
• High-performance and cloud computing for big data

We anticipate the following outcomes from this meeting:

• Exchange of scientific information,
• Exploration of research collaborations, and
• Proceedings consisting of “mini-papers” (i.e., abstracts, presented research and annotated bibliographies).

If you are interested in attending the meeting to present research related to the theme during the Scientific Symposium, please email your proposed presentation title to Clete Otoshi (clete.otoshi@noaa.gov) by September 11, 2026. 

Decisions on selection of invited speakers will be made and communicated by September 25, 2026. Registration information will be made available shortly. 

Abstracts and Annotated Bibliographies

Abstracts and a 3-5 paper annotated bibliography are due October 16, 2026.

Submit abstracts and annotated bibliographies to Clete Otoshi at clete.otoshi@noaa.gov with the subject line "UJNR Submission."

Guidelines

Abstracts should be no more than 500 words.

An annotated bibliography with 3-5 key papers on the topic of your symposium presentation along with your abstract is required prior to the meeting. The goal is to focus the exchange of literature citations on the Science Symposium topic and to allow for experts in the field to highlight key papers from each country to assist their counterparts to explore, in more detail, references specific to individual presentation topics. This will be especially helpful to the U.S. members as much of the literature published in Japanese is difficult for U.S. researchers to access and/or translate. A combined annotated bibliography of key papers on the Symposium topic consisting of contributions by all presenting scientists will be published as part of the proceedings.

The annotations for the 3-5 bibliographic references, which the author considers key works in the field, should provide a brief description of the work, the results, and the reasons why the author considers it a key work. Key works should relate to the topic of your presentation and could be your own work or that of other scientists. When possible, key works should be from your own country. An example is given below to aid in formatting. Links to key papers would be helpful if they are available.

Example of Annotated Key Reference

Lupo, C., Dutta, B.L., Petton, S., Ezanno, P., Tourbiez, D., Travers, M.-A., Pernet, F., and C. Bacher. 2020. Spatial epidemiological modelling of infection by Vibrio aestuarianus shows that connectivity and temperature control oyster mortality. Aquaculture Environment Interactions 12:511-527. https://doi.org/10.3354/aei00379

The aim of this study was to develop a spatial epidemiological model coupling hydrodynamic connectivity with a traditional epidemiological compartment model to estimate disease spread and resulting mortality caused by Vibrio aestuariansu in Pacific oysters. Sensitivity analyses were conducted to evaluate the relative importance of each parameter to the model outcomes. The authors propose that their methods can be used to evaluate the efficacy of proposed management strategies. This model is one of the first to pair dispersion and epidemiological models, and it represents a significant advancement in marine modeling methods. 

All material should be provided in a standardized computer format (Microsoft Word), Times New Roman font, 12 point font size, and one inch margins. The unedited abstracts and annotated bibliographies will be available at the symposium.

Travel Awards for U.S. Participants 

UNJR Travel Assistance

If you are an invited speaker and are interested in receiving travel assistance to present your research at the 53^rd UJNR symposium, answers to the following questions should be submitted to Clete Otoshi (clete.otoshi@noaa.gov) by September 25, 2026:

1. Are you looking for an active collaboration with a Japanese scientist?  If so, what area(s) are you interested in collaborating?
2. Do you foresee yourself continuing this collaboration for an extended period of time and participating in UJNR in the future?
3. Have you presented at a UJNR meeting either in Japan or the US before?  If so, what year and where?
4. Do you agree to submit the items included in the “Due Dates for U.S. Participants” section below on time?

We will be making travel awards based on three criteria:

1. How well your presentation topic relates to the symposium topic and matches with a Japanese presentation.
2. Desire to develop collaborative research projects with the Japanese.
3. Past history with UJNR.