Advancing standards for Scientific Divers

The Council works to ensure our standards reflect the state-of-the-art best practices throughout the international scientific diving community. From animal husbandry experts working in aquaria to faculty working under Antarctic ice, consensus standards have kept scientific divers safe and productive for generations.

Simplifying training recognition worldwide

The WSDTC publishes the Core Competency Standard for Scientific Divers. This standard is the academic knowledge base and performance skills we recommend all Scientific Divers worldwide receive. When adhered to, Diving Safety Programs can acknowledge prior formal training to ease recognition and collaboration across international borders.

Promoting an international community

Now more than ever it's critical for our entire community to join together to promote safe and effective training and operations for diving scientists. We work with governmental and non-governmental agencies, private and public organizations, and funding groups to advance underwater sciences.

Council Members

The Training Council consists of representatives from internationally recognized standard-setting bodies for the training of Scientific Divers. Collectively, these organizations have hundreds of years of experience promulgating safe and effective standards that have the lowest incident rate of any sector of the occupational diving industry.

Jeremy Heywood
President
Canadian Association for Underwater Science

CAUS is a non-profit, all volunteer organization with a mandate for promoting safe diving practices and developing peer-reviewed standards of practice for scientific diving by its members.

Martin Sayer, Ph.D.
Past-President
European Scientific Diving Panel

The ESDP acts as an operational platform to advance underwater scientific excellence and to promote and implement a practical support framework for scientific diving related activities from all European member states.

Derek Smith, Ph.D.
President
American Academy of Underwater Sciences

AAUS produces consensus standards for the training and certification of scientific divers and the operation of scientific diving programs, maintains statistics detailing scientific diving activities and incident rates, conducts annual symposia and topical workshops, and directly supports student research.

Crispin Middleton
National Institute of Water and Atmospheric Research
New Zealand

Simon Talbot
Principal Diving Officer
Institute for Marine and Antarctic Studies (IMAS)
University of Tasmania

Send us a message

Other ways to reach us

  • Jessica Miles

    Operations Manager

    jessie@wsdtc.net

  • Phone

    +1 (808) 348-7342

  • Mailing Address

    Box 3483
    Friday Harbor, WA 98250
    United States