Dave Whelihan delivers MIT Museum talk on Arctic technology engineering

His presentation was part of an after-hours event themed around the science of cold.
September 25, 2026
Ariana Gaines | Communications & Community Outreach Office
An advertisement for the MIT Museum's After Dark: COLD event shows ice crystals.
After Dark: COLD at the MIT Museum focused on the science of cold. Photo: MIT Museum

How does cutting-edge technology survive and thrive in the Arctic, one of Earth's most extreme environments? Researcher Dave Whelihan of the Advanced Undersea Systems and Technology Group at MIT Lincoln Laboratory explored this question during the After Dark: COLD event at the MIT Museum on September 10. The After Dark series turns the museum into an adults-only, after-hours venue featuring themed science talks and interactive demonstrations, full gallery access, live entertainment, and refreshments.

A presenter explains a presentation slide to an audience.
At the MIT Museum, Dave Whelihan discusses his group's work to deploy sensor nodes across the Arctic to understand processes happening above and below fracturing sea ice. Photo: Rachel Swansburg/MIT Museum

Through the U.S. Navy's Operation Ice Camp (OIC), Whelihan and fellow group members have been trekking to the Arctic since 2022 to test sensors for monitoring sea-ice breakup. In his talk, Whelihan explained how technologies must be ruggedized during transport, deployment, and operation to withstand harsh weather conditions like temperatures plunging to minus 25 degrees Fahrenheit and winds blowing at 30 miles per hour (mph) with 40 mph gusts. On their most recent trip, the team brought a prototype through-ice magnetic communications modem from an industry partner. To protect the part of the modem that sits atop the ice, Whelihan 3D-printed a round container made of rigid plastic to provide structural integrity and wrapped flexible plastic around the base of the container to handle mechanical stresses without cracking.

A remotely operated vehicle goes underwater through a hole made in sea ice.
A remotely operated vehicle carrying the communication modem's magneto-inductive transmitter descends through a wide hole the team made by drilling through more than one meter of ice. Video: Dave Whelihan/Lincoln Laboratory

Whelihan will continue the conversation about Arctic sea-ice monitoring on January 16, 2027 at the MIT Museum through "Sea Ice: The Frozen Upside-Down," a 90-minute interactive program for the OCEANS thematic season. Whelihan and co-presenters will recount their experiences testing in cold maritime environments from the Arctic to the Antarctic, and audience members will play a board game simulating what conducting R&D on the ice is like.

"Sharing my group's research with the public brings awareness to a scientifically and strategically relevant region and takes me back to the initial excitement — and terror — of going out onto the ice for the first time," says Whelihan, who plans to return to the Arctic for a fourth time during OIC 2028.

Inquiries: contact Ariana Gaines.

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