UC San Diego's SCMA is establishing a state-of-the-art marine archaeology field school and expedition with colleagues from the University of Haifa in Israel that will go into the field this coming July.  To strengthen the program, four Haifa team members visited UC San Diego in March to plan the program, establish marine archaeology protocols and engage in fundraising efforts.  On the evening of March 21, Susan Lapidus, Director of the Murray Gallinson San Diego-Israel Initiative hosted the University of Haifa and UC San Diego SCMA team members for a wonderful dinner at the Leichtag Commons, an extensive agricultural property in the heart of Encinitas California.  The University of Haifa team included Prof. Assaf Yasur-Landau, Prof. Gil Gambash and the university science diving officers Amir Yurman and Moshiko Bahar.

On March 22, Michelle and Bill Lerach hosted a special reception at their beautiful home in La Jolla overlooking the Pacific Ocean to celebrate the inaugration of the UC San Diego - University of Haifa Marine Archaeology Field School and Expedition.  Phokion Potamianos, Chair of the SCMA Advisory Council, served as host for this exciting event where some 100 friends, faculty, staff and graduate students attended.  Lovely Mediterranean food was served.Welcoming remarks were made by Margaret Leinen, Director, Scripps and Vice Chancellor of Marine Sciences and Carol Padden, Dean of Social Sciences.  This was followed by an overview of SCMA goals and its mission by SCMA co-director, Prof. John Hildebrand.  Prof. Tom Levy, SCMA co-director and Principal Investigator (PI) of the UC San Diego marine archaeology program in Israel team spoke about research and pedagogy goals for the field school.  This was followed by Assaf Yasur-Landau who contextualized the project that will take place in the waters of the Biblical site of Tel Dor on Israel's Mediterranean coast.  Assaf is the PI for the University of Haifa team.  Assistant Professor of Anthropology and Scripos, Isabel Rivera-Collazao, who will be a team member this summer,  explained to guests some of the paleo-environmental research goals of the expedition.  Christian McDonald, the Scripps Institution of Oceanography Scientific Diving Safety Officer, along with Amir and Moshiko met with guests and explained how science diving would be carefully integrated into the field school program. SCMA Science Project Manager, Dr. Margie Burton, helped organize this special event.  It was a spectacular evening where everyone in attendance felt the exciting energy emerging out of the new marine archaeology field school and expedition.