Description
Records of the American Academy of Underwater Sciences (AAUS), including extensive documentation of the organization's efforts
to exempt scientific diving from OSHA commerical diving regulations in the early 1980s, and board meeting minutes.
Background
The mission of the American Academy of Underwater Sciences (AAUS) is to facilitate the development of safe and productive
scientific divers through education, research, advocacy, and the advancement of standards for scientific diving practices,
certifications, and operations. The AAUS was officially chartered in California in 1983 by individuals and organizations involved
in the effort to obtain the scientific diving exemption from OSHA commercial diving standards. In the years since, the AAUS
has expanded from the original six organizational members to more than 130 organizational members and over 1100 individual
members. Organizational membership includes colleges and universities, government agencies, museums and aquaria, environmental
and archaeological consulting firms, and community science groups sharing a common thread of the use of diving as a research
tool and a commitment to the health and safety of scientific divers. AAUS produces consensual 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.