Research groups at ASU may engage in underwater research activities involving diving. To promote diving safety, ASU maintains an institutional membership in the American Academy of Underwater Sciences, which has established standards and certification requirements for scientific diving. AAUS member organizations help protect themselves from possible fines and civil suits by their commitment to meeting AAUS requirements and adherence to a set of standards recognized as the “standard of practice” within the scientific diving community.

Under ASU policy RSP207 and federal regulations, all research and related activities involving underwater diving for which ASU is a responsible participant, regardless of whether the activity will receive funding or not must adhere to these standards.

The application and medical forms can be found on the forms page. Please submit the application and supporting documents to [email protected].

Please note that ASU does not currently provide scientific diving training. To conduct scientific diving at this time you must have been previously trained as a scientific diver through an institution that is an organizational member of AAUS.  

For questions regarding ASU Scientific Diving, please contact Research Compliance at [email protected].

For Diving Risk Waivers/Releases of Liability or questions on insurance related to diving please contact ASU Risk Management at [email protected] with cc to Research Compliance at [email protected].

For information about the ASU Global Discovery and Conservation Science Diving Program in Hawaii please contact Greg Asner at [email protected].