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 ![Coastal research landscape used as the Northmoor University hero image.](/sites/default/files/styles/large/public/2026-01/camilo-botia-k4vFDPJoDZk-unsplash.1600x1200.jpg.avif?itok=ujHvC8nC)

 

 



Northmoor University is a specialized institution on the coast, with around 4,100 students and twelve degree programs across four departments. We teach and research the ocean and the coast: marine biology, oceanography, marine engineering, and the policy and economics that govern how both are used.

## What makes us different

**We are small enough to be specific.** Twelve programs, not two hundred. A student here is not choosing from a catalog; they are choosing a place with a subject.

**The research infrastructure is used for teaching.** R/V *Cascadia Strait* takes first-year students to sea. Prentice Coastal Field Station has a shoreline record running continuously since 2004, and undergraduates walk those transects. The Marine Robotics and Test Basin is booked for teaching every week of spring term.

At a larger institution these facilities would be reserved for graduate research. Here they are how the degrees are taught, because there is not a large enough graduate population to fill them otherwise. That constraint has turned out to be an advantage.

**Departments are small enough to collaborate.** Fisheries policy is co-taught by fisheries scientists and policy faculty. Coastal resilience is a joint program between two departments. Climate science and coastal engineering teach a course together. None of that requires an initiative; it requires people knowing each other.

## The four departments

**Life Sciences** — marine biology, fisheries and aquaculture, and the long-running intertidal survey.

**Ocean and Earth Sciences** — physical, chemical and geological oceanography, climate and environmental science. Operates the research vessel.

**Marine Engineering** — autonomous underwater systems and coastal engineering. Operates the test basin.

**Marine Policy and Economics** — ocean governance and resource economics. Runs the policy clinic.

## What we are not

Not a comprehensive university. There is no business school, no medical school and no athletics program of any significance. Students who want a large institution with everything on offer should go to one; we are not competing for them and would not serve them well.

## Visiting

The campus sits on the water, thirty-one miles south of Prentice Coastal Field Station. Prospective students are encouraged to visit, ideally in winter. A coastal campus in September sells itself. What matters is whether you still want to be here in February.