2021 Competition Season

Happy Holidays!

Jill Zande
Jill Zande
As 2021 winds down and comes to a close, all of us here at the MATE ROV Competition and MATE Inspiration for Innovation want to wish you a very Happy Holidays and a healthy and Happy New Year!

We continued to face challenges this past year – but we also made some progress!  We offered a MATE ROV Competition season that featured in-person and “telepresence” categories, hybrid regional events, and a “masked-up” World Championship.  We also created the MATE ROV Competition Virtual Reality (VR) World to help facilitate the social interaction and networking that our community values about our program.   

We appreciate that 2022 will be a rebuilding year for many teams as well as for our Regional Competition Network, but we are committed to Taking Blue Tech to New Depths and “building-back-better!”  Our 2022 competition tasks call attention to the United Nations Decade of Ocean Science for Sustainable Development and continue to inspire our global community to embrace environmental, social, and governance (ESG) efforts to create a sustainable future on our ocean planet.

Thank you for being a part of the global MATE ROV Competition Community! We hope to see you all in 2022. 

Best wishes,

Jill Zande, President/Executive Director, MATE Inspiration for Innovation
And everyone here at “Team MATE!”
Jill Zande

Jill Zande

Jill is the President/Executive Director of MATE Inspiration for Innovation and the Associate Director of the Marine Advanced Technology Education (MATE) Center. Highlights of her 22 years with MATE include working with the Marine Technology Society (MTS) ROV Committee to establish the global student ROV competition and coordinating the development of MATE’s Underwater Robotics: Science, Design & Fabrication textbook. Both involved cultivating and maintaining partnerships with industry, professional societies, academic institutions, and STEM professionals. Jill is an active member of the Marine Technology Society (MTS) and a Certified Marine Technologist (CMarTech). She served on the MTS Board as the Vice President of Education and Research for 6 years. She currently serves as the Underwater Intervention (UI) Technical Program Committee Marine Education Track Chair and is a member of the MTS ROV and Education Committees. Jill is a 2020 recipient of an MTS Fellows Award, one of the society’s most distinguished achievements. In 2018, she was listed as one of the top ten “Ocean Influencers” by Marine Technology Reporter magazine. Jill has a Bachelor’s degree in Biology from Penn State University and a Master’s degree in Oceanography and Coastal Sciences from Louisiana State University (LSU). During her Master’s degree program at LSU, Jill participated in research cruises that investigated hydrocarbon seep communities in the Gulf of Mexico using the Johnson Sea-Link and Alvin submersibles, which gave her an appreciation of how underwater technologies can be used to support science and exploration.

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