Jake Russell, PhD
Co-Founder and CEO of Orpheus Ocean
2025 Neptune Award Winner
The deep ocean is Earth’s largest and least understood ecosystem. It regulates climate, supports biodiversity, and underpins emerging sectors of the blue economy – yet it remains largely inaccessible to humanity. Orpheus Ocean was founded to change that reality. Winning the Ocean Exchange Neptune Award is an affirmation that scalable, responsible access to the deep sea is not only technologically possible, but essential to the future health of our oceans.
At the heart of Orpheus Ocean’s work is a simple idea: before you can protect the deep sea, you must first understand it. Today, much of the deep ocean is a data vacuum. Traditional approaches to deep exploration rely on large research vessels, tethered remotely operated vehicles (ROVs), and highly specialized crews. These methods are slow, expensive, and inherently unscalable. As a result, environmental baselines are often sparse, monitoring campaigns are infrequent, and decision-making is forced to rely on limited snapshots of dynamic ecosystems.
Orpheus Ocean addresses this gap by enabling routine, autonomous access to deep benthic environments. Our autonomous underwater vehicles (AUVs) are small, agile, and cost-effective, yet capable of operating at extreme depths for extended periods. Unlike conventional AUVs, Orpheus vehicles are designed to fly close to the seafloor, land, and collect physical samples, with the ability to also remain in place for long-duration monitoring. This capability transforms how ocean data can be gathered – shifting from episodic expeditions to persistent presence.
The Ocean Exchange Neptune Award recognizes solutions that advance ocean understanding while delivering tangible benefits to marine ecosystems and human communities, and we at Orpheus Ocean are honored to be one of the 2025 recipients. By dramatically lowering the cost and complexity of deep-sea data collection, we enable scientists to expand spatial and temporal coverage, revealing patterns in biodiversity, chemistry, and geology that were previously invisible. Our platforms support tools such as high-resolution optical imaging, environmental DNA sampling, sediment coring, and chemical sensing: methods that provide direct insight into ecosystem health and resilience.
This data has real-world impact. Governments and regulators depend on accurate environmental assessments to protect sensitive habitats. Offshore industries, from seabed minerals to wind energy to subsea cables, require immense amounts of data to plan projects, minimize disturbance, and ensure compliance. Climate researchers need better observations of deep-ocean processes that influence carbon cycling and long-term climate stability. In each case, better data leads to better decisions, reduced risk, and more resilient oceans.
Equally important is how the data is collected. Orpheus Ocean was built around a strong ethical framework: we prioritize transparency, scientific integrity, and environmental stewardship. Our vehicles are quiet, low-impact, and designed to reduce reliance on large vessels. When we work with industry, it is explicitly to improve oversight, minimize harm, and bring light to activities that would otherwise occur in darkness.
The Neptune Award is meaningful not just as recognition of a single technology, but as validation of a broader shift in how humanity engages with the ocean. Scalable autonomy allows us to move from exploration as an exception to observation as a norm. With better tools, deeper understanding, and shared responsibility, the deep ocean can move from mystery to monitored – supporting healthier marine ecosystems and a robust blue economy for generations to come. We are currently planning for H2 2026: if you have deep ocean access needs, or would like to join our mission, please reach out.
About the Author: Dr. Jake Russell is the CEO and co-founder of Orpheus Ocean. Orpheus Ocean spun out from the Woods Hole Oceanographic Institution, where Russell led a venture studio in his prior role as Operating Partner with Propeller Ventures. Previously, Russell was a Fellow at ARPA-E in the Department of Energy, where he specialized in ocean technologies and helped launch three $10M+ funding programs. He holds a PhD in materials chemistry from Columbia University and a BS from the University of Chicago.
Contact: jake@orpheusocean.com
