Episode 070: How to Pilot an ROV with JRod

070: How to Pilot an

ROV with JRod

June 5th, 2026

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Welcome back to the Deep-Sea Podcast, your punk take on all things deep sea!

This month Alan's beard is back! His patchwork masterpiece is a “constellation of color and texture,” a product of working at home alone which turned into a feral break from society. When he wasn't focused on growing creative patches of facial hair, Alan also learned how to internet shop, prepared to go back to sea and made expansive plans for his 5 landers in what he hopes will be an epic sweep of 150 total deployments. Alan also lead a giant isopod rescue mission which turned into a cheap vodka clear-out at the local budget grocery, and his garage now houses a personal cabinet of curiosities that alternately fascinates and disgusts the local children.

Thom hosted a mixer for the Australasian society of fish biology, making a collaborative space for people across disciplines who don’t normally have a chance to speak with each other. He developed his own personal cologne and simultaneously freaked out a colleague by getting overexhuberant with some old cusk eels samples, and spent some fascinating moments with a UV light attempting to decipher old sample labels from an extinct species. Thom also received some long awaited personal belongings from England which contained original concept sketches for the initial podcast merch, and unreleased merch, really putting the podcast and it's progress into perspective for him.

“Thom watching you work is a sensory nightmare”

Our Guest This Month:

This month we speak with Jason Rodriguez, a celebrity ROV pilot who has an infectious enthusiasm for the organisms, scientists and environments he works with. Jason recollects his expansive career that launched with work in the Navy as an aviation electronics technician, transited through the oil and gas industy and a finally landed in ROV piloting on science vessels. His inspiring career path has been driven by curiosity, a commitment to collaboration, and skill improvement through practice.

Hear all about Jason's first hand mid-water discoveries including a glass octopus, ramshorn squid, longest siphonophore ever seen, and laser attracted reef fish. This uplifting and heartwarming interview puts a spotlight on pursuing learning through new tech, the joy of endless problem solving at sea, and finding flow state through life changing moments on every ROV flight.

Our action packed episode includes incredible behind the scenes experiences with filming for Blue Planet 3, the red curtain of a Phantom Jellyfish, and using the Kitchen Brush of Science. We hope you enjoy Jason's lifelong love affair with technology and visionary approaches to the world of ROV piloting as much as we did!

vlc-record-2020-03-19-01h38m31s-FK200308_20200317T235233Z_4K_SCI_S0339.mp4-.mp4

Strawberry Squid versus the Kitchen Brush of Science

Appearances and Collaborations:

Alan was a guest on the Failure to Launch Deep-Sea and Space Episode

Other Creators We Love

What's happening in our Deep-Sea Discord Community:

Adorable deep-sea game designed by a member
Awkward 4 fin teenager-phase Vampire Squid photos
Photos of field station samples
Chimera Processing
Celebration as our resident Alvin intern was hired for a few cruises!
Sightings of the tongue eating louse in the wild
Adventures tagging horseshoe crabs
Biology versus AI insanity in cephalopod stickers
Shared photos of art in the wild
Updates on in-progress deep-sea inspired ceramics
A little bit of knitting project sharing
Newpaper articles from 2004
Daily photo updates from a natural history museum job

Help Little the giant isopod find a meal on the seafloorsiphonophora.itch.io/abyssal-plain

Our favorite Andrew in his Anglerfish getup on a mug!

Leave us a voice message on the Answer phone!

www.speakpipe.com/deepseapodvoicemail

Some of our Featured News Articles:

A massive ‘whale graveyard’ millions of years old has been discovered deep in the ocean | CNNResearchers found a huge whale graveyard dating back millions of years, with fossils, modern carcasses and deep-sea scavengers, some of which may be new to science.

Trump administration reverses plans to ditch a critical ocean monitoring system after furious bipartisan backlash | CNNThe Trump administration is U-turning on its controversial decision to dismantle a critical system of ocean monitoring that provides vital information on the health of the world’s oceans, after a bipartisan backlash.

A newly identified species of octopus looks like a plush toy | CNNA newly identified species was found in the Galápagos Islands, one of the world’s most significant biodiverse areas.

Expedition led by MBARI researchers reveals remarkable, and rare, form of deep-sea hydrothermal vents • MBARIA monthlong expedition with Schmidt Ocean Institute has provided new insight into fluid circulation and seafloor geology in the remote Doldrums Megatransform and Fracture Zone in the Atlantic Ocean.

Deep-sea denizens go years without food with clever biological fixA pill bug dwelling under a garden pot curls its body into a tiny armored ball as self-defense. Far below the ocean surface, some of its much larger relatives face a harder problem: how to stay alive when the next meal may not come for years.

Deep-sea crust uncovers steady plutonium rain from ancient kilonova debrisDebris is still raining down on Earth more than 100 million years after the giant cosmic explosion that created it. A study published this week in Nature Astronomy by an international team reached this conclusion using measurements of rare isotopes within a slow-growing ferromanganese crust recovered from the depths of the Pacific Ocean.

Scientists uncover a deep-sea coral kingdom almost the size of Vatican CityAcross the broader survey area, researchers collected 28 species that they suspect are new to science.

Tiny teeth fossils reveal ancient origins of ocean’s most abundant deep-sea fishYale researchers used fossilized teeth in ocean sediments to trace the origins of Cyclothone, a deep-sea fish genus, back at least 55 million years.

Deep-sea snails ride surface currents to reach distant hydrothermal ventsThe finding shows how life spreads between isolated deep-sea vents — and how closely those ecosystems are tied to the sunlit ocean.

Lost megalodon vertebrae resurface, confirming 80-foot size estimateAn associated set of gigantic vertebrae belonging to the iconic extinct megalodon, or megatooth shark, that had been missing in action since the 1980s was discovered, providing new information about the shark's lifestyle. Two Museum of Southern Jutland staff members, Mette Elstrup and Trine Sørensen, and a researcher at Aarhus University, Henrik Lauridsen, teamed up with a scientist in the United States and another in Australia and took a renewed look at a once-lost vertebral specimen of Otodus megalodon, the fossil shark that lived nearly worldwide about 15 million to 3.6 million years ago.

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We want to say a huge thank you to those patrons who have already pledged to support us, as an extension of our gratitude for subscribing each new Patron will receive an honorific from Thom:

Vivek- Lays on the seabed, fossilized for millions of years.

Jem- Was perfectly preserved in a bottle of vodka.

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Keep up with the team on social media

Twitter: Alan - @Hadalbloke | Thom - @ThomLinley

Instagram: Thom - @thom.linley

Bluesky: Alan - @Hadalbloke | Thom - @deepseapod.com

Dr Thom (@thom.linley) • Instagram photos and videos395 Followers, 166 Following, 78 Posts - See Instagram photos and videos from Dr Thom (@thom.linley)

FURTHUR RESOURCES

Deep-Sea News

A submersible ride revealed a vast whale graveyard. And it holds more than just bones

Trump administration ditches plan to close a critical ocean monitoring system after furious bipartisan backlash

Scientists uncover a deep-sea coral kingdom almost the size of Vatican City

Deep-sea crust uncovers steady plutonium rain from ancient kilonova debris

Deep-sea denizens go years without food with clever biological fix | Reuters

Deep-sea megafauna co-opts microbial energy metabolism genes to withstand ultra-long starvation

Chlamydiae in the Environment - ScienceDirect

Tiny, blue Galápagos octopus identified as newfound species | CNN

A new species of Microeledone from Galápagos Islands and an amended diagnosis of the Megaleledonidae (Octopoda: Incirrata) | Zootaxa

Tiny teeth fossils reveal ancient origins of ocean’s most abundant deep-sea fish | Yale News

Expedition led by MBARI researchers reveals remarkable, and rare, form of deep-sea hydrothermal vents

Lost megalodon vertebrae resurface, confirming 80-foot size estimate

Deep-sea snails ride surface currents to reach distant hydrothermal vents

Gastropod shells record larval migration from deep-sea hydrothermal vents to the euphotic zone | Science Advances

Integrative taxonomy of new genera and species of giant foraminifera (Rhizaria: Foraminifera: Xenophyophoroidea) from the abyssal northwest Pacific reveals novel morphological complexity | Zoological Journal of the Linnean Society | Oxford Academic

Discord Updates

A Day On The Abyssal Plain by siphonophora

2 Hours of Snailfish to Relax/Study To | Lofi Hip Hop | Monterey Bay Aquarium Krill Waves Radio

https://nzase.org.nz/category/resources/deep-sea-tinkerer-and-fish-zoologist-dr-thom-linley/

Deep-Sea and Space with Prof. Alan Jamieson on Failure to Launch

Glossary

Whale-fall - when a dead whale falls to the seabed

Horizontal Gene Transfer - rather than kids inheriting genes, some organisms can pass genes between themselves

Serpentinization - the formation of serpentinite. Rocks from the Earths mantle makes contact and reacts with seawater. Generates lots of heat + hydrogen and methane. This can create non-volcanic hydrothermal vents!

Extant - opposite of extinct, a currently living species

Credits

Theme: Hadal Zone Express by Märvel

Logo image: Courtesy of Jason Rodriguez

Phone answering machine from Sound Effects Factory

Song of the month: Important Mermaid: @_stephenspencer

Stephen Spencer (@_stephenspencer) • Instagram photos and videos

Tagged: #Podcast #scicomm #Science #MarineBiology #DeepSea #DeepOcean #AlanJamieson #ThomLinley #deepseacreatures #deepseaspecies

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