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The Office of Naval Research (ONR) Human and Bioengineered Systems Division's mission is to direct, plan, foster and encourage science and technology in cognitive science, computational neuroscience, bio-mimetic technology, biophysics, social/organizational science, training, science of learning, human factors, and decision making as related to Naval needs.

The Office of Naval Research's Navy Undersea Research Program (NURP), in collaboration with the National Science Foundation, sponsors science and engineering graduate students pursuing thesis topics in core undersea weaponry technology areas.

The Ocean Battlespace Sensing Department explores science and technology in the ocean battlespace environment.

The Warfighter Protection and Applications Division's mission is to direct, plan, foster and encourage science and technology programs directed at maintaining and enhancing the survival, health, and performance of Navy and Marine Corps personnel.

The Office of Naval Research Undersea Weapons Program develops technologies for current and next-generation, offensive and defensive weapons capable of engaging submarines, surface ships and threat torpedoes.

Retired U.S. Navy Capt. Don Walsh, best known for his daring dive to the deepest spot on Earth, nearly 36,000 feet below the ocean’s surface, has died at age 92. Walsh was a co-pilot of the Trieste bathyscaphe, a deep submergence vehicle acquired by the Office of Naval Research (ONR) in 1958. Two years later, on January 23, 1960, Walsh and Swiss engineer Jacques Piccard, son of the inventor of the bathyscaphe, became the first humans to descend into the Challenger Deep, located in the Pacific Ocean’s Mariana Trench. “ONR sponsored the Trieste, but it was then-Lt. Don Walsh who made the very daring decision to make the first descent into the deepest spot of the earth’s ocean. Walsh was a Navy officer, a submariner, an adventurer, and an oceanographer. To his family, we extend our deepest condolences and gratitude for allowing him to explore, and share his extraordinary experiences and knowledge with us,” said Chief of Naval Research Rear Adm. Kurt Rothenhaus.

The Undersea Systems Focus Area addresses innovative affordable, persistent and stealthy undersea systems that leverage the asymmetric U.S. Navy advantage afforded by subsurface operations.​

Extraordinarily rugged with a melting temperature of several thousand degrees Fahrenheit. That describes the results of research into new ceramic materials sponsored by the Office of Naval Research (ONR) and recently published in the Journal Nature. A research team, led by ONR’s Principal Investigator, Dr. Stefano Curtarolo, Duke University, developed a computational method for creating new types of ceramics using transition metals – carbonitrides or borides – through a process called Disordered Enthalpy-Entropy Descriptor (DEED). The applications are endless, said Dr. Eric Wuchina, a research materials engineer who was the program officer with ONR’s Sea Warfare and Weapons department when Curtarolo’s research team was awarded the Multidisciplinary University Research Initiative (MURI). According to Wuchina, the variety of new compositions could create potentially millions of new materials.

The goal of the Office of Naval Research's Undersea Signal Processing program is to develop signal processing algorithms that improve the Navy's ability to detect, identify and locate submarines in shallow and deep ocean environments.