During Pell's tenure at the Smithsonian, The Smithsonian Conservation Biology Institute's opened a state-of-the-art genetics lab at the National Zoo in Washington, D.C.[13] Also, in October 2012, the Smithsonian announced the formation of the Tennenbaum Marine Observatories Network.[14] The project will be the first worldwide network of coastal ecological field sites with the goal of standardizing measurements of biological change.