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Welcome to the College of Sciences at Georgia Institute of Technology — we're so glad you're here. Learn more about us in this video, narrated by Susan Lozier, Dean and Betsy Middleton and John Clark Sutherland Chair in the College and President of AGU, and at: cos.gatech.edu
Four College of Sciences alumni have been selected as members of the 2024 class of 40 under 40.
Nine early-career professors will pursue cutting-edge climate mitigation research during the upcoming year as part of the initiative.
College of Sciences faculty members were celebrated by their students for outstanding teaching and educational impact.
273 academic and research faculty members from across the Institute received promotions during the spring semester. We are thankful for their contributions and honored to celebrate their accomplishments.
Over the past few decades, earth scientists have grappled with the concept of solar geoengineering: cooling the rapidly warming planet by injecting particles high into the atmosphere to reflect sunlight, for example. Now, researchers are proposing a new way to battle the effects of climate change that could prove even more costly and controversial: glacial geoengineering, designed to slow sea level rise.
A white paper, released on 11 July by glaciologists, calls for boosting research into daring plans that would protect vulnerable ice sheets by building flexible barriers around them or drilling deep into them to slow their slippage into the sea.
These untested ideas are stirring up a backlash among glaciologists, some of whom view them not only as outlandishly expensive and logistically flawed but also as a distraction from the problem of reducing greenhouse gas emissions. In an article in Science, scientists, including School of Earth and Atmospheric Sciences Associate Professor Alex Robel, discuss the white paper and the distinction between supporting geoengineering and supporting its research. “I think the reality is that most people who will end up engaging in geoengineering research will do so because it increases the likelihood that geoengineering will actually happen,” says Robel.
Science
July 12, 2024A team of researchers, led by Georgia Tech alumna Feifei Qian and School of Earth and Atmospheric Sciences Assistant Professor Frances Rivera-Hernández, continue to work on the LASSIE Project, which stands for Legged Autonomous Surface Science in Analogue Environments. They want to see just how well a four-legged robot could make it up Mount Hood’s gravel and snow. “It’s literally a robotic dog form,” said Qian. “It can plow. It can basically dig a hole.” She added, "the information the robot sends back with each step could tell scientists whether it’s good to build a structure in a certain spot on the moon or whether it’d be good to excavate."
Oregon Public Broadcasting
July 4, 2024A geologically rapid Neoproterozoic oxygenation event is commonly linked to the appearance of marine animal groups in the fossil record. However, there is still debate about what evidence from the sedimentary geochemical record—if any—provides strong support for a persistent shift in surface oxygen immediately preceding the rise of animals. In this article, a team of researchers, including School of Earth and Atmospheric Sciences Postdoctoral Scholar Devon Cole, combined approaches from statistical learning, biogeochemical modeling and ecophysiology to better constrain changes in global ocean biogeochemistry and marine animal habitats through the Neoproterozoic and Palaeozoic eras.
Nature Geoscience
July 2, 2024
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