Jessica Brunner, a rising senior at Spelman College, takes the chance to conduct undergraduate research seriously. This year, she also wanted to make new friends — and got the opportunity to do both at Georgia Tech this summer thanks to the NSF Research Experience for Undergraduates (REU) program.

“It was just a completely different experience,” Brunner said. “I was able to find a balance between research and socializing, because a lot of research is socializing. You're working with different people, you're working in different labs, or working with different areas of science. So this idea of socializing and networking, the relaying of information that different people have, it's just amazing.”

Every school in the Georgia Tech College of Sciences now offers a summer NSF REU. The Human Neuroscience Research and Techniques program that Brunner attended is led by the School of Psychology. The REU program is funded by the National Science Foundation (NSF). 

“The NSF’s goal is to involve visiting students in high-quality mentored research programs with access to appropriate facilities, along with professional development and cohort building opportunities,” says David Collard, senior associate dean in the College of Sciences and a former director of REU programs in the School of Chemistry and Biochemistry for more than a decade. “They help to better inform each participant’s decision about whether to pursue graduate studies. It is a credit to our programs that a majority of their recent participants have gone on to top graduate schools, some at Georgia Tech and others elsewhere."

The NSF leverages the REU program to boost participation in science, technology, engineering, and mathematics (STEM) fields. The organization estimates that several million additional people, specifically more individuals from groups historically underrepresented in STEM fields, are needed for the country’s science and engineering workforce, to better reflect the demographics and representation of the U.S. population.

"I am delighted that each of our schools is able to contribute to NSF's vision for the development of the future STEM workforce in the U.S.," added Collard. 

The College of Sciences spoke to several undergraduates who gave presentations at the REU poster sessions in July:

Emily Almgren, Mathematics REU, rising senior, Haverford College

Not many undergraduates get a chance to conduct research before they get their B.S. degree. How important is that to you?

“It's really important for figuring out whether I want to do research, whether I want to go to graduate school, and also what area of research I want to go into. it's really hard to know what kind of research you want to do without having done that research. So our views are really important for forming that decision of where to apply to grad school.”

Jessica Brunner, Psychology/Neuroscience REU, rising senior, Spelman College

What was your experience in this year’s REU?

“At first glance, it may seem daunting, but Spelman’s motto is to ‘forever remain undaunted’. So I came in with this ideology that I was going to be ready, and I was going to tackle anything that came my way, ready to do some hardcore research, and just experience what it's like to be a graduate student for a summer. This just solidified it more for me that this is definitely something that I see myself doing in the future, and I will be pursuing a Ph.D. after I graduate Spelman College.”

Marygrace Fagan, Physics REU, rising junior, Purdue University

What was your experience with the mentors you worked with in the Physics REU?

“Everyone in my lab has been super helpful. The grad students who are mentors are totally willing to help me whenever I have a question. I've learned a ton. Claire Berger (professor of the practice in the School of Physics) is my mentor, and she’s very good at explaining things. And you can tell she knows what she’s talking about. She co-wrote one of the first research papers on graphene. That’s so cool.”

Hector G. Torres De Jesus, Biological Sciences REU, rising junior, University of Puerto Rico

Why did you decide to attend this REU at Georgia Tech?

“I’m very interested in microbiology and marine biology, and the University of Puerto Rico is the only campus on the island that has marine biology as a major. We don’t have a lot of research opportunities there, so my mentor suggested an internship or undergraduate program in the U.S. because that way, you can find more marine biology courses. I read that Jennifer Glass (associate professor in the School of Earth and Atmospheric Sciences) had worked with microbiology and water microorganisms. That’s my type of research area.”

Aaron Lee, Math REU, rising senior, University of California, Davis

What brought you to Georgia Tech for an REU?

“Frankly, I was looking for things to do over the summer. And my mentor was like, 'Aaron, you should do an REU.' I applied a week before the deadline. And I thought, wow, it'd be really cool to work on this. I'm really interested in applied math. This is sort of a trial run for me — do I want to go to grad school? But personally, it's really important to me, just because I think I've always really wanted to do research, and contribute to the space of human knowledge.”

What do you hope to do for a career?

“I'm actually planning to become a teacher. And I really hope to share the enjoyment of math that I've had over the years with students. I think there are a lot of different ways to teach math. I really want to help people understand exactly why math is the way it is — and it's not just something that a bunch of old guys came up with to torture you.”

Zachary Farmer, Chemistry REU, rising junior, University of Wisconsin-Stevens Point

“It's been amazing. So far we’ve seen how work is done at the graduate level, and how graduate students organize themselves. My lab at my institution is pretty much like a teaching research lab. It’s nice to see everything sprawled out and all the researchers going hard at it. As far as networking, I think it's a fantastic idea to incorporate other students from other disciplines so you can kind of work off of what they're doing. I just think it's good exposure to other disciplines.”

College of Sciences REUs:

Aquatic Chemical Ecology Summer Research Program

(Co-hosted by the Schools of Biological Sciences, Earth and Atmospheric Sciences, Chemistry and Biochemistry, and from the College of Engineering: Civil and Environmental Engineering, Chemical and Biomolecular Engineering.)

Broadening Participation Summer Undergraduate Research Program in Physics 

(Hosted by the School of Physics)

Mathematics Research Experiences for Undergraduates

(Hosted by the School of Mathematics) 

Broadening Participation in Atmospheric Science, Oceanography and Geosciences Research 

(Hosted by the School of Earth and Atmospheric Sciences)

Chemistry Function, Application, Structure, and Theory (FAST)

(Hosted by the School of Chemistry and Biochemistry)

Human Neuroscience Research and Techniques

(Hosted by the School of Psychology) 

More information on applying for Georgia Tech summer REUs, including requirements and deadlines, can be found at the individual REU links here. 

In February, a major earthquake event devastated the south-central region of the Republic of Türkiye (Turkey) and northwestern Syria. Two earthquakes, one magnitude 7.8 and one magnitude 7.5, occurred nine hours apart, centered near the heavily populated city of Gaziantep. The total rupture lengths of both events were up to 250 miles. The president of Turkey has called it the “disaster of the century,” and the threat is still not over — aftershocks could still affect the region. 

Now, Zhigang Peng, a professor in the School of Earth and Atmospheric Sciences at Georgia Tech and graduate students Phuc Mach and Chang Ding, alongside researchers at the Scientific and Technological Research Institution of Türkiye (TÜBİTAK) and researchers at the University of Missouri, are using small seismic sensors to better understand just how, why, and when these earthquakes are occurring.

Funded by an NSF RAPID grant, the project is unique in that it aims to actively respond to the crisis while it’s still happening. National Science Foundation (NSF) Rapid Response Research (RAPID) grants are used when there is a severe urgency with regard to availability of or access to data, facilities or specialized equipment, including quick-response research on natural or anthropogenic disasters and other similar unanticipated events.

In an effort to better map the aftershocks of the earthquake event — which can occur weeks or months after the main event — the team placed approximately 120 small sensors, called nodes, in the East Anatolian fault region this past May. Their deployment continues through the summer. 

It’s the first time sensors like this have been deployed in Turkey, says Peng.

“These sensors are unique in that they can be placed easily and efficiently," he explains. "With internal batteries that can work up to one month when fully charged, they’re buried in the ground and can be deployed within minutes, while most other seismic sensors need solar panels or other power sources and take much longer time and space to deploy.” Each node is about the size of a 2-liter soda bottle, and can measure ground movement in three directions.

 “The primary reason we’re deploying these sensors quickly following the two mainshocks is to study the physical mechanisms of how earthquakes trigger each,” Peng adds. Mainshocks are the largest earthquake in a sequence. “We’ll use advanced techniques such as machine learning to detect and locate thousands of small aftershocks recorded by this network. These newly identified events can provide new important clues on how aftershocks evolve in space and time, and what drives foreshocks that occur before large events.”

Unearthing fault mechanisms

The team will also use the detected aftershocks to illuminate active faults where three tectonic plates come together — a region known as the Maraş Triple Junction. “We plan to use the aftershock locations and the seismic waves from recorded events to image subsurface structures where large damaging earthquakes occur,” says Mach, the Georgia Tech graduate researcher. This will help scientists better understand why sometimes faults ‘creep’ without any large events, while in other cases faults lock and then violently release elastic energy, creating powerful earthquakes.

Getting high-resolution data of the fault structures is another priority. “The fault line ruptured in the first magnitude 7.8 event has a bend in it, where earthquake activity typically terminates, but the earthquake rupture moved through this bend, which is highly unusual,” Peng says. By deploying additional ultra-dense arrays of sensors in their upcoming trip this summer, the team hopes to help researchers ‘see’ the bend under the Earth’s surface, allowing them to better understand how fault properties control earthquake rupture propagation.  

The team also aims to learn more about the relationship between the two main shocks that recently rocked Turkey, sometimes called doublet events. Doublet events can happen when the initial earthquake triggers a secondary earthquake by adding extra stress loading. While in this instance, the doublet may have taken place only 9 hours after the initial event, these secondary earthquakes have been known to take place days, months, or even years after the initial one — a famous example being the sequence of earthquakes that spanned 60 years in the North Anatolian fault region in Northern Turkey. 

“Clearly the two main shocks in 2023 are related, but it is still not clear how to explain the time delays,” says Peng. The team plans to work with their collaborators at TÜBİTAK to re-analyze seismic and other types of geophysical data right before and after those two main shocks in order to better understand the triggering mechanisms.

“In our most recent trip in southern Türkiye, we saw numerous buildings that were partially damaged during the mainshock, and many people will have to live in temporary shelters for years during the rebuilding process,” Peng adds. “While we cannot stop earthquakes from happening in tectonically active regions, we hope that our seismic deployment and subsequent research on earthquake triggering and fault imaging can improve our ability to predict what will happen next — before and after a big one — and could save countless lives.”

(This story was first published in the Georgia Tech News Center. Read the full news story here.) 

Atlanta is seeing some of the worst air quality in the nation, and the culprit is actually thousands of miles away. 

More than 900 wildfires blazing in Canada are creating smoke and dust particles that are being carried by the jet stream all the way down to the Deep South. Georgia Tech scientists and researchers are watching closely. 

Wildfires themselves aren’t uncommon. But what is different and, at times, dangerous is the number of particles in the air. 

“It is unusual to experience high concentrations of smoke aerosols within the contiguous U.S. such as what we have been observing recently,” said Zachary Handlos, meteorologist and senior academic professional in the School of Earth and Atmospheric Sciences at Georgia Tech.

Fine particulate matter (also known as PM2.5) levels exceeded 55 micrograms per cubic meter of air south of Atlanta. This is the reason for the recent air quality alerts, which indicated that the air quality in metro Atlanta sat in the orange zone Monday and Tuesday, meaning the air has been potentially hazardous for the most at-risk people. 

Older persons, pregnant women, young children, and anyone with preexisting health conditions are among the most vulnerable populations. However, anyone can be affected by poor air quality.

PM2.5 is fine enough to penetrate deep into the lungs,” said Talat Odman, principal research engineer and air quality expert from the Georgia Tech School of Civil and Environmental Engineering. 

Both Odman and Handlos say an N95 mask can be a big help in filtering out this particulate matter. Read more.

This story was first published in the Georgia Tech Research Newsroom. Read the full feature here.

The entire ocean is connected. Species like coral can be similar in entirely different parts of the ocean because those waters share characteristics like salinity, temperature, and nutrients. But how did this shared DNA travel in the first place? Currents connect ecosystems, and understanding their flow could help to rebuild other ecosystems. That’s the focus of the research from School of Earth and Atmospheric Sciences Professor Annalisa Bracco.

“Corals spread through larvae, which are transported by ocean currents. This is something that naturally happens and is, in the case of corals, definitely quite beneficial,” Bracco said. “If the coral gets bleached and dies, other coral DNA can come in the form of larvae and recolonize the territory.”

Bracco’s research is about more than just following these currents. She also determines how they could be used to rejuvenate weakened or destroyed ecosystems. Marine protected areas in the Gulf of Mexico could be expanded to deliver more flora and fauna larvae to repopulate stressed or damaged areas.

“We need to preserve ecosystems that are diverse, but also well connected, so they can transfer that diversity if something happens in another place,” Bracco said. Read more.

Modeling the Future of Glaciers and Ice Sheets

Retreating glaciers and the animals who live on them have become highly visible symbols of climate change. They are also a key to predicting its future. Alex Robel, an assistant professor in the School of Earth and Atmospheric Sciences, uses computational modeling to better understand how ice reacts to climate change and how, in turn, that causes global sea level to rise. His research group creates equations to explain how ice not only responds to climate change, but also how it flows, fractures, and melts.

“Unlike other fields, we don't have the standard set of equations that describe how ice sheets and glaciers work,” Robel said. “We use high-performance computing to simulate real glaciers on Antarctica and Greenland and try to understand how they have changed in the past and predict how they will change in the future.”

Not all ice is created the same. While sea ice freezes over a few feet of the top of the ocean in wintertime, glaciers are formed by the accumulation and compression of snow on land over long periods of time to depths of hundreds, even thousands, of feet. When enough accumulates, ice can start to flow like honey under its own weight and then is considered an ice sheet.

Developing these equations must account for how glaciers and ice sheets are exposed to the volatile climate system — and measuring conditions at the bottom of a glacier is no easy task. The field comes with a lot of inherent uncertainty that Robel’s group must plan for. Read more.

Hurricane season is underway and runs through Nov. 30. While the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration is forecasting a “near-normal” 2023, experts say that climate change paints a more unpredictable picture for the future.

Behind the 2023 projections is a balancing act of rising oceanic temperatures and the onset of the climate phenomenon El Niño, explains Susan Lozier, dean and Betsy Middleton and John Clark Sutherland Chair in the College of Sciences. The waters of the tropical Atlantic Ocean are currently 1 – 3°C above average, which would typically signify the potential for more intense activity, but the wind shear associated with El Niño acts as a deterrent for hurricane formation.

Increasing Intensity

But what could happen when the shield of El Niño isn't present to counteract the rising temperatures in the tropical Atlantic?

"Climate change is leading to warmer surface temperatures. We know that will lead to more intense hurricanes, but we don't know if it will necessarily lead to more hurricanes. As climate change progresses, we are interested in understanding how weather patterns will be disrupted, including those related to hurricane formation and pathways," said Lozier, who recently served as president of the American Geophysical Union.

She further explained that the increased intensity is a result of the warm waters releasing additional energy into the storm as it forms. This consequence of climate change could present problems for the Tech campus and the city of Atlanta due to the risk of torrential rainfall. According to the National Weather Service, flooding has proven to be the deadliest hazard associated with hurricanes over the past decade.

"When people think about hurricanes, they generally think about damaging winds. Winds are damaging, but increasingly, the most damaging part of a hurricane is the immense amount of moisture they carry," Lozier said, reflecting on the 2017 landfall of Hurricane Harvey. "An area like Atlanta could be affected by heavy rainfall associated with the path of a hurricane. The winds will have mostly died down by the time a storm reaches Atlanta, but as the climate warms, warmer air holds more moisture, and because of that, the expectation is that there will be more rainfall associated with hurricanes and tropical storms.”

Beyond Reducing Carbon Emissions

Fueling the rising temperatures in the world's oceans is an increase in carbon emissions, and simply curtailing them may not be a solution.

"The private and public sectors are increasingly looking at actively removing carbon from the atmosphere because we are unlikely to limit global warming simply by curtailing emissions. Active carbon drawdown from the atmosphere and the ocean are active areas of research right now,” Lozier said.

Tech researchers are at the forefront of this effort, highlighted by a partnership between the Institute, the Georgia Aquarium, and Ocean Visions­­ — the Center for Ocean-Climate Solutions. Lozier represents the Institute as a partnership lead at the center, where the primary focus is the design and delivery of scalable and equitable ocean-based solutions to reduce the effects of climate change and build climate-resilient marine ecosystems and coastal communities.

Associate Professor Chris Reinhard is exploring how coastal ecosystem restoration can permanently capture carbon dioxide from the atmosphere as it becomes buried in sediments on the seafloor. The overall process of removing carbon from the air can be costly. To combat that, a team of researchers in the School of Chemical and Biomolecular Engineering is developing a traditional direct air capture system that is cheaper to operate and more efficient. Helping to craft policy and research climate solutions, Marilyn Brown, Regents’ Professor and the Brook Byers Professor of Sustainable Systems in the School of Public Policy, serves on the leadership council of Drawdown Georgia.

A certain level of unpredictability will always exist when dealing with natural disasters, but understanding humans’ role in controlling climate change could be a key factor in our ability to accurately assess the threat of developing storms. 

Editor's Note: This story by Nilde Maggie Dannreuther was originally published on Oct. 1, 2019, by the Gulf of Mexico Research Initiative. It is reposted here with permission. 

Researchers at Florida State University and the Georgia Institute of Technology analyzed degradation processes of oil that was deposited along Gulf of Mexico beaches following Deepwater Horizon. They found that small millimeter-size oil particles and thin oil films that coated sand grains disappeared within a year, facilitated by the large surface-to-volume ratio of the small particles and films that allowed space for microbial colonization and biodegradation. In contrast, the degradation of golf-ball sized sediment-oil-agglomerates (SOAs or tarballs) with a smaller surface-to-volume ratio is a lengthier process.

Using a novel in-situ experimental setup, the researchers followed the degradation of buried SOAs for three years and, based on decay rates, estimated that the SOA decomposition would take about 30 years. The degradation of the same SOAs kept in a dark lab environment would take approximately 100 years, highlighting the key role of the beach environment and its microbial community in the oil degradation process.

The researchers published their findings in two studies, one in Marine Pollution Bulletin: Degradation of Deepwater Horizon oil buried in a Florida beach influenced by tidal pumping and one in Scientific Reports: Decomposition of sediment-oil-agglomerates in a Gulf of Mexico sandy beach.

Oil associated with Deepwater Horizon reached the Florida panhandle sandy beaches of the Florida panhandle on June 22, 2010. Waves generated by the distant passage of Hurricane Alex, deposited oil mousse high onto the beaches and strong winds blew an oily sea spray across the beach, coating the sands with oil.

Mixing of oil and sand in the swash zone produced large SOAs that were buried in the beach. The deposition of oil continued, and by the end of July, sands in the upper 70 cm of the beach were stained brown and veined by dark compacted layers of SOAs. Questions arose about the length of time that this oil would persist in Florida beaches.

To assess the degradation of the oil particles and oil films coating the sands, the teams of Markus Huettel and Joel Kostka quantified concentration changes of aliphatic and aromatic oil components; assessed microbial communities’ abundance, composition, and succession; and determined the transport of oxygen and carbon dioxide from June 2010-July 2011. To assess oil degradation in buried SOAs, the team conducted an in-situ experiment from October 2010-December 2013 using golf-ball size standardized SOAs that were embedded in the beach. They compared oil decomposition in buried SOAs to laboratory-incubated SOA material to determine the beach environment’s contribution to oil degradation.

Study author Markus Huettel explained the method for their in-situ experiment, “We combined and homogenized Deepwater Horizon SOAs that we collected at Pensacola Beach one week after the oil came to shore and filled the resulting SOA material in 100 golf-ball-size stainless steel teaballs. Five pairs of such standardized SOAs were attached to a vertical PVC pipe and buried in the beach, positioned at 10, 20, 30, 40 and 50 cm sediment depth, respectively. The ten arrays were removed from the beach one at a time over a period of 3 years. Using this method, we could follow the degradation of the SOAs at different sediment depths over time.”

Huettel emphasized the role of beaches as biocatalytical filters at the land-ocean interface, “Microbial degradation activities typically are most efficient when oxygen and warm temperatures are present, and this was supported by the tidal groundwater table oscillations in the beach. When the ebb tide sets in, the groundwater level in the beach drops, drawing air into the highly permeable beach sand. This ‘beach inhaling’ carries oxygen and heat into the sand, boosting the biodegradation activities within the beach. The rising groundwater table of the following flood acts like a piston pump, pushing air enriched in carbon dioxide out of the beach and moisture from deeper sands into the upper drier beach layers. This ‘beach exhaling’ is beneficial for the decomposition processes in the beach as gases resulting from the oil decomposition can reduce aerobic microbial degradation processes, and microbes need moisture to ‘drink.’ The beach, breathing in tidal rhythm, thus has similarities to an organism that aerobically ‘digests’ the buried oil, inhaling oxygen and exhaling carbon dioxide. After most oil had been decomposed, the microbial community of the beach reversed to a community typical to an unpolluted beach environment.”

Data for the study published in Marine Pollution Bulletin are archived at the National Center for Biotechnology Information (NCBI) under BioProject ID PRJNA294056 and publicly available through the Gulf of Mexico Research Initiative Information & Data Cooperative (GRIIDC) at DOI 10.7266/N7765CV9, DOI 10.7266/N7XW4HBZ, DOI 10.7266/N7BZ64J8, DOI 10.7266/N73J3BGD, DOI 10.7266/N7PZ56VV, DOI 10.7266/N7PG1Q83, DOI 10.7266/N7T72FZZ, DOI 10.7266/N78C9TSB, and DOI 10.7266/N7MG7N1S.

Data for the study published in Scientific Reports are publicly available through the Gulf of Mexico Research Initiative Information & Data Cooperative (GRIIDC) at DOI 10.7266/n7-wjj4-dq16, DOI 10.7266/n7-jjcn-y650, DOI 10.7266/n7-r0ca-f740, DOI 10.7266/n7-kzth-6056, DOI 10.7266/n7-jgbx-p395, and DOI 10.7266/n7-kavs-t279.

The Marine Pollution Bulletin study’s authors are Markus Huettel, Will A. Overholt, Joel E. Kostka, Christopher Hagan, John Kaba, Wm. Brian Wells, and Stacia Dudley.

The Scientific Reports study’s authors are Ioana Bociu, Boryoung Shin, Wm. Brian Wells, Joel E. Kostka, Konstantinos T. Konstantinidis, and Markus Huettel.

Around the world, people are celebrating 2019 as the International Year of the Periodic Table of Chemical Elements (IYPTCE). The iconic scientific tool is 150 years old, and going strong.

By partnering with other Georgia Tech units, the College of Sciences created a year-long program to celebrate IYPTCE. Among the beautiful outcomes is the book “Interactive Design of the Periodic Table to Celebrate 150 Years of Elements,” by the School of industrial Design, in the College of Design.

The book’s genesis goes back to the summer of 2018, when the College of Sciences approached Professor and Chair Jim Budd with a project idea that we hoped could be used in a spring 2019 course. The project goal was to reimagine the periodic table as an interactive installation.

Suggested ways to achieve the goal were by maximizing sensory modes to deliver information, by interacting with technology, and by presenting in multiple formats. No restriction was imposed on how to approach the project.

Assistant Professor Wei Wang embraced the project. He asked students of ID 6213, Studio Interact Product, to work on the project for the first three weeks of January 2019. Twenty-one students in the Master of Industrial Design and Master of Science in Human-Computer Interaction programs explored the fascinating world of the periodic table and developed concepts for an interactive exhibit.

“Students – by teams or individually – designed seven concepts, from public physical installations to virtual reality experiences,” Wang says. “The goal was to enhance the accessibility of the periodic table to inform, educate, inspire, and enable multiple ways of comparing elements and introducing the stories behind.”

On Jan. 28, the students revealed their concepts. Wang invited several guests to the presentation: Rafael San Miguel, a former senior flavor chemist from The Coca-Cola Company who is deaf but could speak and lip-read; Kirk Henderson, the exhibits program manager in the Georgia Tech library; Ximin Mi, data visualization librarian; and Maureen Rouhi, communications director in the College of Sciences.

The students “showed great creative ingenuity in developing tactile interactive exhibits designed to allow users to explore the elemental foundations underlying our everyday existence,” Henderson says.

San Miguel provided guidance and feedback on accessibility. He says he was “instantly amazed and impressed to see the wonderful and diverse talents the students brought along with their seven different concepts. This was a great way to help students think beyond standard norms of end users of designs and inventions.”

The ID 6213 students delivered a riveting array of installation concepts, which are collected in the book. All the projects are delightful to behold. The periodic table never looked so fresh, accessible, and exciting.