Science & Technology

Douglas Wiens in Arts & Sciences led one of the first seismic studies of the Patagonian Andes, where glaciers are melting at some of the fastest rates on the planet. The team discovered and described a key link between ice mass loss, uplift and a gap between tectonic plates.

Rita Parai, assistant professor of earth and planetary sciences in Arts & Sciences, will use a National Science Foundation CAREER award to leverage new techniques to measure heavy noble gases in ocean island basalts from the Azores archipelago.

Kater Murch in Arts & Sciences and collaborators at Indiana University-Purdue University Indianapolis won a $750,000 grant from the Office of Naval Research. 

A new analysis led by geophysicist Anne M. Hofmeister in Arts & Sciences provides an alternative to the mantle convection hypothesis. The study is published in a special paper of the Geological Society of America.

Sachiko Amari, research professor in the Department of Physics in Arts & Sciences, received a $973,810 award from NASA.

A new isotope of magnesium — magnesium-18 — was discovered by a team that includes Robert Charity, research professor of chemistry, and Lee Sobotka, professor of chemistry and of physics, both in Arts & Sciences, as reported in the journal Physical Review Letters.

Jeffrey Catalano, professor of earth and planetary sciences in Arts & Sciences, won a $295,464 major research instrumentation grant from the National Science Foundation to acquire a laboratory-based X-ray absorption and emission spectroscopy instrument.

Henric Krawczynski and Johanna Nagy, in the Department of Physics in Arts & Sciences, received a two-year $459,050 award from NASA to test an array of quantum sensors on a one-day balloon flight to launch from New Mexico in 2023.

Bronwen Konecky, assistant professor of earth and planetary sciences in Arts & Sciences, won a $239,375 award from the National Science Foundation.

Rock formations called shut-ins confine a section of a river, forcing water to flow between the steep walls of a canyon or gorge. Shut-ins are found in streams and rivers across the Ozarks. But some of the most outstanding shut-ins in the state are located at Johnson’s Shut-Ins State Park, where Washington University scientists are studying bedrock river erosion.