Science & Technology

A team that includes Lee Sobotka and Robert Charity, both in Arts & Sciences, concluded that the role that neutrons play in the creation of carbon, considered the definitive building block of life, is much smaller than previously thought.

Alexander Thompson, a postdoctoral research associate in earth and planetary sciences in Arts & Sciences, updated simulations from an important climate model to more accurately reflect the role of a greener Sahara and the coniferous and deciduous forests of the mid-latitudes and the Arctic.

With the support of the David and Lucile Packard Foundation, climate scientist Bronwen Konecky in Arts & Sciences is piloting a new program to attract and support underrepresented students in the geosciences and prepare them for further studies and careers in the field.

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.