Here’s the latest news from SoMAS Faculty and Staff
Dr. Kamazima Lwiza, and co-PIs Dr. Edmund Chang, Dr. Brian Colle, Dr. Hyemi Kim, and Dr. Weisen Shen, have received a new award from NSF in support of the project “GP-IN: Discovering Pathways into the Geosciences through EarthBus Partnership”, in the amount $349,954, for the period 4/15/2021 – 3/31/2024. An abstract for the project is provided below.
GP-IN: Discovering Pathways into the Geosciences through EarthBus Partnership
Stony Brook University’s School of Marine and Atmospheric Sciences and Department of Geosciences have partnered with a non-governmental organization known as BioBus, Suffolk County Community College, two school districts on Long Island, two schools in New York City, Suffolk County, and two private surveying and construction firms to form an “EarthBus Partnership”. The alliance is designed to increase diversity student participation in the geoscience fields, which currently is about 7%. Apart from one school district, which was selected for integration, the rest have large numbers of minority and high-needs student. The project targets earth science students and teachers at the middle and high school levels, and community college students. Expected results are to increase interest in the geosciences as well as improved students’ performance on State mandated instruction, and to equip teachers with strategies and techniques for helping students engage in project-based learning earth science. This will be achieved through a multi-pronged approach by using classrooms, BioBus vehicles as our mobile labs where demonstrations and laboratory experiments will be conducted, use of drone technology and field research. Also, we will get two school districts on Long Island to collaborate on field research projects. This will allow us to test the impact of integrating school districts from different economic levels in learning. Our goal is to train 2,500 high school students, 120 earth science teachers, and 50-60 community college students over three years. It is also expected that the work started through this project will continue after NSF funding expires through fundraising activities.
Nitrogen Sensor for Advanced Septic Systems
- Nitrogen pollution from septic tanks has been identified as the single largest contributor to deteriorating groundwater quality on Long Island. Stony Brook University researcher Qingzhi Zhu created a high accuracy, low-maintenance sensor that will help manufacturers, homeowners, and local and state governments know that these systems are performing as intended to protect valuable water resources.
Times Beacon Record: Scientist receives TAF award for a nitrogen sensor technology to advance septic systems
- Qingzhi Zhu, PhD, Associate Professor in the School of Marine and Atmospheric Sciences (SoMAS) at Stony Brook University, has received a SUNY Technology Accelerator Fund (TAF) award for his research to develop a low-cost, high-accuracy nitrogen detecting system for wastewater systems that has the potential to greatly improve testing processes and quality of water.
Bioengineer.org: New insights into close encounters between albatross and fishing vessels
- The research team included albatross researchers from the U.S. Geological Survey, Oikonos Ecosystem Knowledge, San Jose State University, NOAA Fisheries, Yamashina Institute for Ornithology, Pacific Rim Conservation, San Diego State University and Stony Brook University.
27east/Southampton Press: Sag Harbor Gets Mixed Report On Water Quality
East Hampton Star: To Advance Kelp Farming on the East End
Nature World News: Worse than Exxon Valdez Oil Spill: Abandoned Yemeni Tanker Can Wreck the Red Sea
Sputnik International:This Little-Talked About Vessel Off Yemen Threatens to Halt Red Sea Shipping, Spark Mass Extinctions
- Commenting on the danger to The Media Line, Stony Brook University School of Marine and Atmospheric Sciences professor Karine Kleinhaus stressed that “the importance of the Red Sea ecosystem cannot be overstated.”
The Fish Site: Putting a value on nitrogen remediation by bivalves
- The study was conducted by shellfish biologists, economists, and modellers from NOAA Fisheries, NOAA National Centers for Coastal Ocean Science, and Stony Brook University. It was recently published in Environmental Science & Technology.
John Bohorquez won first prize in the prose category of the annual Words on Water writing competition held by the BLUE Institute. His story was titled “The Many Faces of Marine Conservation – From a Remote Colombian Island to a Roman Boardroom in Three Days” and is available on the competition’s website:https://blueinstitute.
The Inquirer and Mirror: Outdoor dining returning to downtown this summer
- The board approved 21 pending contracts totaling $682,557. They include $29,990 to Stony Brook University graduate student Stephen Heck for a bay scallop and eelgrass study.
The SoMAS Ocean Glider completed its third deployment this week.
The SoMAS Ocean Glider, SBU01, completed its third mission earlier this week traveling some 550 km in 25 days starting offshore Shinnecock Inlet and ending up off Manasquan Inlet in New Jersey. The ocean glider project is funded by NY DEC’s Ocean Indicators MOU and, in collaboration with Rutgers to measure ocean pH, a grant from NOAA. The goal of these efforts is to monitor long-term changes in the physical and biological properties within the Middle Atlantic/New York Bight. The glider propels itself by changing is displacement thereby moving up and down through the water column while gliding forward at about 0.6 kt. As the glider progresses along a predefined cruise track it measures temperature, salinity, pressure, chlorophyll-a, backscatter, dissolved oxygen and pH. During this last cruise the glider produced some 2500 vertical profiles of these variables down to a maximum depth of 180m. Near real-time data is telemetered ashore via an Iridium link every time the glider surfaces which happened during this deployment at 5-hour intervals and it is that pre-QA’d data that is shown in the figures attached.
Congrats to Charlie Flagg on his progress with this project.
The Knopf group’s research collaboration was mentioned in a feature by Environmental Molecular Sciences Laboratory at Pacific Northwest National Laboratory:
EMSL’s new web feature, “Aloft, Some Mysteries of Complex Chemistry” is now live (https://www.emsl.pnnl.gov/
Sag Harbor Express: Humans Driving Environmental Plagues, Stony Brook Scientist Says
- In his annual “State of the Bays” presentation, recapping how Long Island’s bays, harbors and ponds fared in the prior year, Stony Brook University professor Dr. Christopher Gobler said that he is among the growing chorus of scientists who believe that the Earth has now entered a new epoch of geologic history — one defined by the activities of human beings becoming the dominant influence on the planet’s climate and the environment rather than simply the forces of nature.
The Ritz Herald: NYSDEC To Deploy New Technology To Study Harmful Algal Blooms at Lake Agawam
- State experts are working closely with the Lake Agawam community, and in collaboration with Stony Brook University. Together, they are set to study the effectiveness of ultrasonic devices on Lake Agawam throughout the summer of 2021.
In case you missed it, here are the latest videos available on our YouTube channel!
- Dr. Andrew Ross’s OSAC seminar “Predicting dissolved oxygen concentrations in Chesapeake Bay using machine learning”
- The first Larry Swanson Waste on Wednesdays seminar: Waste 101 with Will Flower, Vice President of Winters Brothers, and Mike Englemann, P.G., Solid Waste Coordinator, Town of Smithtown.
- Dr. Malcolm Bowman, with Dr. Keith Roberts and Hamish Bowman’s OSAC seminar “Understanding Past Storm Surges & Predicting Future Surges In New York Harbor & Long Island”
