Earth & Environmental Sciences
Dr Taka’aki Taira – Taking the Earth’s Pulse – Listening to Seismic Noise
Research Seismologist Dr Taka’aki Taira at the University of California at Berkeley and his colleagues investigate changes in Earth’s structures related to earthquake rupture and volcanic eruption by exploring ways to listen to and interpret ambient seismic noise....
Dr John J. Perona – Sulphur Metabolism on the Anaerobic Earth
Life on Earth arose over three billion years ago, in an environment lacking significant quantities of molecular oxygen. As a consequence, the earliest living cells had to rely on distinctive chemical processes that persist today only in extreme conditions where oxygen...
Dr Iris Möller – Using Nature to Protect Us From… Nature
Environmental geographer Dr Iris Möller and her colleagues at Cambridge University’s Coastal Research Unit look for ways to protect our coastal areas from flooding by studying the natural protections provided by the coastal geography itself. Water, Water...
Dr Irina S. Druzhinina – Using Mother Nature to Help Clean Up Mother Nature
Mycologist and Environmental Engineer Dr Irina Druzhinina and her colleagues at the Biochemical Technology Research Division of the Institute of Chemical, Environmental and Biological Engineering, TU Wien in Vienna, Austria, are looking for a compound to use in the...
Sigma Xi: The Scientific Research Honor Society
Founded in 1886 at Cornell University, Sigma Xi is an international community of scientists and engineers dedicated to promoting excellence in research, enhancing public engagement with science, and fostering the next generation of researchers. Here, we have had the...
Dr Michael Notaro – Does Climate Affect The World’s Vegetation – Or Is It The Other Way Around?
Climate scientist, Dr Michael Notaro, and his colleagues at the Nelson Institute Center for Climatic Research, University of Wisconsin–Madison, study climate variability and change, including how the weather, including monsoons, can be influenced by variations in...
Professor Reinhard Dallinger – Investigating Metals In The World’s Invertebrate Animals
Ecotoxicologist Professor Reinhard Dallinger and his colleagues at the University of Innsbruck in Austria look for ways to locate and measure environmental metal fluxes and pollution in non-model invertebrate and indicator organisms, like worms and shellfish. Looking...
Dr Ken L. Ferrier – Interpreting Ancient Shorelines
One way to understand Earth’s climate is to study past changes in sea level, which leave tell-tale signatures in the geological record. Scientists often look at ancient shorelines to infer how Earth’s oceans and ice sheets responded to previous climates. Geologist Dr...
Soapbox Science
Soapbox Science was founded as a public outreach platform for promoting women scientists and their research. Now in its seventh year, Soapbox Science takes female scientists out of the lab and onto the streets, to talk to the passing, unsuspecting public about...
The European Southern Observatory
The European Southern Observatory (ESO), is an intergovernmental organisation that facilitates astronomy and astrophysics research. Since its creation in 1962, ESO has provided scientists with the world’s most powerful ground-based telescopes in its host state of...
Kimberly Kowal Arcand – Somewhere, Outside The Rainbow
NASA’s Chandra X-Ray Observatory orbits high above the earth, beaming back images of the high-energy universe impossible to obtain from the ground. Bringing this data to the world is Kimberly Arcand, Visualisation Lead for the project. Here we go into detail on some...
Dr Merritt N. Deeter – Measuring How The Earth Exhales
Atmospheric Scientist Dr Merritt Deeter at the National Center for Atmospheric Research (NCAR) in Boulder, Colorado and his colleagues work with satellite data from NASA to measure levels of carbon monoxide and other pollutants released into the atmosphere around the...
Dr David Eaton – Hydraulic Fracture Monitoring And Induced Microseismicity In Western Canada
Dr David Eaton is a geoscientist interested in the impact of human industrial activities on geological phenomena. His research has focused on better understanding geomechanical deformations and resulting microseismic events that are stimulated by hydraulic fracturing...
Dr Diliana D. Simeonova – Deciphering Unknown And Unrecognised Phosphorus-Microbial Transformations
Dr Diliana D. Simeonova and her colleagues at the Bulgarian Academy of Sciences, Institute of Microbiology in Sofia, Bulgaria perform research at the interface between geochemistry and microbiology – or simply geomicrobiology. Dr Simeonova and her colleagues are...
Professor Stephen Goff – Contagious Cancer Cells In Shellfish
Professor Stephen Goff of Columbia University studies transmissible cancer in shellfish. His interest in viruses and their role in cancer led him to initially research a potential viral cause for leukaemia that is present in shellfish. The cancer did not have a viral...
Professor Yongkang Xue – Anthropogenic Contributions To The Sahel Mega-Droughts
Geography and climatology researcher Professor Yongkang Xue at the University of California, Los Angeles, has shown for the first time, in a series of studies using multi-model efforts, that the Sahel region 30-year long droughts are partly a result of human activity...
Dr Tony Lui – Investigating Plasma Storms And Substorms In Our Near-Earth Backyard
Space physicist Dr Tony Lui has spent four decades increasing our understanding of the mechanisms behind the magnetic disturbances and interactions of space plasma surrounding our home planet. Plasma, a ubiquitous state of matter In the calm and comfort of a...
Dark Is The New Black
Eighty-four percent of the matter in the universe is made of something we cannot see, cannot detect, can only guess at based on the gravitational shadows it leaves in the visible universe. Sounds crazy? Welcome to the world of dark matter, where teams of researchers...
Professor Urs Schaltegger – Using Radioisotopes In Volcanic Crystals To Measure The Age Of The Earth
Professor Urs Schaltegger, with his colleagues in the Isotope Geochemistry Group at the University of Geneva in Switzerland, analyse isotopes of Uranium and Lead found in crystals of the mineral zircon to determine the age of geologic deposits. They use this data to...
Professor Arthur Devries – Cold As Ice: Antifreeze Proteins In Polar Fishes
Professor Arthur DeVries of the University of Illinois is the discoverer of anti-freeze proteins in polar fishes, which enable them to survive and thrive in polar environments, where they would otherwise freeze to death. This unique adaptation forms a cornerstone of...
Dr Joyce Penner – The Ice Cloud And Climate Puzzle
Figuring out how the highest clouds in the sky behave means understanding how ice forms at high altitude. This is especially true when trying to quantify the impact of human activity on their formation and how it affects climate change. To improve our understanding,...
Professor Helmut Segner – Shrinking Fish Stocks: The Effect Of Environmental Sex Hormones On Immunity
The size of fish catches from rivers has reduced to alarming levels in many countries. Professor Helmut Segner of the University of Bern in Switzerland is studying the reasons why fish stocks might be dwindling. His research focusses primarily on the effect of sex...
Dr Karen Bemis, Dr Darrell Jackson, Dr Guangyu Xu – The Last Unexplored Places On Earth
It takes a multidisciplinary approach involving physics, chemistry, biology and geology to uncover the mysteries of the least explored and understood places on Earth. A blind sighted look into the ocean depths Earth is a water world. Although oceans cover 71% of its...
The European Federation Of Geologists
Founded in 1981 in the European capital of Brussels, the European Federation of Geologists (EFG) is a nongovernmental organization that represents over 50,000 geoscientists from 25 countries. EFG’s primary aims are to work toward the safe and sustainable use of the...
Professor Gordon Taylor – Marine Microbes Shed Light On Our Changing Oceans
Climate change and anthropic interactions with the oceans are making marine habitats increasingly unsuitable for marine animal life. This is why researchers like Professor Gordon Taylor at Stony Brook University are working to understand the complex dynamics governing...
Dr James T. Potemra – Investigating What Goes On At The Bottom Of The Deep Blue Sea
Oceanographer Dr James Potemra and his colleagues at the University of Hawaii’s School of Ocean and Earth Science and Technology (SOEST) monitor one of the most remote places on Earth – the bottom of the ocean – with the ALOHA Cabled Observatory, a high tech suite of...
Dr Craig Albertson – Beyond Genetics
Dr Craig Albertson and his colleagues at the University of Massachusetts, Amherst conduct research in evolutionary developmental (evo-devo) biology. The team’s research focus is at the intersection of genes, development and evolution, using the craniofacial skeleton...
The European Geosciences Union
Founded in 2002, the European Geosciences Union (EGU) is Europe’s largest geoscience union, dedicated to the pursuit of excellence in the Earth, planetary, and space sciences for the benefit of humanity, worldwide. Based in Munich, this nonprofit international...
Professor René Laprise – Predicting Climate Change Impacts: Regional Climate Modelling Is A Critical Tool
Professor René Laprise at the Department of Earth and Atmospheric Sciences at the Université du Québec à Montréal, seeks to improve our climate modelling capabilities and our understanding of climate change through the use of Regional Climate Modelling (RCM). He is...
Professor Theodore A. Endreny – Eradicating Water Pollution Across The Globe – With Trees
Environmental engineer Professor Theodore Endreny and his colleagues at the College of Environmental Science & Forestry of the State University of New York want to improve the world by devising ways to make our waterways safe for swimming, fishing and drinking,...
Dr Pascale Champagne – Wastewater In High Latitudes
Dr Pascale Champagne and her environmental engineering group at Queen’s University are taking a close look at wastewater treatment ponds across Canada, where climate zones range from temperate to high-arctic. By investigating the role of algae and microbes in these...
Dr Bettina Sonntag – Unseen Worlds: Microscopic Lake Plankton Fuel Food Chains And Befriend Algae
Dr Bettina Sonntag investigates ciliates – microscopic organisms living in freshwater lakes. As a senior scientist at the Research Institute for Limnology in Mondsee, Austria, Dr Sonntag leads a research team exploring how these single-celled protists interact with...