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April
30, 2006
Highlights
- Ag Field Day was a great success for Marine Science on Saturday,
April 29. Many people visited our building and got some glimpses
of what's going on in the marine environment. Thank you to everyone
who was involved with organizing the event. Special thanks to
Rachel Sipler, president of the GPO Association, and all of the
graduate students who were here to help with the touch tank, video,
tee shirt sales, and everything else. Thanks to Bob Chant for
his wave tank demonstrations and to Peter Rona for showing Volcanoes
of the Deep in the Alampi Room. It was a great event for all and
particularly nice to see so many kids with all of their enthusiasm.
Hopefully, we'll see some of them again in the future. Thanks
again to all, Jim Miller (Chair, DMCS)
- Dr. Tim Killeen, the Director of the National Center for Atmospheric
Research, visited Rutgers on April 14. He spent the day visiting
with faculty, students, and administrators to get a better understanding
of Rutgers' educational and research programs in climate-related
areas. He also gave a very interesting seminar on "The Modern
Challenge of Understanding the Coupled Earth System."
- Sybil Seitzinger and Katye Altieri traveled to Tallahassee,
Florida to analyze DOM Samples on the Ultra-high resolution FT-ICR
mass spectrometer at the National High Magnetic Field Facility.
- Information Technology update for April:
- The IT group fought off a series of aggressive cyberattacks
which threatened to cripple the IMCS network. Work is ongoing
to secure our borders with zero or minimal downtime.
- IMCS IT is working with consultants to complete proposals
for a new videoconferencing system to be installed in the
IMCS 203 conference room.
- IMCS IT collaborated with Ocean Modeling and COOL groups
to finalize design on a set of new robust, scalable data storage
systems. When deployed this summer, IMCS will have an online
data storage capacity of over 23 terabytes, among the largest
at Rutgers. The group is reorganizing our server room in preparation.
- Work has begun on a network reorganization that will improve
remote performance and video application compatibility.
- Congratulations to Yair Rosenthal and Costantino Vetriani on
their promotions!
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| Yair Rosenthal,
Professor I (Geological Sciences, FAS-NB/IMCS) |
Costa Vetriani, Associate Professor
with Tenure (Biochemistry and Microbiology)
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- Rutgers University’s Coastal Ocean Observation Lab (RU
COOL) Scott Glenn, Oscar Schofield, Robert Chant, Joshua Kohut,
and Janice McDonnell received the 2006 Cook/NJAES Team Award.
Tony Broccoli received the 2006 Cook/NJAES Research Excellence
Award. These awards were presented at the annual Cook College/NJAES
Awards Dinner on April 27, 2006.
- Alan Robock has received the Board of Trustees Award for Excellence
in Research, the University's highest honor for distinguished
research contributions.This award will be presented to Alan by
President McCormick at the Awards
reception on May 4, 2006.
- Take Your Kids to Work day was celebrated on April 27 when fifteen
children of faculty and staff spent the day at IMCS. The children,
ages seven to fifteen years old, participated in an activity-filled
day that was organized by Liz Sikes, Liti Haramaty, and Sage Lichtenwalner,
with the help of Janice McDonnell and many others. The program
was exciting enough to get coverage in the Star Ledger’s
county section.
The day started with a “thought swamp” lead by
Sage Lichtenwalner. We learned what our kids think we do: In
their words, we go on cruises and pick up mud, we explore water
and algae, we have to work all day and we get tired, we get
to go to new and interesting places but sometimes our work gets
messy, and we know things nobody else knows. The kids saw a
presentation showing them the scientist’s ideas about
being a marine scientist, and were given R.U. COOL hats (courtesy
of the COOL group). They then explored the building on a scavenger
hunt making stops at the flume room, the coral reef, and the
COOL room. In mid-morning they went on an expedition to the
stream on campus and did a water assessment with Amy Groak from
DEP’s watershed ambassador program. After lunch, the kids
were divided into three groups where they got to do hands-on
science in different labs. They did modeling with Julia Levin,
they blasted belemenite fossils on the mass spec with Paul Field
and Rob Sherrell, plated glow-in-the-dark bacteria and precipitated
DNA with Lee Kerkhof and Lora McGuiness, observed and sampled
pond life with Yael Helman and Liti Haramaty and dug for fossils
with Svetlana Mizintseva. At the end of the day, they made short
presentations of what they learned during the day, and concluded:
"Our parents understand some pretty complicated stuff."
The day was a great success thanks to help of many students,
staff, and faculty: Jennifer Bosch, Josh Kohut, Courtney Kohut
(COOL room), Frank Natale (coral lab), Char Fuller (flume),
Sara Bender and Alex Kahl, Ashley Brown, Eleni Anagnostou, Michele
Lavigne, Sindia Sosdian, Steve Tuorto, and others.
Meetings Attended
- Scott Glenn, Fred Grassle, Mike Kennish, and Keith Cooper were
among the speakers at the N.J. Water Monitoring and Assessment
Technical Workshop on Integrated Monitoring to Enhance Water Resource
Management, April 20, 2006 at Rutgers EcoComplex, Columbus, N.J.
- Tony Broccoli presented two talks to student and community groups.
He gave a talk entitled "Understanding Climate Change"
to the Unitarian Universalist Congregation of Monmouth County,
Lincroft, NJ, on April 2. He also gave a talk entitled "Water
Resources in a Changing Climate" at the 2006 New Jersey Envirothon
Training Workshop, Jackson, NJ, on April 4.
- Sybil Seitzinger attended the bi-annual Board of Trustees meeting
at the Bermuda Biological Station for Research.
- Peter Rona presented an invited talk to the Rittenhouse Astronomical
Society at the Franklin Institute in Philadelphia on 20 April
on discoveries at seafloor hydrothermal vents as a key to exploration
for life in the solar system and beyond.
- Jim Ammerman was an invited participant at an EPA/NOAA meeting
entitled "Hypoxia in the Northern Gulf of Mexico: Assessing
the State of the Science," held in New Orleans on April 25-27.
He was a co-author on a presentation entitled "Causes of
Hypoxia III: Influence of Water Column Processes on Oxygen Dynamics
Including Chemical and Biological Nutrient Transformations Leading
to Hypoxia."
- Alan Robock served as session co-convenor and session chairman
at the European Geosciences Union meeting in Vienna, Austria,
April 3, 2006, for the Multi-scale soil moisture estimation session.
He also served as a judge for the Young Scientist Outstanding
Poster Paper Award.
- Onesios K.M., E.D. Rhine, L.Y. Young. 2006. Biological mobilization
of arsenic from New Jersey Shale, poster presentation Theobold
Smith Society Annual Meeting, April 20, 2006.
- Hess K., M. Tierney, L.Y. Young. 2006. Stable Isotope Probing
(SIO) of a naphthalene degrading, denitrifying enrichment culture.
Theobold Smith Society Annual Meeting, April 20, 2006.
- Alan Robock attended the University Corporation for Atmospheric
Research University Relations Committee Meeting at San Francisco
State University, April 17-19, 2006.
- Conference presentations by Alan Robock:
- Using soil moisture observations to study climate variations,
to evaluate climate models, and as ground truth for remote
sensing (Invited presentation: International Soil Moisture
Working Group Workshop, Noordwijk, Netherlands, March 28-29,
2006)
- Atmospheric volcanic loading derived from bipolar ice cores
(with C. Gao, L. Oman, and G. Stenchikov; European Geosciences
Union General Assembly, Vienna, Austria, April 3-7, 2006)
- Effects of solar dimming on soil moisture trends (with H.
Li; European Geosciences Union General Assembly, Vienna, Austria,
April 3-7, 2006)
- Invited lectures by Alan Robock:
- Brookdale Community College, Lincroft, New Jersey, March
23, 2006 (On "Global Warming")
- University of Warsaw, Poland, March 31, 2006 (On "Global
Warming")
- University of Warsaw, Poland, March 31, 2006 (On "Using
Soil Moisture Observations to Study Climate Variations, to
Evaluate Climate Models, and as Ground Truth for Remote Sensing")
New Grants
- Hernan Arango, Enrique Curchitser, and Julia Levin in Collaboration
with scientists from University of California at Santa Cruz, University
of Colorado, and Georgia Tech were selected as the ocean modeling
component of ONR's new DRI on the Lombok Strait, Indonesia. The
Lombok Strait, together with the Ombai Strait and Timor Passage,
transports a large fraction of the Indonesian Throughflow from
the Pacific into the Indian Ocean. The circulation in this area
has large amplitude variations on interseasonal, seasonal, and
interannual timescales (dominated by ENSO in the Pacific and IOZDM
in the Indian Ocean). One of our major tasks is to investigate
the impact of varional data assimilation on the simulation and
predictability of the meso- and submesoscale circulation features.
This is a five year project. The awarded amount for the first
three years is 825K. The observational component will be lead
by Arnold Gordon (LDEO).
- Mike Kennish was awarded a $25,000 grant from Ocean County College
- Barnegat Bay NEP for his project "Dataloggers: Operation,
Maintenance and Service." (1/1/06-1/8/07)
- Paul Falkowski was awarded $62,300 from The Agouron Institute
as "Equipment Funds for the Nitrogen Analysis of Agouron
Cores." (2/10/06 -2/9/07)
- Michael De Luca received $14,000 from Ocean County College,
Barnegat Bay NEP for "Phase 2 Stormwater Roundtables for
Municipalities in the Barnegat Bay Watershed." (10/1/05 -
3/30/07)
Publications
- Carlton, A.G., B. J. Turpin, H. J. Lim, K. E. Altieri*, and
S. P. Seitzinger. 2006. Link between isoprene and SOA: Pyruvic
acid oxidation yields low volatility organic acids in clouds.
Geophysical Research Letters, 33: L06822
- Callaghan, A.V., L.M. Gieg, K.G. Kropp, J.M. Suflita & L.Y.
Young. 2006. A comparison of alkane metabolism under sulfate-reducing
conditions among two isolates and a bacterial consortium. Applied
and Environmental Microbiology (in press).
- Rhine E.D., C.D. Phelps & L.Y. Young. 2006. Anaerobic arsenite
oxidation by novel denitrifying isolates. Environmental Microbiology
8:899-908.
- A feature article, "Uncharted Territory," in the
1 April issue of "Science News," reports on the Fall
2005 AGU sessions on the diversity of seafloor hydrothermal systems
convened by Peter Rona and colleagues.
- Ma, H., J.P. Grassle, and J.M. Rosario (in press). Initial recruitment
and growth of surfclams (Spisula solidissima Dillwyn)
on the continental shelf of New Jersey. Journal of Shellfish Research.
- Stenchikov, G., K. Hamilton, R.J. Stouffer, A. Robock, V. Ramaswamy,
B. Santer, and H.-F. Graf, 2006: Arctic Oscillation response to
volcanic eruptions in the IPCC AR4 climate models. J. Geophys.
Res., 111, D07107, doi:10.1029/2005JD006286.
- Wade, B. S. and Bown, P. R. 2006. Calcareous nannofossils in
extreme environments: The Messinian Salinity Crisis, Polemi Basin,
Cyprus. Palaeogeography, Palaeoclimatology, Palaeoecology, 233
(3-4): 271-286.
- Wollheim, W. M., C. J. Vorosmarty, B. J. Peterson, S. P. Seitzinger,
and C. S. Hopkinson. 2006. Relationship between river size and
nutrient removal. Geophysical Research Letters 33: L06410.
Student News
- Onesios, Kathryn M., George H. Cook Honors Thesis, Biological
Mobilization of Arsenic from New Jersey Shale.
- Hess, Kelly, George H. Cook Honors Thesis, Stable Isotope Probing
(SIP) of a Naphthalene Degrading, Denitrifying Enrichment Culture.
- Amy Rowe successfully defended her dissertation on March 17th.
Let's Welcome
Eric Andrianasolo, "I’m from Madagascar and did my graduate
study at Oregon State University. I join Rutgers University as a
Postdoctoral fellow. My research focus is on the isolation of bioactive
natural products from marine organisms. I enjoy traveling with my
wife and my little daughter Joy." (Ext. 337, Room 305D but
most of the time in the chemistry department room 394 on Busch Campus). |
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