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April 30, 2007

Highlights

Congratulations to five of our faculty who were promoted this year! John Wilkin has been promoted to Associate Professor with tenure. Ximing Guo, Oscar Schofield, and Gary Taghon were promoted to Professor I and Jennifer Francis was promoted to Research Professor I (pictured here l to r).

• Congratulations to Costantino Vetriani and John Reinfelder! Costa and John were among the winners honored at the 2007 Celebration of Excellence Awards dinner on Thursday, April 26th at the Cook Campus Center. Costa was the recipient of a Research Excellence Award and John was awarded the Outstanding Undergraduate Advisor Award.
• Josephine Kozic, our volunteer coordinator at the Jacques Cousteau National Estuarine Research Reserve (JCNERR) in Tuckerton, is among the ten people selected nationwide by the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration as Environmental Heroes for 2007. On April 20th, Josephine attended an awards luncheon held at the National Press Club in Washington DC, where she received a plaque and had her picture taken with Vice Admiral Conrad C. Lautenbacher, the Undersecretary of Commerce for Oceans and Atmosphere and NOAA administrator. (Click here to read more.)
• Ag Field Day was a great success on Saturday, April 28. The marine science activities for kids and adults were excellent. Special thanks to the GPO Graduate Student Association (about 15 graduate students helped with the activities), to Janice McDonnell, Scott Glenn and Corinne DaLelio and the students in their Communicating Ocean Science class for their varied and interesting educational activities, to Bob Chant for his wave tank demonstrations, and to Peter Rona for presenting the Volcanoes of the Deep. The day went very well and attracted a large contingent of parents and kids. Thanks again to all of those involved in making it a great day. Click here to browse through the many activities exhibited during Ag Field Day at IMCS, photo album courtesy of Corinne DaLelio.
• Tony Broccoli gave the following presentations:
• "Climate Change: Causes and Consequences" at Preconference Workshop of the New Jersey Chapter of the American Water Works Association, Atlantic City, NJ, March 2007.
• "The Climate Ahead: Global Changes and Local Impacts" in the Rutgers Trenton Public Policy Seminar Series, State House Annex, Trenton, NJ, March 2007.
• "Greenhouse Gases and Climate Change: Global Changes and Local Impacts," New Jersey Clean Air Council, Trenton, NJ, April 2007.
• Ken Able has been invited to give the plenary address, titled “Habitats of estuarine-dependent fishes: insights from acoustic telemetry” at the Atlantic Canada Coastal and Estuarine Science Society (ACCESS) Conference to be held at Cape Breton University, Nova Scotia, in May 2007 and will give a similar address at the University of Delaware in May 2007. A similar topic was addressed at invited seminars at both North Carolina State University and the NOAA Laboratory in Beaufort, North Carolina in March 2007.
• Tony Broccoli gave invited testimony on climate change to the New Jersey Senate Environment Committee, Trenton, NJ, April 2007. This testimony was the subject of newspaper articles in the Home News Tribune (New Brunswick,
  NJ) and the Gloucester County Times (Woodbury, NJ). He also gave a presentation on climate change research to the Rutgers University Board of Trustees Advisory Committee, March 2007.
• Tony Broccoli participated in a discussion session following the showing of "An Inconvenient Truth" sponsored by the Cook College Programs and Activities Council at the Cook Campus Center, April 2007.
• Alan Robock gave an invited presentation on The Science of Global Warming, at the United Nations Global Compact U.S. Network Meeting: "Managing Climate Change," United Nations Headquarters, New York, April 3, 2007.
• Michael Gochfeld served as guest editor of the recent issue of ENVIRONMENTAL RESEARCH (appearing April 2007) on GENDER IN TOXICOLOGY AND RISK ASSESSMENT.
• Peter Rona presented, Exploration of Frozen Fire and Volcanoes of the Deep Sea, showing Middle and High School teachers exciting new discoveries of gas hydrates on continental margins and hydrothermal systems on ocean ridges at a NOAA Office of Ocean Exploration Learning Science through Ocean Exploration professional development workshop at the New England Aquarium in Boston on March 12th.

Meetings Attended

• Fred Grassle spoke on the Ocean Biogeographic Information System and the Census of Marine Life at the World Conservation Union Summit on Marine Protected Areas in Washington, April 10-12. He also attended the launching of the "Encyclopedia of Life" at the National Academy of Sciences on May 9 in Washington, D.C. Jonathan F. Fanton,
  President of the John D. and Catherine T. MacArthur Foundation, announced that "The Encyclopedia of Life will be a vital tool for scientists, researchers, and educators across the globe, providing easy access to the latest and best information on all known species."
• Costa Vetriani attended the RIDGE 2000 Spring Steering Committee Meeting on April 23-24 in Austin, Texas.
• Costa Vetriani, Sara Borin, Melitza Crespo-Medina and Ileana Perez attended the American Museum of Natural History Spring Symposium "Small Matters: Microbes and Their Role in Conservation" on April 26-27, in New York City.
• Alan Robock attended the UCAR University Relations Committee Meeting, Monterey, California, April 9-11, 2007. It was voted at the meeting to change the name of the committee to the more accurate "UCAR President's Advisory Committee."

New Grants

• Dunk, R. Public Service Electric and Gas Co., "Rutgers Advanced Meteorological Monitoring and Forecast System in Support of PSE&G Energy Efficiency." 1/1/07-12/31/07, ($24,947)
• Falkowski, P. University of Vigo, Spain, "Marie Curie Outgoing Fellowship Research Support (Pedro Cedano)." 4/1/07-3/31/09, ($26,943)
• Rosenthal, Y. National Science Foundation, "Collaborative Research: Reconstructing Holocene Climate Variability and the Indonesian Throughflow in the Western Equatorial Pacific (RUE supplement)." 4/24/07-6/30/08, ($7,750)
• Schofield, O., and Glenn, S. M. Joint Oceanographic Institutions and National Science Foundation 2007-2011 “Network for ocean research, interaction, and application – NORIA” ($389,998)
• Schofield O. and Glenn S. awarded “Network for ocean research, interaction, and application.” This is the award for implementing the organization for the National Science Foundation ORION program’s national cyberinfrastructure backbone. This is the consortium of Scripps, JPL, MBARI, MIT, NCSU, NCSA, U. Chicago, USC, WHOI, and Rutgers. Shoffield and Glenn are the project scientists for this effort that will be conducted from 2007-2013. ($450,000)
• Shoffield, O., Glenn, S. 2007. Department of Defense- Office of Naval Research “Characterizing storm impacts on near shore nepheloid layers using optical Slocum gliders” ($25,000)

Publications

• Ildefonse, B., P.A. Rona, and D. Blackman. 2007. Drilling the crust at mid-ocean Ridges, Oceanography, 20(1), 66-77.
• Li, H., A. Robock, and M. Wild, 2007: Evaluation of Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change Fourth Assessment soil moisture simulations for the second half of the twentieth century. J. Geophys. Res., 112, D06106, doi:10.1029/2006JD007455.
• Oliver, M., D. Petrov, D. Ackerley, P.G. Falkowski, O. Schofield. (2007). The mode and tempo of genome size evolution in eukaryotes. Journal of Genome Research. doi/10.1101/gr.6096207.
• Qin, Y., X. Liu, H. Zhang, G. Zhang and X. Guo. 2007. Identification and mapping of AFLP markers linked to shell color in bay scallop, Argopecten irradians (Lamarck, 1819). Marine Biotechnology, 9:66-73.
• Rhine E.D., S.M. Ni Chadhain, G.J. Zylstra & L.Y. Young 2007. The arsenite oxidase genes (aroAB) in novel chemoautotrophic arsenite oxidizers. Biochem Biophys Res Comm. doi:10.1016/j.bbrc.2007.01.004
• Robock, A., L. Oman, and G.L. Stenchikov, 2007: Nuclear winter revisited with a modern climate model and current nuclear arsenals: Still catastrophic consequences. J. Geophys. Res., doi:10.1029/2006JD008235, in press.
• Robock, A., and H.-F. Yin, 2006: Environmental impact of continental volcanism. IAVCEI News, No. 2, 10.
• Schofield, O., J. Kohut, D. Aragon, L. Creed, C. Haldeman, J. Kerfoot, H. Roarty, C. Jones, D. Webb, S.M. Glenn. (2007). Slocum Gliders: Robust and ready. Journal of Field Robotics. 24(6): 1-14. DOI: 10:1009/rob.20200
• Wang, L., L. Song, H. Zhang, Q. Gao and X. Guo. 2007. Genetic linkage map of bay scallop, Argopecten irradians irradians (Lamarck 1819). Aquaculture Research 38 (4):409-419.

Student News

Congratulations to Benjamin Tully, winner of the 2007 Marine and Coastal Sciences Outstanding Senior Award. In the fall, Ben will be starting graduate school at the University of Southern California. He is pictured here with his advisor, Kay Bidle and Chair, Jim Miller.

Take your kids to work day!
Did you know? “Scientists are famous and they make a lot of money. They dig in mud, play on the computer and go places. Sometimes they get chemicals on their hands and feet and they are very tired at the end of the day.” These are just some of the impressions our kids have about what we do. We were told all these things during a “thought swap,” lead by Sage Lichtenwalner, which started the second Take Our Kids to Work Day at IMCS. Take Our Kids to Work Day is a nationwide annual event that occurs on the last Thursday of April. Twenty six kids, ages 5-13 divided to five groups, went on a scavenger hunt that took them on a tour of many different labs in the building. They were rewarded for finding all the stations on the hunt, and getting a stamp to prove it, with an IMCS T-shirt that they could all sign and decorate. After the tour, they began a series of activities in individual labs. Lunch was pizza with time to play on the wave in the front of the building. After lunch the lab activities were supplemented with special activities the COSIA students set up in the lobby where the kids got to touch crabs and sea stars, learned about pollution, the deep sea and more. Activities in labs included water analysis on the mass spec with Christine Theodore, DNA and bacteria workshop with Lee Kerkhof and Lora McGuinness, a fossil hunt with Svetlana Mizintseva (from Geology), computer work in the modeling room with Julia Levin, and learning about forams with grad students Kate Jordon and Sindia Sosdian in Yair Rosenthal’s lab. At the end of the day each of the groups drew pictures of what they did or made a poster and then everyone got together at the Alampi for cookies, presentations and questions. After presenting their work each of the students got a COOL hat, making them an official Rutgers oceanographer. It was a great day for all, made possible and by the efforts of many in the department. In particular, there was superb coordination by Carrie Fraser and Sindia Sosdian in organizing all the graduate students who helped with escorting the kids, prepared and lead lab activities and answered questions during the scavenger hunt. The overall framework for the day was developed by Janice McDonnell and implemented by Sage. Liti Haramaty was the driving force and Liz Sikes coordinated the day, but it couldn't have been done it without participation from all in the department.