Nautilus and Allonautilus cephalopods and their extinct ancestors have been drifting through of the ocean for more than 500 million years. Researchers have spent the last 40 years trying to understand how these mysterious “living fossils” thrive in areas with limited nutrients. published in Scientific Reports, a UW-led team documented new habits and habitats for current Nautilus and Allonautilus species. These creatures appear to live in deeper water than their extinct cousins did, and the younger ones live twice as deep as the fully mature adults. Nautilus and Allonautilus species scavenge their food and never stop moving. While a few species migrate hundreds of meters down at dawn and then back up at dusk every day, the team found that most species aren’t quite as intrepid. The researchers also describe a new population of Allonautilus in waters off the island , one of several populations thriving due to hunting restrictions inspired in part by research efforts from this team.

For more information, contact senior author , 91探花professor of both biology and Earth and space sciences, at argo@uw.edu.

Other 91探花co-authors are , and . A full list of co-authors and funding is included

Green clay tennis courts become carbon negative after 10 years

The United States has around a quarter of a million tennis courts, 40,000 of which are helping mitigate greenhouse gas emissions. Green clay tennis courts, an alternative to traditional hard courts and the red clay courts popular in Europe, are constructed with a type of rock that reacts with carbon dioxide and water to sequester carbon as a stable dissolved salt. In , 91探花researchers show that in the U.S., green clay courts remove 25,000 metric tons of carbon dioxide from the atmosphere each year and 80% of green clay courts make up for construction emissions within 10 years. Moving forward, the researchers hope to experiment with other materials that also remove carbon dioxide without compromising performance for players.

For more information contact lead author , 91探花assistant professor of oceanography, at fjpavia@uw.edu.

A full list of co-authors and funding is available .

Temperature dynamics, not just extremes, impact heat tolerance in mussels

Intertidal mussels, forming bumpy layers on shoreline rocks, withstand significant temperature swings as the tide ebbs and flows. These creatures live in one of the most thermally variable environments on Earth, but a new study shows that the rate, timing and duration of heating and cooling impact their metabolic rate, a proxy for overall health. At the UW鈥檚 , researchers exposed mussels to temperature regimens with equal highs and lows but different patterns of change. Even when the average temperature for a set period was the same, the mussels鈥� response was distinct. These results, , show that predicting how marine organisms respond to climate change means considering how temperature changes over time, not just how warm it gets.

For more information, contact lead author , assistant professor of biology at the College of the Holy Cross and a mentor for the 91探花Friday Harbor Laboratories , at mnishizaki@holycross.edu.

The other 91探花co-author is . A full list of co-authors and funding is available .

When algae stop growing, bacteria start swarming

Tiny geometric algae, called , produce nearly a quarter of the world鈥檚 organic matter by photosynthesis. In the microscopic marine universe, diatoms coexist with both harmful and helpful bacteria. A new study, , describes how a recently identified species of marine bacteria targets diatoms based on growth phase and nutrient availability. Growing diatoms can resist bacterial attacks, but when growth ceases, the bacteria modulate their gene expression patterns to become aggressive 鈥� first swimming and releasing compounds that damage the diatom and then clustering around them to feed. Bacteria can also overcome the diatom鈥檚 defenses in nutrient-rich environments. These findings highlight the dynamic relationship between bacteria and algae in the lab. Moving forward, researchers will explore what, if anything, changes in a more complex environment.

For more information, contact lead author , 91探花postdoctoral fellow in oceanography, at dawiener5@gmail.com.

Other 91探花co-authors are and . A full list of co-authors and funding is available .

Five 91探花 faculty members have been awarded early-career fellowships from the Alfred P. Sloan Foundation. The new Sloan Fellows, announced Feb. 17, are , an assistant professor of physics, , an assistant professor of chemistry, and , an assistant professor of biology, all in the College of Arts & Sciences; , an assistant professor of computer science in the College of Engineering; and , an assistant professor of oceanography in the College of the Environment.听

Since the first Sloan Research Fellowships were awarded in 1955, and including this year鈥檚 fellows, 136 faculty from 91探花 have received a Sloan Research Fellowship, according to the Sloan Foundation.听

Sloan Fellowships are open to scholars in seven scientific and technical fields 鈥� chemistry, computer science, Earth system science, economics, mathematics, neuroscience and physics 鈥� and honor early-career researchers whose achievements mark them among the next generation of scientific leaders.听

The 126鈥疭loan Fellows for 2026鈥痺ere selected by researchers and faculty in the scientific community. Candidates are nominated by their peers, and fellows are selected by independent panels of senior scholars based on each candidate鈥檚 research accomplishments, creativity and potential to become a leader in their field. Each fellow will receive $75,000 to apply toward research endeavors.听

This year鈥檚 fellows come from 44 institutions across the United States and Canada.听

Maria 鈥淢asha鈥� Baryakhtar

叠补谤测补办丑迟补谤鈥檚 research in the Department of Physics focuses on theories beyond the established Standard Model of particle physics and on creating new ideas and directions for testing these theories. Such theories address outstanding puzzles in our existing understanding and often predict new, ultralight, feebly interacting particles beyond those we have discovered so far. The existence of these particles can be tested through exquisitely precise experiments in the lab or by observing extreme objects in the sky like black holes and neutron stars.

鈥淢y research program aims to search high and low for new, as yet hidden particles and forces. Because of their nature, these particles require a range of creative search strategies. The directions I am establishing use new technologies and data from the sky to the lab and may be the only way to shed light on the truly dark elements of our universe.鈥�

Matthew R. Golder

骋辞濒诲别谤鈥檚 research in the Department of Chemistry addresses the omnipresent “plastics problems” from two different vantage points. First, the team thinks about new ways to prolong the useful lifetime of commodity materials. The researchers use molecular engineering to keep plastics in use longer before discarding. The Golder Research Group also develops new methods to make and repurpose plastics, with an emphasis on green chemistry and making plastics more recyclable.

“Plastics are paramount to daily life, so there are numerous opportunities to improve performance and mitigate waste. We operate at the interface of fundamental organic chemistry and applied materials science to enhance plastic integrity and sustainability. By doing so, my students really take this mission to heart and constantly dream up new ways to creatively (re)design commodity plastic materials.”听

Vikram Iyer

滨测别谤鈥檚 research in the Paul G. Allen School of Computer Science & Engineering seeks to address sustainability challenges across the full computing stack from creating recyclable polymers to reimagining the way we build computing hardware by designing AI systems to and . In particular, the group鈥檚 work goes beyond simply reducing energy consumption to quantify and tackle the environmental impacts of materials and manufacturing.听

鈥�My group both leverages innovations from outside of computing like chemistry and material science to drive sustainability and applies computing techniques from AI to programming languages to fundamentally advance environmental sciences. This work is highly interdisciplinary and takes some extra effort at the beginning for each of us to understand the technologies and methods developed by our collaborators. By doing this, we can come up with completely new ideas that have real world impact like enabling carbon reduction at major companies like Amazon, and creating systems like battery-free robots that push the boundaries of technology.鈥�

Willem Laursen

尝补耻谤蝉别苍鈥檚 research in the Department of Biology is focused on understanding how animals detect and respond to sensory cues in their environment. Using genetic manipulation, neurophysiology and behavioral analyses, the lab’s current focus is to understand how disease vector mosquitoes use sensory cues to locate hosts, mates and egg-laying sites.

“It is an honor to be selected as a Sloan Fellow. This award will support our lab鈥檚 research on the role of the mosquito gustatory, or taste, system in critical behaviors, such as blood feeding. While mosquitoes use all of their senses to efficiently locate hosts, their taste system is surprisingly understudied. By examining the gustatory systems of blood-feeding insects, we hope to better understand how taste cues on the skin and in the blood are detected and used to guide their specialized behaviors, lines of inquiry that could ultimately identify new targets for controlling the spread of disease.”

Frankie Pavia

笔补惫颈补鈥檚 research in the School of Oceanography develops and applies new isotopic techniques to study feedbacks in the Earth system. His work spans the oceanic, atmospheric, lithospheric, and human domains, on timescales ranging from minutes to millennia.

鈥淭he oceans are a repository and reactor for materials originating on land, in the atmosphere, in Earth鈥檚 interior and from outer space. Chemical fingerprints of oceanic interactions with these reservoirs can be unlocked using unique analytical chemistry techniques, especially those involving the precise measurement of isotope ratios. My current research aims to discover new interactions between the oceans and the Earth system in the past, present and future, by pioneering interdisciplinary studies that use measurements of stable and radioactive isotopes to determine how much and how fast the Earth system changes. Current projects involve using cosmic dust to reconstruct sea-ice coverage, sensitively detecting human-derived carbon in the oceans, and understanding the past and future impacts of oceanic calcium carbonate dissolution on storage of atmospheric carbon dioxide.鈥澨�

Contact Baryakhtar at mbaryakh@uw.edu, Golder at goldermr@uw.edu, Iyer at vsiyer@cs.washington.edu, Laursen at wlaursen@uw.edu, and Pavia at fjpavia@uw.edu.

The waters bordering North America could soon be inhospitable to critical marine creatures if the Northeastern Pacific Ocean continues to acidify at the current rate, a new study shows.

Earth鈥檚 oceans have become since the industrial revolution began more than 200 years ago. Acidification changes marine chemistry and that calcifying organisms, such as corals and clams, need to build their skeletons and shells. The Northeastern Pacific is naturally more acidic than other oceans, fueling debate about how much its chemistry will change in the coming decades.

The study, , shows that high baseline acidity makes the water more sensitive to additional carbon dioxide from human activities. Analyses of coral skeletons from the past century revealed that CO2 has been accumulating in North American waters faster than in the atmosphere, driving rapid acidification.

鈥淭his fits into a class of really important records that show how the world has changed over the human era,鈥� said senior author a 91探花 associate professor of oceanography.

鈥淭he findings implicate not only marine ecosystems, but all of the people who depend on them as well,鈥� added lead author , a 91探花doctoral student of oceanography.

The ocean becomes more acidified when carbon dioxide dissolves to form an acid that releases hydrogen and bicarbonate ions, lowering the water鈥檚 pH level. In North America, a powerful current system 鈥� the California Current 鈥� transports cool water south along the coast. The combination of current flow and wind creates optimal conditions for upwelling, a process that cycles deep water to the surface.

Organic matter 鈥� dead plants and animals 鈥� sinks to the bottom of the ocean, where it decomposes and releases carbon dioxide back into the water. Upwelling surfaces this CO2 rich water, increasing the acidity of subsurface and surface zones. These natural fluctuations complicate researchers’ efforts to predict how much acidification will occur from human activities.

This study helps resolve these questions with records kept by centuries old corals.

Coral incorporates elements and minerals from seawater as it grows, leaving behind a valuable record of environmental conditions in its skeleton. The Pacific Ocean is home to a small vibrant species called orange cup corals. Gagnon鈥檚 lab was already studying orange cup corals when the researchers became interested in historic samples.

In 2020, the researchers began collecting samples鈥� first from the Smithsonian Museum, and then from labs and museums all over the U.S. and Canada. They procured a total of 54 samples collected between 1888 and 1932 from the , the body of water connecting Washington state and Canada, and North American coastal waters.

Using handwritten records in logbooks, the researchers then navigated back to the original collection sites. They took orange cup corals from the same spots, sometimes more than a century later.

To plot CO2 and acidity over time, the researchers analyzed boron levels in the coral skeletons. In seawater, boron exists in several chemical forms that vary with acidity. Corals incorporate one of these forms into their skeletons as they grow, so the boron ratio in coral skeletons reflects the acidity of the seawater in which they formed.

Between 1888 and 2020, coral skeletons indicate that CO2 in seawater increased at a rate that outpaced the addition of greenhouse gases to the atmosphere. The magnitude of acidification was also higher 100 to 200 meters below the surface, even though ocean acidification is typically characterized as a surface process.

鈥淣o one has acidity measurements older than a few decades,鈥� Gagnon said. 鈥淲e had to go back in time and do some detective work to pull some kind of chemical signal out of the world and show this unfortunate amplification effect.鈥�

The amplification effect will likely strengthen as atmospheric CO2 levels continue to climb. In the study, the researchers modeled worst case scenarios to see what could happen to species if acidification continues unchecked.

鈥淭he changes in ocean chemistry were really dramatic,鈥� Stoll said. 鈥淭he Salish Sea is a region with a lot of cultural, commercial and recreational ties to marine organisms that are all rooted in the health of these ecosystems.鈥�

Despite the tenor of their results, the researchers say there is still time to course correct.

鈥淭his is no time for nihilism. The ocean is not destroyed,鈥� Gagnon said. 鈥淎s very large emitters per capita, we have the power to change our emissions and influence outcomes for the oceans.鈥�

Studying regions where ocean acidification is happening faster than elsewhere can also provide key insights and warning signs.

鈥淭his is a uniquely important area to study,鈥� Stoll said. 鈥淚t is at the leading edge of ocean acidification impacts and provides a window into conditions predicted for the rest of the ocean in the coming decades.鈥�

For more information, contact Stoll at mmstoll@uw.edu or Gagnon at gagnon@uw.edu

Co-authors include at Princeton; and at the University of St. Andrews; and at NOAA鈥檚 Pacific Marine Environmental Laboratory and at St. Olaf College.

This study was funded by the Washington Ocean Acidification Center, the 91探花 Program on Climate Change, the Northwest Straits Foundation Caroline Gibson Scholarship, the National Science Foundation, the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration, and the Gordon and Betty Moore Foundation, the Leverhulme Trust Early Career Fellowship, and a European Research Council Horizon 2020 research and innovation program grant.

Arctic sea ice has , when regular satellite monitoring began. As the ice grows thinner and recedes, more water is exposed to sunlight. Ice reflects sunlight but dark water absorbs it, advancing warming and accelerating ice loss. Climate models indicate that the Arctic will within the coming decades, and scientists still aren鈥檛 sure what this will mean for life on Earth.

Researchers have known for some time that fine-grained dust from space blankets the surface of Earth, falling from the cosmos at a constant rate and settling into ocean sediments. A study shows that tracking where cosmic dust has fallen 鈥� and where it hasn鈥檛 鈥� can reveal how sea ice coverage has changed over millennia.

鈥泪蹿 we can project the timing and spatial patterns of ice coverage decline in the future, it will help us understand warming, predict changes to food webs and fishing, and prepare for geopolitical shifts,鈥� said , a 91探花assistant professor of oceanography, who led the study.

Cosmic dust swirls through space after stars explode and comets collide. Passing the sun, cosmic dust is implanted with a rare form of helium 鈥斕齢elium-3. Scientists measure helium-3 to distinguish cosmic dust from earthly debris.

鈥淚t鈥檚 like looking for a needle in a haystack,鈥� Pavia said. 鈥淵ou鈥檝e got this small amount of cosmic dust raining down everywhere, but you鈥檝e also got Earth sediments accumulating pretty fast.鈥�

In this study, Pavia was more interested in the absence of cosmic dust.

鈥淒uring the last ice age, there was almost no cosmic dust in the Arctic sediments,鈥� he said.

The researchers hypothesized that cosmic dust could stand as a proxy for ice before there were satellites to monitor changes in coverage. Ice at the sea surface blocks cosmic dust from reaching the seafloor, while open water allows cosmic dust to settle into sediment. By analyzing the amount of cosmic dust in sediment cores from three sites, researchers reconstructed the history of sea ice for the past 30,000 years.

The three sites featured in the study 鈥渟pan a gradient of modern ice coverage,鈥� Pavia said. The first, located near the North Pole, is covered year-round. The second borders the edge of the ice during its annual low in September, and the third was ice-bound in 1980 but is now seasonally ice-free.

The researchers found that year-round ice coverage corresponded with less cosmic dust in the sediment. This was also observed during the last ice age, around 20,000 years ago. As Earth began to thaw, cosmic dust once again appeared in samples.

The researchers then matched ice coverage to nutrient availability, showing that nutrient consumption peaked when sea ice was low and decreased as ice built up.

The data on nutrient cycling comes from tiny shells once occupied by nitrogen digesters called . Chemical analysis of these organisms鈥� shells shows what percentage of the total available nutrients were consumed when they were alive.

鈥淎s ice decreases in the future, we expect to see increased consumption of nutrients by phytoplankton in the Arctic, which has consequences for the food web,鈥� Pavia said.

Additional research is needed to show what is driving changes in nutrient availability. One hypothesis suggests that sea ice decline increases the amount of nutrients used by surface organisms because there is more photosynthesis, but another argues that nutrients are diluted by ice melting.

Both scenarios present as more consumption, but only the first indicates an increase in marine productivity.

Additional co-authors include at the University of Massachusetts Boston; and at the United States Geological Survey; and and at Caltech.

This study was funded by the National Science Foundation and a Foster and Coco Stanback Postdoctoral Fellowship.

For more information, contact Pavia at fjpavia@uw.edu

Most of the Earth鈥檚 fresh water is locked in the ice that covers Antarctica. As the ocean and atmosphere grow warmer, that ice is with sea levels and global currents changing in response. To understand the potential implications, researchers need to know just how fast the ice is disappearing, and what is driving it back.

The West Antarctic ice sheet, an unstable expanse bordering the Amundsen Sea, is one of the greatest sources of uncertainty in climate projections. Records indicate that it has been steadily shrinking since the 1940s, but key details are missing. Using environmental data gathered from ice samples, tree rings and corals, 91探花 researchers tailored a climate model to Antarctica and ran simulations to understand how changing weather patterns dictate ice melt.

The results, , were surprising. For years, researchers have hypothesized that westerly winds were ferrying warm water toward the ice sheet, accelerating ice melt. The new study flips the existing narrative on its head, or rather on its side, pointing toward winds from the north instead.

鈥淲e know the Earth is warming up on average, but that alone doesn鈥檛 explain ice loss in Antarctica,鈥� said , a 91探花professor of Earth and space sciences. 鈥淭o understand what鈥檚 going to happen in the future, we need to understand the details of what鈥檚 happening now, and critically, whether we are connected to it.鈥�

The Antarctic ice sheet covers an area larger than the U.S. and Mexico combined. If the Western-Hemisphere portion were to melt, global sea levels would rise by . The ice sheet is locked in place by ice shelves, fingers of ice that stretch into the sea. Free floating sea ice blankets the surface of the surrounding waters.

To study weather in Antarctica, where there are fewer weather stations than most of the world, scientists use computer simulations that draw from available data sources. Still, these models often lack data that is specific to the region, limiting the accuracy of their outputs.

In the past century, westerly winds blowing over high latitudes of the Southern Hemisphere have grown stronger in response to human-induced climate change. Indirect evidence also suggested that this trend was driving West Antarctic ice loss. But when the researchers dug into that theory, something didn鈥檛 add up.

鈥淲e thought that we were going to support what the climate models showed, which was that the westerly winds were getting stronger near the coast of Antarctica,” said , lead author and a 91探花postdoctoral researcher of oceanography. 鈥淏ut there was no evidence of westerly winds strengthening in this part of Antarctica.鈥�

O鈥機onnor鈥檚 doctoral research explored how proxy data 鈥� historical records from ice cores, trees and coral 鈥� can reveal past weather patterns, including wind. Her work showed that the force needed to explain accelerating melt rates was still missing from the equation.

In the new study, researchers conducted a suite of high-resolution ice-ocean simulations to identify what climate patterns were driving ice shelf melting in this critical region of Antarctica. They fed the model a wind pattern for five years at a time, measured how much mass the ice lost, and repeated the process 29 times. Each iteration represented a different wind pattern. Data from the 30 simulations showed that northerly winds consistently exacerbated ice loss. Westerlies did not have the same effect.

The northerly winds, which blow with force in Antarctica, were rearranging the sea ice surrounding Antarctica, capping off small but important gaps called polynyas.

鈥淪ea ice is a really good insulator, it keeps the ocean relatively warm compared to the air,鈥� said a 91探花professor of oceanography and of atmospheric and climate science. 鈥淲hen northerly winds close the polynyas, it reduces ocean heat loss, which means warmer waters and more melting of ice shelves below the surface.鈥�

Polynyas are like pores on the icy surface of the ocean. When they are blocked, excess heat can鈥檛 escape. As the ice shelf melts, fresh water mingles with salty ocean water. A density gradient forms between the fresher, lighter water and the open ocean. This gradient powers a current that pulls in more warm ocean water from miles away, advancing ice shelf melt.

Researchers believe greenhouse gas emissions could be fueling the northerly winds. Early studies suggest that human-induced climate change is decreasing air pressure over the Amundsen Sea. This area hosts an influential low-pressure center that drives many of the Antarctic weather patterns. As it gets even lower, wind speed from the north increases.

鈥淭his mechanism provides a connection between West Antarctic ice loss and human-induced climate change, albeit a different mechanism than we previously suspected,鈥� O鈥機onnor said. Which is important, the researchers added, because if emissions are contributing to ice loss, perhaps cutting them could curtail it.

鈥淚 think what Gemma has done is going to lead to a complete revolution in the understanding of what drives Antarctic ice loss,鈥� Armour said. 鈥淲e had all sorts of theories about the winds that blow from west to east, but the northerly winds weren鈥檛 even on our radar. We were off by 90 degrees.鈥�

Other authors include , a 91探花professor of oceanography; , a 91探花research scientist of Earth and space sciences; , an assistant professor of engineering at Dartmouth College; Shuntaro Hyogo, a graduate researcher of environmental science at Hokkaido University; and Taketo Shimada, a graduate researcher of environmental science at Hokkaido University

This research was funded by the Washington Research Foundation, the 91探花 eScience Institute, the U.S. National Science Foundation, a Calvin professorship in oceanography, the Japanese Ministry of Education, Culture, Sports, Science, and Technology, Inoue Science Foundation, NASA Sea Level Change Team, the John Simon Guggenheim Memorial Foundation and JST SPRING.

For more information, contact Gemma O鈥機onnor at goconnor@uw.edu.

Among the tiniest living things in the ocean are a group of single celled microbes called Prochlorococcus. They are cyanobacteria, also known as blue-green algae, and they supply nutrients for animals all the way up the food chain. Over 75% of surface waters teem with Prochlorococcus, but as ocean temperatures rise, researchers fear that the water might be getting too warm to support the population.

Prochlorococcus is in the ocean, accounting for 5% of global photosynthesis. Because Prochlorococcus thrive in the tropics, researchers predicted that they would adapt well to global warming. Instead, a new study finds that Prochlorococcus prefers water between 66 and 86 degrees and doesn鈥檛 tolerate it much warmer. Climate models predict that subtropical and tropical ocean temperatures will exceed that threshold in the next 75 years.

鈥淔or a long time, scientists thought Prochlorococcus was going to do great in the future, but in the warmest regions, they aren鈥檛 doing that well, which means that there is going to be less carbon 鈥� less food 鈥� for the rest of the marine food web,鈥� said , a 91探花 research associate professor of oceanography, who led the study.

in Nature Microbiology on Sept. 8.

In the past 10 years, Ribalet and colleagues have embarked on close to 100 research cruises to study Prochlorococcus. His team has analyzed approximately 800 billion Prochlorococcus-sized cells across 150,000 miles to figure out how they are doing and whether they can adapt.

鈥淚 had really basic questions,鈥� Ribalet said. 鈥淎re they happy when it’s warm? Or are they not happy when it’s warm?鈥� Most of the data comes from cells grown in culture, in a lab setting, but Ribalet wanted to observe them in their natural habitat. Using a continuous flow cytometer 鈥� called 鈥� they fired a laser through the water to measure cell type and size. They then built a statistical model to monitor cell growth in real time, without disturbing the microbes.

Results showed that the rate of cell division varies with latitude, possibly due to the amount of nutrients available, sunlight or temperature. The researchers ruled out nutrient levels and sunlight before zeroing in on temperature. Prochlorococcus multiply most efficiently in water that is between 66 and 84 degrees, but above 86, rates of cell division plummeted, falling to just one-third of the rate observed at 66 degrees. Cell abundance followed the same trend.

In the ocean, mixing transports nutrients to the surface from the deep. This occurs more slowly in warm water, and surface waters in the warmest regions of the ocean are nutrient-scarce. Cyanobacteria are one of the few microbes that have adapted to live in these conditions.

鈥淥ffshore in the tropics, the water is this bright beautiful blue because there鈥檚 very little in it, aside from Prochlorococcus,鈥� Ribalet said. The microbes can survive in these areas because they require very little food, being so small. Their activity supports most of the marine food chain, from small aquatic herbivores to whales.

Over millions of years, Prochlorococcus has perfected the ability to do more with less, shedding genes it didn鈥檛 need and keeping only what was essential for life in nutrient-poor tropical waters. This strategy paid off spectacularly, but now, with oceans warming faster than ever before, Prochlorococcus is constrained by its genome. It can鈥檛 retrieve stress response genes discarded long ago.

鈥淭heir burnout temperature is much lower than we thought it was,鈥� Ribalet said. Previous models assumed that the cells would divide at a rate that they can鈥檛 sustain because they now lack the cellular machinery to cope with heat stress.

Prochlorococcus is one of two cyanobacteria that dominate tropical and subtropical waters. The other, Synechococcus, is larger, with a less streamlined genome. The researchers found that although Synechococcus can tolerate warmer water, it needs more nutrients to survive. Should Prochlorococcus numbers dwindle, Synechococcus could help fill the gap, but it isn鈥檛 clear how this would impact the food chain.

鈥泪蹿 Synechococcus takes over, it鈥檚 not a given that other organisms will be able to interact with it the same way they have interacted with Prochlorococcus for millions of years,鈥� Ribalet said.

Climate projections estimate ocean temperatures based on greenhouse gas emission trends. In this study, the researchers tested how Prochlorococcus might fare in moderate- and high-warming scenarios. In the tropics, modest warming could reduce Prochlorococcus productivity by 17%, but more advanced warming would decimate it by 51%. Globally, the moderate scenario produced a 10% decline while warmer forecasts reduced Prochlorococcus by 37%.

鈥淭heir geographic range is going to expand toward the poles, to the north and south,鈥� Ribalet said. 鈥淭hey are not going to disappear, but their habitat will shift.鈥� That shift, he added, could have dramatic implications for subtropical and tropical ecosystems.

Still, the researchers acknowledge the limitations of their study. They couldn鈥檛 examine every cell or sample all bodies of water. Their measurements are based on pooled samples, which could mask the presence of a heat-tolerant strain.

鈥淭his is the simplest explanation for the data that we have now,鈥� Ribalet said. 鈥泪蹿 new evidence of heat tolerant strains emerges, we鈥檇 welcome that discovery. It would offer hope for these critical organisms.鈥�

Co-authors include , a 91探花professor of oceanography; , a senior research scientist in the Center for Sustainability Science and Strategy at MIT; and , co-director of the Climate Adaptation Research Center and an associate professor in the Department of Land, Air and Water Resources at UC Davis.

This research was funded by the Simons Foundation and other government, foundation and industry funders of the MIT Center for Sustainability Science and Strategy.

For more information, contact Ribalet at ribalet@uw.edu.

Along with nutrients like nitrogen and phosphorus, iron is essential for the growth of microscopic phytoplankton in the ocean. However, a new study led by oceanographers at the University of Hawai鈥榠 at M膩noa with collaborators at the 91探花 revealed that iron released from industrial processes, such as coal combustion and steelmaking, is altering the ecosystem in the North Pacific Transition Zone. This region, just north of Hawai鈥榠, is important for fisheries in the Pacific.听

The was published June 2 in the Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences.

鈥淲e were able to see a connection between human activities and the location of key ecosystem boundaries in the ocean that are important for marine organisms,鈥� said co-author , a 91探花associate professor of oceanography. 鈥淚 hope this research highlights that human activities can impact the ocean in multiple ways, not just through changes in the climate. I think it also highlights the importance of tracking key ocean ecosystem boundaries over time, so we can better understand how this might impact marine organisms.鈥�

Iron from human activities billows into the atmosphere and can be carried to distant lands or oceans before it鈥檚 scrubbed from the skies by rain. Industrial iron has previously been detected in the North Pacific Transition Zone, but it was unclear what effect the iron had on the ecosystem.

To piece together the seasonal cycle of iron input, phytoplankton growth and ocean mixing, the researchers analyzed water and phytoplankton samples and studied ocean dynamics during four different expeditions to this region of the Pacific Ocean. They also assessed the iron in these waters to determine whether it had the unique isotope signature of iron that is released from industrial processes.听

The team found that phytoplankton in the region are iron-deficient during the spring, so an increase in the supply of iron boosts the spring phytoplankton bloom that is typical in the area. However, as a result of a booming bloom, they deplete other nutrients more quickly, leading to a crash in phytoplankton later in the season. Importantly, the iron isotope signature did, in fact, indicate the presence of industrial iron out in the Pacific, thousands of miles away from its source.

鈥淭he ocean has boundaries that are invisible to us but known to all sorts of microbes and animals that live there,鈥� said , lead author and assistant professor at the University of Hawai鈥榠 at M膩noa School of Ocean and Earth Science and Technology. 鈥淭he North Pacific Transition Zone is one of these boundaries. It divides the low-nutrient ocean gyres from the high-nutrient temperate ecosystems to the North. With more iron coming into the system, that boundary is migrating north, but we are also expecting to see these boundaries shift northward as the ocean warms.鈥�

That鈥檚 not necessarily all bad, Hawco said. But unfortunately, the regions of the transition zone that are closer to Hawai鈥榠 are among those that are losing out.听

鈥淚t’s a one-two punch: Industrial iron is impacting the base of the food web and the warming of the ocean is pushing these phytoplankton-rich waters further and further away from Hawai鈥榠,鈥� Hawco said.

The research team is developing new techniques to monitor the iron nutrition of ocean plankton. This will shed light on how changes in iron supply, from both natural or industrial sources, could impact ocean life.听

鈥淎 project of this scale is truly the result of collaboration between scientists with diverse expertise,鈥� said co-author , a 91探花research scientist in oceanography. 鈥淭hanks to these collaborations, we were able to integrate satellite observations 鈥� which reveal large-scale, multi-year trends 鈥� with ship-based data collected over several years at the same locations. This integration allowed us to link broad environmental patterns with the fine-scale molecular details of gene expression in key organisms responding to iron availability. Individually, each dataset is valuable, but together, they provide the depth and resolution needed to generate robust, predictive insights into ecosystem dynamics.鈥�

Other 91探花co-authors are and . See the paper for a .

This study was funded by the Simons Foundation and National Science Foundation.听

This story is adapted from a by the University of Hawai鈥榠 M膩noa School of Ocean and Earth Science and Technology.

For Valentine’s Day, 91探花News asked 12 91探花 researchers to share their love stories: What made them decide to pursue their career paths? Scroll down or click on the links below to see their responses.

Lakeya Afolalu | Katya Cherukumilli | Stephen Groening | June Lukuyu | Jennifer Nemhauser | Zoe Pleasure | Kira Schabram | B谩ra 艩af谩艡ov谩 | Adam Summers | Timeka Tounsel | Kendall Valentine | Navid Zobeiry

, Assistant professor of language, literacy and culture, College of Education

What do you study at the UW?听

My research explores how immigration, race, language, literacy and identity intersect in the lives of Nigerian immigrant and transnational youth. Unlike in many West African countries, race is the most salient identifier in the United States, often overlooking the diverse ethnic, cultural and linguistic identities of youth of African origin. This often affects how immigrant youth make sense of their identities in this country. My research examines how Nigerian youth use multilingualism, literacy and digital literacies to construct and negotiate their identities across home, school and digital environments in the U.S.

What made you fall in love with your research area?

My mother is African American. My father is Nigerian. So, growing up, I often felt like I was split between both cultures. There were also so many societal and familial expectations about what it meant to be “Black,” “African American” and “Nigerian.”

Growing up, my family members and friends in Detroit called me by my African American name, “Lakeya.” But when my sisters and I spent summers and holidays in Queens, New York, with our Nigerian family, the moment I crossed over the threshold of the door I was called by my Nigerian name, “Iyore.”

Honestly, I’d say I set out very early in life to define my life’s path and to be intentional about how I wanted to make myself known to the world 鈥� my identity. It was not 鈥� and even as an adult Black woman in America, it still is not always 鈥� comfortable to defy identity expectations. But what other way is there to live? To be a shell of what others, or society, believe we should be? Is that living? It is not.

As a teenager, I had less confidence in being bold and being my true self. I loved reading novels. I鈥檇 go to the bookstore and buy books to read, but I hid this practice from my friends because of some unwritten rule that one can鈥檛 be Black, cool and smart. Adolescent peer pressure was a real issue. That’s also how I fell in love with writing. Often feeling misunderstood, I resorted to the pages of my journals where I could be myself and dream of my future self. I continue to keep a journal.

My Aunt Darcelle says I’ve been asking profound questions since I learned to speak. That hasn’t changed. So, it’s no surprise that I’ve committed to a career in research. My research is not just research, though. It’s the story and lives of so many young people who feel wedged between other people’s and society’s ideas of who they should be and what they should become. Sometimes, these expectations can come from those closest to us who have well-meaning intentions 鈥� parents, family members, close friends. I understand this feeling well.

There are many times when I’m writing a manuscript or analyzing data, and I draw on memories of my own schooling experiences to interpret interview transcripts from the Nigerian youth in my study. Or I remember similar instances from West African seventh-grade students in Harlem, which guided me to draw on theoretical frames that align best with the Nigerian youth experience.

My research is truly about shifting the narrative about what it means to be Black, Nigerian and African. Why? Well, because Blackness is so rich, diverse and multifaceted. So is Nigerianness and Africanness. As I engage in my research to illustrate the rich diversity of Nigerian youth’s languages, literacies and identities, I also aim to contribute to dismantling rigid identity structures, creating greater freedom for all young people who find themselves in environments that are structured by prescribed identities that conflict with how they desire to be known.

My research is a contribution to freedom 鈥� a freedom that transcends into adulthood. My feet may be in the academy, but my heart and hands always have been and always will be in the communities that mirror mine. It鈥檚 truly an honor to do this heart work.

I also want to touch on how I decided to pursue this career path. Growing up, I always wanted to play school and take on the role of the teacher. In fact, I cried whenever my sisters and cousins wouldn鈥檛 play school with me. For Christmas and my birthday, I would ask my mother to buy me dry-erase boards, markers and other office items so that I could set up my “classroom” in the house.

I fell in love with teaching because my early elementary teachers were some of the first people who made me feel seen. For instance, my first-grade teacher, Mrs. Schave, would let me choose and read books to the whole class on Fridays. My second-grade teacher, Mrs. Korn, at Fitzgerald Elementary on the west side of Detroit, would invite me to the writer鈥檚 table in the classroom whenever I finished my work early. At that table, I realized how powerful and freeing the art of writing is.

While I had these great school experiences, they were also starkly different from my cousins’ experiences. They lived and attended public schools in Auburn Hills, in the suburbs outside of Detroit. I often visited them on the weekends and noticed that they read the same books that I read at my elementary school, except that we had the abridged version in basal textbooks while they had the full chapter books. That struck something within me, and I realized very early in life that your ZIP code 鈥� where you lived 鈥� determined the quality of your education. It felt unfair. I didn鈥檛 have the words to describe it then, but I now know that it was an equity issue 鈥� not just educationally but also in terms of economic and social mobility.

So, I decided around the age of 7 that I wanted to become a teacher. I made an internal promise to myself, a commitment, that children who grow up in communities like mine 鈥� the beautiful west side of Detroit 鈥� would have access to a quality education no matter what. Since that commitment, I’ve taught elementary and middle school in Newark, New Jersey, Detroit, and Harlem.

Thinking back to the connection with my research on identity, I had many conversations with my Nigerian father, who wanted me to pursue a career in finance. In Nigerian culture, there’s often the idea that doctor, lawyer and engineer are the only three career choices, but I was less interested in the money and prestige. I was committed to a career in education.

Today, as an assistant professor and the founder of a that supports the identities and well-being of youth of color, I have small moments when I think back to little Lakeya and smile. I鈥檓 doing exactly what she set out to do and more. She would be proud.

What advice would you give to your younger self?听

It鈥檚 okay to be misunderstood. It鈥檚 okay not to fit in. In fact, not fitting in is what makes you beautifully unique. I know that none of your identity and educational experiences may make sense now, but they will later. Trust me, it will make sense 鈥� not just for you but for many youths who find themselves making sense of their identities. In fact, you鈥檒l dedicate your career to speaking, writing and doing community-based work about these topics. Finally, I know you鈥檙e looking for that example like yourself, with your dreams and who lives between multiple cultural worlds, but in time, you will become the example you鈥檙e looking for. Hold on. It鈥檚 going to be a beautiful roller coaster of a ride.

For more information, contact Afolalu at lafolalu@uw.edu.

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, Assistant professor, Department of Human Centered Design & Engineering

What do you study at the UW?

My research group, the Safe Water Equity and Longevity Lab, aims to bridge gaps between scientific discovery, technology design and safe water provision. We integrate methods from human-centered design and environmental engineering to investigate barriers that limit safe water access and to develop usable water quality monitoring and treatment technologies. Specifically, we use data science, experiments, hardware prototyping and community-engaged research methods to design collaborative tools that improve safe water management and mitigate exposure to chemical contaminants in water supplies.

What made you fall in love with your research area?

From a young age, I always felt a deep connection to our planet. I loved spending most of my time outdoors exploring the natural world. I was very curious and talkative as a child, wanting to solve riddles, play games and learn about how everything worked. My curiosity led me down a winding path of research adventures that allowed me to study geology and supercontinents, climate change and alpine plant ecology, fuel-efficient cookstoves, wastewater irrigation and, eventually, safe drinking water.

When I reflect on how I ended up choosing to research access to drinking water, I think about the different places I have lived: south India, Florida, California and Washington. Each region has a uniquely different way of life, cultural traditions and natural environments. A common thread in each of the places I have called home was proximity to the coastline and easy access to fresh springs, rivers and lakes. I have always found myself drawn by an invisible force to the nearest body of water.

I am grateful that my career allows me to address environmental health challenges while also considering the human experience, to reflect on and reconcile inequities and injustices, and to collaboratively solve complex puzzles with brilliant students, colleagues and community partners.

What advice would you give to your younger self?

Don鈥檛 be scared to do what you love every day, follow your heart and never stop speaking your mind. You’ll eventually find your way and realize it was the journey that mattered in the end.

For more information, contact Cherukumilli at katyach@uw.edu.

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, Associate professor, Department of Cinema & Media Studies

What do you study at the UW?

I am a media historian who specializes in the sociocultural aspects of media technologies. This includes researching and writing about devices themselves, the implications of the introduction and widespread adoption of these devices and how people use them. For example, my first book was . I have also published research on cell phones, , 16 mm training films, and the use of television screens in the family minivan.

What made you fall in love with your research area? 听

I was 7 when I was stuck on a Pan Am 747 for five hours on the tarmac at London Heathrow and boy, was it exciting when they finally played the movie on the big screen at the front of the cabin!

After that, I lived in Poland under a military dictatorship, which profoundly shaped my media experience growing up. For example, we used to watch Hollywood films played on a 16 mm projector in our living room 鈥� both the films and projector were provided through the U.S. Armed Forces. The range of films could be odd. I remember watching “Sophie’s Choice,” “Heartbeeps,” “Terms of Endearment,” “Raiders of the Lost Ark,” “Going Ape!,” “Sleeper,” “Fire and Ice,” “The Towering Inferno,” “City on Fire,” “When Time Ran Out,” “Three Days of the Condor,” “Hannah and Her Sisters” and “Krull” 鈥� not exactly .

At the same time, we were watching Polish television (mostly the animated shows “Pszcz贸艂ka Maja” and “Bolek i Lolek”). Occasionally, a Hollywood film would be aired on TV, over-dubbed in Polish in such a way that the English language dialogue was still audible. I have distinct memories of watching “The Poseidon Adventure” and hearing the first few words of a line in English before the Polish translation came in on top of the dialogue. It wasn’t until a decade or so later that I learned this is not the standard technique for making alternate language versions of films.

We sometimes had access to U.S. television shows from other American diplomats who would return from home leave. They would bring videotape recordings, so I got to watch “Hogan’s Heroes,” “M*A*S*H” and “Gilligan’s Island” months after air date, complete with commercials (which I found both profoundly perplexing and compelling 鈥� As I type right now, I am singing the ). I even got to see “Roots” and “The Day After” on Betamax (we did not have what was then thought of as the inferior VHS format).

I would say that those media experiences 鈥� in-flight film, 16mm home exhibition, watching films on television in multiple languages 鈥� sparked my interest in our mediated mass culture. Until relatively recently, film studies was marked by a bias toward theatrical exhibition of feature films (with the occasional nod to experimental films shown in art galleries) and media studies was concerned with the effective transmission of messages to audiences. The forms of media encounter that are unforeseen and often unintended at the moment of production often get treated as accidental and inconsequential and yet, for many people that is the primary mode of encounter. Because of my experience, I know that all media forms, devices and their contents are contingent on a particular and fortuitous set of circumstances. So I find myself curious about those circumstances and their history.

What advice would you give to your younger self?

If I had known I would become an academic, I might have told my 8-year-old self to take better notes and told my undergraduate self to spend more time in faculty office hours asking about academia. Knowing what I know now, I would have told myself 10 years ago to stop worrying what others might think and just write the damned book.

For more information, contact Groening at groening@uw.edu.

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, Assistant professor, Department of Electrical & Computer Engineering

What do you study at the UW?

My research centers on using transdisciplinary approaches to develop solutions for creating sustainable, inclusive and integrated energy solutions for underserved communities. My expertise supports policymakers and practitioners seeking equitable, community-centered energy transitions that combine technical and socioeconomic perspectives.

What made you fall in love with your research area?

I grew up in a small community outside Nairobi, Kenya. From an early age, I saw firsthand the challenges of unreliable power: frequent outages, power surges and a system that did not always meet the needs of the people it served. When the lights went out, my family, like many in the area, was often left scrambling to preserve our food or finish homework assignments in candlelight. It was not just an inconvenience 鈥� it was a reminder of how something as essential as electricity could hold communities back. I knew from then that I wanted to do something about it, but at the time, I did not quite know how.

When I was in high school, I applied to colleges in the U.S. and was accepted to Smith College on a full scholarship. There, I pursued engineering science, but what really sparked my love for the field was not just the technical challenges 鈥� it was how energy systems intertwined with society. At Smith, I was not just solving equations. I was also exploring how power affects everything from education to health care to human development. My engineering courses were paired with courses in psychology, economics and sociology, and that blend of disciplines opened my eyes to a new way of thinking: Energy wasn鈥檛 just a technical problem to solve, it was a societal one.

The more I learned, the more I realized that fixing energy systems in underserved communities couldn鈥檛 be as simple as just adding more power or building bigger grids. It had to be about understanding the people who needed that power. I wanted to create systems that responded to real needs, that didn鈥檛 just drop in solutions, but considered the community鈥檚 culture, environment and existing infrastructure. After graduating, I had a job developing software to estimate the cost of power systems, but I kept thinking about how we could rethink energy to make it more sustainable, more inclusive and more connected to the social fabric of the places it served.

That thinking led me to pursue a master鈥檚 in renewable energy systems at Loughborough University in the United Kingdom and then a doctorate at the University of Massachusetts Amherst, where my research focused on finding ways to develop energy systems that were as much about community as they were about technology. I didn鈥檛 just want to create another power system that might fail because it didn鈥檛 align with how people lived or how societies worked. Instead, I wanted to design systems that were responsive to local contexts and to the needs of communities they intended to serve, systems that people could rely on for the long haul.

In 2023, I joined the 91探花 as an assistant professor, where I founded the IDEAS (Interdisciplinary Energy Analytics for Society) research group. Our work is all about creating energy systems that work for the people who use them. It鈥檚 a mix of developing sustainable technology, social understanding and deep collaboration with communities. We鈥檙e working on projects in Africa, Southeast Asia, the Pacific Islands and even here in the U.S., always with the goal of creating solutions that are both sustainable and tailored to the specific needs of each community.

What I love most about my research is that it鈥檚 not just about the science 鈥� it鈥檚 about the people. Every project is a chance to dive into a new community, understand its challenges and design solutions that truly fit. I鈥檓 passionate about making sure that when we think about energy, we鈥檙e thinking about people, not just power. And now, teaching and mentoring the next generation of engineers at 91探花gives me a chance to pass on that mindset 鈥� to inspire others to think beyond the technical and ask, “How does this system help the people who need it most?”

It鈥檚 been a winding journey, from a small town outside Nairobi to researching sustainable and inclusive energy solutions at a major university. But the core of it has always been the same: a desire to make a difference, to solve real-world problems with technology and to ensure that everyone, no matter where they are, has access to the energy they need to thrive.

What advice would you give to your younger self?

I鈥檇 tell my younger self not to worry so much about fitting into a mold or following a traditional path. Every experience, even the ones that seem unrelated or uncertain, contributes to your journey. Embrace the uncertainty, because it often leads to the most interesting places.

I鈥檇 also remind myself to be patient and kind with the process. Progress isn鈥檛 always linear. There were times when I felt overwhelmed or unsure of my next step. It鈥檚 okay to feel that way 鈥� it鈥檚 part of learning and growing. The setbacks, the challenges and even the moments of doubt are just as important as the successes. They shape you and teach you valuable lessons.

Finally, I鈥檇 tell myself to take more risks 鈥� to seek out the scary opportunities, the ones that seem daunting or unfamiliar. You never know where a seemingly small decision or unexpected twist in the road might take you. Sometimes, the things that seem out of reach are the ones worth pursuing most. So, trust yourself, stay curious and keep pushing forward, even when the path isn鈥檛 always clear. The journey will be worth it.

For more information, contact Lukuyu at jlukuyu@uw.edu.

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, Professor, Department of Biology

What do you study at the UW?

We use plant, yeast and human cells to understand and engineer the molecular interactions that allow organisms to process information during development and stress responses.

What made you fall in love with your research area?

When I was a little girl, I attended a Montessori school in Los Angeles. This was the 1970s, and the teachers embraced the philosophy of letting a child’s interest direct their learning. I had one teacher that I really bonded with, named Dr. Pillai. He introduced me to the process of science research, rewarding my seemingly insatiable curiosity with thoughtful responses and sharing just the right book or model or experiment to help me dig deeper into any topic that caught my interest. He made me feel like asking a million questions was a wonderful quality (something not everyone agreed with, then or now!).

The pure joy of learning about the natural world through experimentation struck a deep chord. While the road was quite twisty between those early years and my decision to pursue science as a career, I am sure that I would not be here today without that early encouragement.

What advice would you give to your younger self?

Be nicer to your dad when he is helping you with your math homework!

For more information, contact Nemhauser at jn7@uw.edu.

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, Doctoral student, Department of Health Systems & Population Health, School of Public Health

What do you study at the UW?

My research focuses on understanding how people make decisions about their sexual and reproductive health care while navigating the multi-level influences that shape our current societal structure. In my research, I use mixed methods to analyze more traditional data sources, such as qualitative interviews and surveys, and newer data sources, such as TikTok videos, Reddit posts and electronic health record notes, to understand what type of information people seek out about sexual and reproductive health, their motivations behind decision-making and their care interactions with providers. I seek to examine how people with different lived experiences (for example: chronic disease, young people, veterans) may have different decision-making motivations and informational needs to make autonomous reproductive health decisions.

What made you fall in love with your research area?

I first became passionate about sexual and reproductive health while taking the class Sex, Gender and the Brain as a neuroscience undergraduate at Emory University. My final project focused on how anti-choice groups attempted to limit reproductive autonomy by promoting erroneous interpretations of neuroscience data to argue that oral contraceptives are dangerous. The class demonstrated to me how scientists could meld science with feminist theory and, more specifically, how the intentional distribution of misinformation online provides another tool to limit bodily autonomy.

Earlier in my educational career, teachers often framed my biology, chemistry and physics classes as apolitical or unbiased by societal structures. I now know that is not true. This class was one of the first classes where we were asked to name the specific orientation or lens of a research paper or study and describe who and what was left out.

I quickly dropped my neuroscience focus after this class and instead focused on policy-relevant, public 鈥揾ealth-informed research that aims to improve access to and the equity and quality of sexual and reproductive health care and information. While earning a master’s of public health, I started working at the Guttmacher Institute, a leading sexual and reproductive health policy and research organization based in New York City. There, I started working on research projects that directly studied ways to improve access to sexual and reproductive health services.

What advice would you give to your younger self?

I would advise my younger self to think critically about the lessons that are available in all academic classes, including English, dance, and history, and to think about how these lessons can be used to become a better public health researcher and writer.

For more information, contact Pleasure at zoep2@uw.edu.

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, Assistant professor of management, Foster School of Business

What do you study at the UW?

My two primary topics of inquiry are meaningful work and employee sustainability. My research examines how to support employees who want to make a positive difference through their work in ways big and small, ranging from employees who view work as a calling 鈥� not just a paycheck but as a source of personal, social or moral significance 鈥� to those engaging in everyday acts of helping, kindness and compassion. I study the challenges that impede these activities to determine how employees can conduct their work more sustainably.

What made you fall in love with your research area?

I fell into academia. In 2007, I was working for the largest animal shelter in North America and I enrolled in a part-time master’s program in business because I had aspirations of one day rising into a leadership position in animal welfare.

In 2008, the Great Recession hit and I lost my job, but I also learned that professors in my master’s program did research (who knew!). At the time, research on meaningful work was in its infancy and focused primarily on the positive aspects (for example: showing that employees doing meaningful work have greater engagement and satisfaction). I saw this among my co-workers in the animal shelter, but I also saw so much frustration, burnout and resignation. Every day, employees who wanted to save animals’ lives were in the corner crying because of their inability to do so.

I applied to 10 doctoral programs and got into one, where I was lucky that my supervisors encouraged me to join the burgeoning wave of research looking at meaningful work as a double-edged sword and what to do about it. The rest is history.

What advice would you give to your younger self?

This is less advice for my younger self and more gratitude to all the people who helped me along the way. Early in your career, you do not yet know how anything works: how research works, what journals are appropriate outlets, how to develop the ability to know where to dedicate our efforts: what research projects are not only novel but important. Until then, senior mentors are invaluable guides. What makes for a successful career is all the people who generously offer their time and guidance along the way. I did many, many things wrong in my early career, but one thing I did right was to seek out and show my appreciation for any and all help. I would not be here if it wasn’t for the thousands of hours invested in me by others in the field and I hope I am paying that forward in a small part.

For more information, contact Schabram at schabram@uw.edu.

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, Assistant professor, School of Urban Studies, 91探花Tacoma

What do you study at the UW?

听My research is primarily on housing segregation, but I have also become an expert on the overlap of and its relationship with the greening of cities in times of climate change and rising inequality.

What made you fall in love with this new research area?

听I happened to fall into this area in the middle of the night a couple months into my architecture doctoral program. It was early spring. I had moved to College Station, Texas, and was living in a relatively old timberstick house. It was about 1 a.m. when I jumped into my bed and then yelped out from a sharp pain in my lower back.

My first thought: a snake bite?! I leapt up, squeezed my back as if I could prevent any poison from getting in, turned on the light and scanned the bed for a snake. Nothing. Instead I saw a bug 鈥� a flat dark bug, not even an inch long. I scooped it up in a jar, let go of my “poisoned skin” and sighed in relief.

Then I thought, could this be a risky bug? I had just moved to the U.S. from Europe and I didn’t know the local fauna at all. To resolve this in a rational way, I settled on eliminating worst-case scenarios. I Googled: “most dangerous insects in Texas.” I checked the bug in the jar for unique characteristics and compared it to a ranking of鈥� JESUS! The third bug on the list was exactly the same bug that was staring at me from the jar: A Kissing bug鈥� a bite from which can lead to Chagas disease鈥� Deadly鈥� No cure鈥� Organs disintegrate in several decades.

My heart was pounding. My hand was back on the bite site. I was skimming the internet frantically. It was so late, and I had no one to call at that hour. I thought of calling people in Europe, but what would they know? I forced myself to read slowly and make a plan.

The message became clear: There is no cure for Chagas disease and the only symptom (sometimes) occurs the following morning: the swelling of one eyelid on the side closer to the bite site. Even if I went to the hospital, this seemed to be an under-studied disease and tests were limited. I resolved to just sleep it off and go to the doctor in the morning.

I woke up early. My face was symmetrical. Phew. I took the jar to the clinic right as they opened. Someone in the waiting room told me about getting bit by a brown recluse. “Oh well,” I thought, giving up on life a little.

The doctor took one look at the bug and said “Yes, that is a Kissing bug. There’s no cure. No test. Just move on, sorry!”

Perplexed, but also assured by the lack of urgency, I left the clinic. Over the next few days, my worries slowly faded as there apparently was nothing to do about this. I tossed the bug.

Two weeks later I saw an announcement on the university homepage from , then a doctoral student studying biomedical sciences. She was asking about any Kissing bug sightings and .

I immediately wrote to Rachel and reported what happened. She was super excited and asked me to bring her the bug. I said I threw it out, but had photos and I found a similar one 鈥� I had lots of bugs in my old house. We met over coffee. Rachel informed me that the bug was NOT a Kissing bug and that I should not worry. She could test me, but it was not necessary.

She explained the science of how the parasite behind Chagas disease, Trypanosoma cruzi, . It’s quite the process: After the bug bites you, it poops. The parasites are in infected bugs’ poop, which means that the poop has to get smudged into the bite site for you to get infected.

Then Rachel asked about my doctoral research and I told her I was studying housing in the colonias that line the border of Texas and Mexico. Her eyes lit up because she was looking to get samples from there. Thanks to the bug bite and my coffee with Rachel, a whole team formed and we started a pilot project that combined our research interests. This study became my master’s thesis, and six years later in the prestigious Habitat International journal.

What advice would you give to your younger self?

Talk to doctoral students from many more disciplines!

For more information, contact 艩af谩艡ov谩 at bsafar@uw.edu.

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, Professor, Department of Biology and School of Aquatic and Fishery Sciences

What do you study at the UW?

I am a natural historian who applies physics, math and engineering concepts to living systems to understand how they work. My research is driven by both the evolutionary implications of function and the possibility of bio-inspired design.

What made you fall in love with your research area?

From my earliest childhood I spent three seasons in downtown Manhattan and summer in the north woods of Ontario, Canada. The contrast between the most urban environment and a place without utilities or indoor plumbing was formative. Fishes, whether in tanks, on lines, or through my SCUBA mask, were my constant and most interesting companions. No detail was too obscure, and no species too drab to escape my attention.

I left fish behind when I got to college. Instead, it was a constant joy of mathematics and engineering, with a liberal arts sprinkling of art history, economics and German. After college I tried many things: I started a business, taught in the NYC public school system and attempted a career in photography. But I wasn’t willing to persist when things were hard or no fun. Then I went to Australia to become a SCUBA instructor. There I met my first biologist. I was smitten with the idea of making a living trying to understand animals.

On my return to New York, I immersed myself in biology, particularly the natural history of fishes, reptiles and amphibians. Spending hours in the field closely observing animals and their environment was one avenue of inspiration. The other was investigating animals’ shape, or morphology, with an electron microscope. The link between form and function was how my weeks passed 鈥� looking at microstructure, then wading in temporary ponds for larval salamanders. I fell completely in love with both areas and have made my career at that interface.

What advice would you give to your younger self?

Treasure your mentors in the moment. They are gone too soon and you will never feel like you made it clear enough how much they affected you and your career.

For more information, contact Summers at fishguy@uw.edu.听

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, Associate professor, Department of Communication

What do you study at the UW?

I am a critical-cultural studies scholar who focuses on race, gender, and sexuality in the media. Specifically, I study how Black people negotiate mass media as marginalized subjects whose status as citizens is always precarious. I’m especially interested in the stories that circulate about Black women, both external narratives and the stories that Black women craft about themselves.

What made you fall in love with your research area?

I sometimes think of myself as an accidental academic. I pursued a degree in magazine journalism and international relations in college with the intention of becoming a magazine editor. But everything changed the summer I landed an internship at my dream magazine, . At the time, many publications were closing their doors or downsizing their staff in the wake of the 2008 financial crisis. All of a sudden, pursuing a career in magazines began to feel like a much larger risk than I was comfortable with. Aside from the industry woes, I also realized that I had just as much fun studying magazines (and other media) for class projects as I did working for one.

At Essence, the assignments that my editor gave me reflected a particular image of Black womanhood and assumptions about Blackness, femininity and masculinity that were key to the magazine’s brand. When I returned to school for my last year of college, I took a Black feminist theory course where I wrote essays exploring the questions that had popped into my mind during my internship 鈥� questions that I couldn’t shake, questions that played in the background of my mind whenever I was walking through the magazine aisle at the grocery store, or watching television or a movie. This taste of how deeply satisfying a life of the mind could be was a turning point. By the end of the feminist theory course I had decided to apply to graduate school.

My first book, “,” was a full-circle moment. In the book I offer a cultural history of Essence magazine and position it as a predecessor to contemporary commercial representations of Black womanhood realized in the 2010s through hashtags like #BlackGirlMagic and advertising campaigns, such as Proctor and Gamble’s “.” It was an amazing feeling to follow my curiosity and return to the questions that first captivated my mind as an intern. During the writing process I realized that the seeds of these questions had started even earlier, when I was a little girl sitting in a Black beauty shop with dozens of issues of Ebony, Jet and Essence magazines. Long before I was old enough to fully comprehend the articles, the images in these magazines captivated me, beaconing me to explore further.

The thing that most fills my heart about the scholarly path that I’ve chosen is being able to document and amplify the brilliance and beauty of Black women. There’s so much that’s problematic in the stories that society tells about Black women, but the brightest moments in my teaching and research are connected to the dope narratives that Black women craft about themselves.

What advice would you give to your younger self?

Lean into the questions that captivate you and the subject areas that awaken your passion and curiosity. This will point you in the direction of your most fulfilling research projects and your very best writing.

For more information, contact Tounsel at timeka@uw.edu.

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, Assistant professor, School of Oceanography

What do you study at the UW?

听I’m a coastal ecogeomorphologist, which means I study how ecology, geology and physics change the landscape on the coast. A lot of my work focuses on how biology (plants, microbes) alters how mud moves around coastal systems and changes what our coastlines look like. I am particularly interested in marshes and mudflats. I go into the field to measure what is really happening on the coast, and then develop numerical computer models to predict how these processes will change in the future.

What made you fall in love with your research area?

When I was 5 years old, my family went on vacation to Cape Cod National Seashore. We attended an educational program at the Salt Pond Visitor Center, and I knew I was in love. The stinky, muddy marsh felt like home to me immediately, and I still remember talking to the volunteer scientist about how marshes work. At that time, however, I had no idea that you could study marshes and mud as your job!

That formative memory never left me, even though, as I continued in school and focused on science, I intended to become a medical doctor. In my world, if you were good at math and science, the logical career path was to become a medical doctor.

I went to college at Boston University, where I planned to major in chemistry. But for every class project, I ended up focusing on oceans and coastlines. I had a wonderful TA who noticed this trend and mentioned to me in passing that my university had a marine science program and that maybe I should consider taking a class in that program to see if I liked it. I enrolled in a class called “Estuaries” and I’ve never looked back. The first week of the class, we took a field trip to collect data in a marsh and I was instantly transported back to my 5-year-old self, loving the marsh. I was the first student who jumped into the mud to collect data, and I didn’t want to leave. Within a few weeks I was working in that professor’s lab, and I really haven’t left the marsh since.

I also started developing so many questions about how things worked 鈥� and how everything tied together, from the mud to the birds 鈥� that I quickly realized that research and teaching in the field was what I needed to do with my life. My research has expanded a lot since then to encompass many different types of coasts, but my love for the rotten-egg-smelling, squelching mud drives a lot of what I choose to do. Being out in nature and seeing the processes happen in real time inspires me to understand coastal systems and help make a more resilient future for our planet and for people.

What advice would you give to your younger self?

I am incredibly lucky to have a job that I absolutely love, and I would encourage my younger self to pursue what makes me happy. Sometimes my work hardly feels like work because I am so engaged and excited by what I am discovering and the students I get to work with. While every day isn’t always amazing (I have bad work days too!), at the end of the work week I’m always thankful for what a great job I have. I hope that everyone is able to find something they are passionate about in their life.

I would also say: Believe in yourself and don’t compare yourself to others. Just keep doing what you love and what you think is important and helpful to others, and everything will work out okay.

For more information, contact Valentine at kvalent@uw.edu.

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, Associate professor, Department of Materials Science & Engineering

What do you study at the UW?

My research team integrates materials science, data science and advanced manufacturing with primary applications in aerospace. We focus on three main areas:

1. Smart material testing methods, using physics-informed machine learning to control the testing parameters.
2. Smart manufacturing that leverages automation, sensing and machine learning. The goal is to develop AI for autonomous and self-aware manufacturing systems.
3. Smart engineering approaches to accelerate aerospace design and certification. We use a combination of machine learning, automated testing and physics-based numerical simulations techniques.

What made you fall in love with your research area?

According to my parents, my first word was “hot.” Looking back, it seems like a fitting start to a life deeply intertwined with the principles of heat transfer. My fascination with heat and materials began early and found a natural outlet in my love for cooking. I enjoy experimenting with different cooking techniques, all of which benefit immensely from an understanding of heat transfer. This passion even led me to publish a cookbook a few years ago.

After earning my doctoral degree, I began working at a research center in Canada, where I collaborated with various companies to solve their manufacturing challenges. Over time, I worked with a wide range of materials 鈥� concrete, wood, polymers, metals and composites. As I delved deeper into manufacturing, I started noticing fascinating parallels between it and cooking. Both require precise control of variables like temperature and pressure to transform materials into something new.

For instance, making aerospace composite parts in an autoclave is essentially pressure-cooking a layered material. Similarly, tempering chocolate to achieve its perfect microstructure, texture and snap is strikingly similar to controlling the crystallinity of thermoplastics to optimize their performance. Recognizing these connections allowed me to combine my personal passion for cooking with my professional love for materials science and engineering.

This love for exploring the science behind materials was paired with my lifelong interest in mathematics, which naturally led me to integrate machine learning and AI into my research. These tools provided a way to unlock deeper insights and bring innovation into material design and manufacturing. For example, my very first project as a professor at the 91探花 was a collaboration with Boeing, where we developed AI for manufacturing aerospace composites. It was akin to creating a smart oven that can monitor the temperature of various parts and autonomously adjust the controls 鈥� a direct parallel to advanced cooking techniques.

What advice would you give to your younger self?

As you explore different options for your career, focus more on what you truly love to do. Don鈥檛 be afraid to combine your personal passions with your professional goals 鈥� start doing this earlier. The joy and fulfillment you鈥檒l find in aligning your personal interests with your career will open doors to creative opportunities and unique solutions you might not have imagined. Trust the process and follow what excites you most.

For more information, contact Zobeiry at navidz@uw.edu.

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The blue whale is the largest animal on the planet. It consumes enormous quantities of tiny, shrimp-like animals known as krill to support a body of up to 100 feet (30 meters) long. Blue whales and other baleen whales, which filter seawater through their mouths to feed on small marine life, once teemed in Earth鈥檚 oceans. Then over the past century they were hunted almost to extinction for their energy-dense blubber.

As whales were decimated, some thought the krill would proliferate in predator-free waters. But that鈥檚 not what happened. Krill populations dropped, too, and neither population has yet recovered.

A recent theory proposes that whales weren鈥檛 just predators in the ocean environment. Nutrients that whales excreted may have provided a key fertilizer to these marine ecosystems.

Research led by 91探花 oceanographers supports that theory. It finds that whale excrement contains significant amounts of iron, a vital element that is often scarce in ocean ecosystems, and nontoxic forms of copper, another essential nutrient that in some forms can harm life.

The open-access , the first to look at the forms of these trace metals in what鈥檚 commonly known as whale poop, was published in January in Communications Earth & Environment.

鈥淲e made novel measurements of whale feces to assess how important whales are to recycling important nutrients for phytoplankton,鈥� said first author , a 91探花doctoral student in oceanography. 鈥淥ur analysis suggests that the decimation of baleen whale populations from historical whaling could have had larger biogeochemical implications for the Southern Ocean, an area crucially important to global carbon cycling.鈥�

The Southern Ocean encircling Antarctica harbors little human life but is thought to play an important role in the global climate. Strong circumpolar currents bring deep ocean water up to the surface. Huge blooms of plant-like organisms known as phytoplankton support populations of krill, which are still harvested in unprotected waters today for aquaculture and pet food.

To investigate what role whale poop may have played in this ecosystem, the study analyzed five stool samples. Two samples were from humpback whales in the Southern Ocean and three were from blue whales off the central Californian coast. The samples were collected when researchers out studying whale populations saw an opportunity.

鈥淭he nice thing, I guess, is that whale excrement floats,鈥� said senior author , an assistant professor of oceanography at the UW. Researchers collect it using a net attached to a jar to collect the substance typically found as a slushy or slurry material.

鈥淭he hypothesis is that the whales were actually adding nutrients to the ecosystem that these phytoplankton were able to use, so they would bloom more and then the krill could eat them,鈥� Bundy said.

Previous research had found significant amounts of , like nitrogen and carbon, in whale poop samples. The new paper instead looked for metals that are in short supply far from land and are often a limiting factor for the growth of ocean ecosystems.

鈥淚n the Southern Ocean, iron is considered to be one of the most scarce, or limiting, nutrients that phytoplankton need to survive,鈥� Bundy said

Results showed iron was present in all the samples. The researchers also found another metal, copper.

鈥淲e were really shocked by how much copper was in the whale poop. We initially thought, 鈥榦h, no, is the whale poop actually toxic?鈥欌�� Bundy said.

Further analysis showed that organic molecules known as attached to the copper atoms transformed them into a form that is safe for marine life. Other ligands helped make the iron accessible to living organisms. The researchers don鈥檛 yet know the source of the ligands but suspect they may come from bacteria in the whales鈥� stomachs.

Bundy鈥檚 research focuses on trace metals in the ocean environment. This project began as Monreal鈥檚 introductory research project as a graduate student but it grew into a larger endeavor as the results came in.

鈥淚 think animals play a larger role in chemical cycles than many experts give them credit for, especially when thinking at the ecosystem scale,鈥� Monreal said. 鈥淲hen I say animals, I really mean their gut microbiome. Based on what we see, it seems like bacteria in the whales鈥� guts could be important.鈥�

Co-authors are postdoctoral researcher , former doctoral student and former undergraduate student from the UW; Matthew Savoca and Jeremy Goldbogen at Stanford University; Lydia Babcock-Adams at Florida State University; Logan Pallin, Ross Nichols and Ari Friedlaender at the University of California, Santa Cruz; John Calambokidis at the Cascadia Research Collective in Olympia, Washington; and at the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration and the UW鈥檚 Cooperative Institute for Climate, Ocean and Ecosystem Studies. Funders are MAC3 Impact Philanthropies, the MUIR Program at the Stanford Woods Institute for the Environment, the 91探花 Program on Climate Change and the Ford Foundation.

For more information, contact Monreal at pmonreal@uw.edu and Bundy at rbundy@uw.edu. Note: Monreal is on New Zealand time through mid-February and responses may be delayed.

91探花 oceanographer studies viruses 鈥� but not the viruses that get people worried. He studies viruses that infect ocean microorganisms, which are some of the most abundant living things on the planet.

Morris, a 91探花associate professor of oceanography, previously found that the most common bacteria in the oceans, SAR11, hosts a virus in its DNA. That virus is dormant most of the time, but when and how it erupts could play important roles in ocean ecology and evolution.

Now Morris and a collaborator at the University of California, Los Angeles, are going out with students to collect more of these tiny bacterial hosts and their viral guests to understand how these relationships change depending on the place or the season. They leave Dec. 16 aboard 91探花School of Oceanography鈥檚 small research vessel, the .

91探花News asked Morris a few questions about the upcoming cruise, which includes four undergraduate students, as part of an occasional series, 鈥�In the Field,鈥� highlighting 91探花field efforts.

Where are you going, and when?听

Robert Morris: Our research cruise will travel from the to the San Juan Islands. This track gives us access to important areas in Puget Sound as well as to the Strait of Juan de Fuca, where open ocean water enters the Puget Sound.

We leave on Monday, Dec. 16 and return Friday, Dec. 20.

Have you visited these waters in the past?

RM: This is our third cruise. The first cruise was in September 2023 and focused on the Puget Sound main basin and Hood Canal. The second cruise was this past July and focused on the main basin, the Strait of Juan de Fuca, and areas around the San Juan Islands. This third cruise will be a repeat of the summer cruise, but at a different time of year to investigate seasonal differences in the viruses that infect marine bacteria.

Who is going on the cruise?

RM: I am chief scientist on all three cruises, and , at the University of California, Los Angeles, is co-chief scientist. Each cruise has one additional mentor and four UCLA undergraduates.

For this cruise, the mentor is Jason Graff at Oregon State (past mentors have been 91探花graduate students Kunmanee Bubphamanee and Dylan Vecchione). For this cruise, the undergraduate students are Grace Donohue, Natalie Falta, Eleanor Gorham and Madeleine Swope.

What does your team hope to learn from this place?

RM: On the scientific side, we hope to identify spatial and temporal patterns in viruses that infect the oceans鈥� most abundant bacteria, which is SAR11. More specifically, we collect samples to identify the number and types of SAR11 bacterial cells that have viruses in their genomes and isolate new SAR11 species and the viruses that infect them throughout Puget Sound in summer and winter. We鈥檙e also curious how the number of viruses affects infection patterns across our sample sites and seasons.

From an outreach perspective, the field program was designed to allow students from 91探花and UCLA to collaborate and learn 鈥渉ands-on鈥� oceanography and to see how research ideas and experiments inform each other, especially when working in interdisciplinary teams and with active mentorship. We expect this field experience to expose more students to oceanographic fieldwork, which may inspire further studies in oceanography or other sciences.

If this is a repeat effort, will this year be different in any way?

RM: The upcoming cruise is the first one that will be conducted in the winter, with the goal of identifying viruses with different infection strategies. For instance, in the winter we expect to find fewer SAR11 cells, but more with viruses hiding out in their genomes.

Briefly, what鈥檚 a typical day in the field (if there鈥檚 such thing as a typical day)? And what鈥檚 something you enjoy about doing this field work?

RM: We start the day by collecting samples and setting up an incubation study, where we incubate and grow more bacterial cells. We do four incubation studies on each cruise. The study is designed to multiply bacterial viruses in a way that increases the number of cells that are infected. After the incubation experiment is set up, we visit other sites to collect background data that tells us about the environmental conditions in the surrounding area.

One of the most exciting parts of the day-to-day activities is that you don鈥檛 know what the day will bring. Much of the work is outside, so it can be sunny and calm, or rainy and rough. The work gets done either way!

Anything you鈥檇 like to add?

RM: We are working on a collaborative manuscript that will include data from the incubation studies and all student participants. 91探花graduate student , a doctoral student in Earth and space sciences, conducted research in my laboratory for her 91探花Astrobiology research rotation, and was able to gain field research experience during the second cruise. Two 91探花graduate students in my lab, and , will include bacterial culture and genetic sequencing data in future manuscripts.

Lastly, this has been an amazing experience and although many of the students from UCLA have not stayed in oceanography, most have applied to or have gone on to graduate school in science. It has been fantastic interacting with all of the students and seeing them grow into experienced oceanographers over the length of the cruises.

For more information, contact Morris at morrisrm@uw.edu.