Physical Sciences

Susan Trumbore wins Benjamin Franklin Medal

Susan Trumbore, UCI professor of Earth system science, is one of eight 2018 recipients of the Benjamin Franklin Medal in Earth & Environmental Science, bestowed by the Franklin Institute. She was cited for her “pioneering use of radiocarbon measurements in forests and soils to assess the flow of carbon between the biosphere and atmosphere, with implications […]

NASA selects UCI's Isabella Velicogna for interdisciplinary Sea Level Change Team

Melting polar ice is causing sea levels to rise around the world, but how much of an increase will the future bring, and where? These are the key questions to be addressed by Isabella Velicogna, UCI Earth system scientist, as a recently named member of NASA’s Sea Level Change Team. She and her research group […]

New Greenland maps show more glaciers at risk

UCI-created high-resolution charts will inform future ice and sea level forecasts

UCI astronomer wins NASA Habitable Worlds grant to study surface reflectivity of exoplanets

Astronomers can learn a lot about planets outside our solar system, including whether they’re capable of supporting life, by studying their surface albedo, or reflectivity. Aomawa Shields, UCI Clare Boothe Luce Assistant Professor of Physics & Astronomy, recently won a grant from the NASA Habitable Worlds program to research this characteristic of planets orbiting relatively […]

UCI chemist helps create tool that anticipates molecular actions

An international team of scientists including Kieron Burke, UCI professor of chemistry, has created a machine-learning algorithm that predicts molecular behavior. The breakthrough may aid in the development of pharmaceuticals and materials to enhance the performance of batteries, solar cells and digital displays. In a study published in Nature Communications, the researchers describe how their […]

Little green flashes unlock secrets of catalytic reactions

UCI researchers have devised a new fluorescence microscopy technique for observing individual molecules during catalytic reactions. Their work, published recently in the prestigious German journal Angewandte Chemie, is aimed at helping scientists and engineers better understand the fundamental workings of catalysis, the basis of multibillion-dollar industries in polymer plastics and pharmaceuticals. “Most studies of catalytic […]

UCI, JPL investigators find direct evidence of sea level ‘fingerprints'

Indicators of global climate change are detected in tropical oceans

On the cutting edge of chemistry

Grad student’s year away from UCI results in plutonium science breakthrough

UCI celestial census indicates that black holes pervade the universe

Researchers expect more gravitational-wave evidence of collisions in the near future

UCI team helps find evidence for theorized particle

A research team including Jing Xia, UCI associate professor of physics & astronomy, has reported finding firm evidence for Majorana fermions, part of a class of subatomic particles which includes the proton, neutron, electron, neutrino and quark. Publishing their findings this week in Science, the team describes their experiment where researchers from UCI and UCLA […]