Environment/Energy

From miniature beating hearts to hacker-resistant cellphones, UCI faculty, students and alumni have generated a multitude of remarkable inventions and discoveries.

Enhanced monitoring tool adds groundwater storage to assessment factors

UCI environmental engineer Sunny Jiang traveled to St. Thomas, U.S. Virgin Islands, in the second half of November as part of a National Science Foundation Rapid Response Research project. Almost two months after two Category 5 hurricanes (Irma and Maria) struck the region, Jiang and her U.S. Geological Survey collaborator Christina Kellogg gathered samples for water […]

Innovative technology could lead to low-cost seawater desalination

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 […]

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 […]

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

Landforms ‘self-organize’ to withstand human and natural disturbances

The U.S. Department of Energy’s Advanced Research Projects Agency-Energy has awarded $1.8 million to UCI oceanographic engineer Kristen Davis to study offshore kelp cultivation. “Macroalgae are fast-growing and highly versatile; they can be used for feedstock, fuels, chemicals and many other commercial products,” said Davis, assistant professor of civil & environmental engineering and Earth system […]

Industrial farming disrupts burn-regrowth cycle in grasslands, study finds