News – Page 11

NOAA Grants UCI $1.15 Million for Coastal Research

Written on November 8, 2016.

Nov. 8, 2016 – The National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration’s (NOAA) National Centers for Coastal Science has awarded UC Irvine researchers $1.15 million for their efforts to understand and mitigate sea level rise and storm surge impacts on changing coastal landscapes. Funding comes through NOAA’s competitive Ecological Effects of Sea Level Rise (EESLR) program. With the four-year award, researchers will develop modeling tools to analyze how sediment management...

UCI-led bio sci team awarded $3 million by DOE to investigate drought impact on soil microbes

Written on November 7, 2016.

The U.S. Department of Energy recently awarded a UCI research team $3 million over three years to explore how drought affects microbes in surface soil that are vital to plant life and to the exchange of carbon dioxide – a greenhouse gas – among the Earth’s oceans, plants, soil and air. Steven Allison, associate professor of ecology & evolutionary biology, is the project leader. He and UCI colleagues and fellow investigators at the Lawrence Berkeley National Lab will try to develop cutting-edge...

UCI engineer garners Hydrologic Sciences Medal

Written on October 4, 2016.

The American Meteorological Society has awarded Efi Foufoula-Georgiou the 2017 Hydrologic Sciences Medal for “her pioneering contributions to the science of hydrometeorology and for visionary and sustained leadership in advancing interdisciplinary hydrologic research.” A UCI Distinguished Professor of civil & environmental engineering, Foufoula-Georgiou is considered one of the world’s leading hydrologists and water resources engineers. Her research focuses on hydrology and geomorphology,...

Undergrad Wins Brower Youth Award

Written on September 6, 2016.

Sept. 6, 2016 – Samueli School undergraduate Will Amos has been named one of six national winners of the 2016 Brower Youth Award recognizing outstanding youth leaders making a difference in the environmental movement. Amos, an environmental engineering major, leads a UC Irvine team of art and engineering students creating a bicycle-powered, closed-loop 3-D printer/print recycling station. The project, partially funded by the Calit2/UROP-sponsored Multidisciplinary Design Program,...

UCI fields airborne team for NASA atmospheric study

Written on July 22, 2016.

UCI atmospheric chemist Don Blake is about to rack up some serious air miles. As co-principal investigator, along with UCI Earth system scientist Michael Prather, on the upcoming NASA Atmospheric Tomography Mission, Blake will fly from the North Pole to New Zealand, east to the tip of South America, and then north to Greenland. He will lead a team analyzing gases and particles in the atmosphere in an airborne laboratory aboard a NASA DC-8 aircraft. Data from the mission, which runs from July...

UCI Engineer Creates New Technique for Testing Nanomaterials

Written on July 13, 2016.

Ultimate goal of research is to turn waste heat into electricity. July 13, 2016 —A University of California, Irvine engineer has invented a method for analyzing nanowires at temperatures approaching 800 degrees Fahrenheit in first-ever experiments, showing the valuable role the materials could play in converting excess heat from machines and electronics into useable electricity. “Auto manufacturers and tech startups are trying to utilize and commercialize heat-to-electricity applications,...

NOAA names Michael Prather to climate assessment panel

Written on June 30, 2016.

Michael Prather, UCI professor of Earth system science, has been appointed to the Advisory Committee for the Sustained National Climate Assessment by the National Oceanographic & Atmospheric Administration. The panel provides input on climate assessment activities to NOAA, which relays the information to the White House Office of Science & Technology Policy. Prather’s term lasts one year.

Chemists find new way to recycle plastic waste into fuel

Written on June 21, 2016.

Approach tackles most commonly used synthetic plastic Irvine, Calif., June 21, 2016 – A new way of recycling millions of tons of plastic garbage into liquid fuel has been devised by researchers from the University of California, Irvine and the Shanghai Institute of Organic Chemistry (SIOC) in China. “Synthetic plastics are a fundamental part of modern life, but our use of them in large volume has created serious environmental problems,” said UCI chemist Zhibin Guan. “Our goal through this...

UCI chemists help find way to recycle plastic waste into fuel

Written on June 20, 2016.

Millions of tons of plastic bottles, bags and other trash littering the oceans and clogging landfills could be turned into reusable fuel, thanks to research by the University of California, Irvine and the Shanghai Institute of Organic Chemistry. UCI chemist Zhibin Guan is among those who have figured out how to dissolve the strong bonds of polyethylene plastic to re-create petroleum and other products. The breakthrough, reported in Science Advances, means that the waste could someday be harvested...

UCI’s Soroosh Sorooshian to tackle global water issues as Rosenberg Forum chair

Written on May 10, 2016.

Professor will organize high-level conferences to reduce conflict in managing resources Irvine, Calif., May 10, 2016 – Aiming to smooth the sometimes rough waters that come with managing one of the Earth’s most precious resources, University of California, Irvine Distinguished Professor Soroosh Sorooshian has been appointed chair of the Rosenberg International Forum through June 2022. The forum is a program of the UC’s California Institute for Water Resources. It originated in 1996 with...