Members of the 2026 award-winning Rutgers Animal Welfare Judging Team pose in front of Bartlett Hall, the academic home of the Department of Animal Sciences, on the George H. Cook campus.

Students in the Department of Animal Sciences at Rutgers University delivered an exceptional performance at the Spring 2026 American Veterinary Medical Association Virtual Animal Welfare Judging and Assessment Contest (AWJAC), continuing the program’s rapid rise on the national stage.

Held April 25–26, the fourth annual competition brought together students from universities across North America and Europe to evaluate animal welfare in a range of real-world settings. Participants were challenged to assess welfare conditions using scientific evidence, ethical reasoning, and effective public communication skills.

This spring also marked a milestone for the Rutgers Animal Welfare Judging Team, which welcomed 10 new members — the largest team in the program’s history. The expanded roster translated into impressive results across both undergraduate divisions.

In the Undergraduate Junior Division, Daisy Pursell captured 1st Place and earned the highest overall score in the entire competition, while Aspen Wu secured a 4th Place finish. Rutgers students also dominated the Undergraduate Senior Division, where Stephanie Tomshaw claimed 1st Place, followed by Max Wu in 2nd and Jacob Bazer in 3rd. Aditri Singh placed 5th overall, while Jahla Brown earned an 8th Place finish. Tyler Fanslow and Lyric Ames also contributed strong performances that reflected the team’s depth, preparation, and collaborative approach.

This year’s contest featured 140 competitors representing 23 universities. The virtual competition focused on free-range broiler chickens and show rabbits, requiring students to analyze complex welfare scenarios and communicate recommendations grounded in animal welfare science.

Nicholas Bello, professor and chair of the Department of Animal Sciences, praised both the team’s accomplishments and the rapid growth of the program.

“This is really amazing,” said Bello. “In just a few years, this team has become super competitive and has beaten out some of the big-time schools in judging that have been competing since 2014. To the RU Animal Welfare Judging Team, thank you so much for representing Rutgers, SEBS, and Animal Sciences. We are proud. Thank you to Dr. Taylor Ross for her leadership and winning coaching.”

Bello also recognized assistant coach and graduating Animal Sciences senior Jacob Bazer, along with senior team member Aditri Singh, for organizing preparation sessions and mentoring fellow competitors throughout the semester.

With another successful season completed, the team is already preparing for the next challenge. The Fall 2026 AWJAC, hosted by Texas A&M University this November, will feature an eclectic range of species — including bearded dragons, bucking bulls, café cats, and raptors — providing students with another opportunity to apply welfare science principles across diverse animal management systems.

The continued success of the Rutgers Animal Welfare Judging Team reflects the strength of experiential learning opportunities within the Department of Animal Sciences and the growing reputation of Rutgers students in the field of animal welfare science.

Ximing Guo, at left, is presented with the Water Resources Association of the Delaware River Basin’s 2026 Samuel S. Baxter Memorial Award by David Bushek, director of the Haskin Shellfish Research Laboratory at Rutgers. Photo: Courtesy of WRA.

Ximing Guo, Distinguished Professor in the Department of Marine and Coastal Sciences (DMCS) at Rutgers University, has been honored by the Water Resources Association of the Delaware River Basin (WRA) with its 2026 Samuel S. Baxter Memorial Award. The award recognizes individuals who best exemplify WRA’s mission through contributions to sound water management.

A renowned shellfish geneticist, Guo has been based at the Haskin Shellfish Research Laboratory since joining Rutgers as a postdoctoral fellow in 1992. He was formally recognized by WRA on April 23 for his transformative research, which has reshaped global aquaculture and strengthened the resilience of the Delaware Bay, as captured in WRA’s tribute to Guo.

“I want to see oyster resources rebound and oyster farming flourish, strengthening the health of the Delaware Bay and supporting the livelihoods of the coastal communities that depend on it. I hope our research contributes to that goal in a meaningful way,” said Guo.

Over the course of his career, Guo has focused on understanding the genetics of shellfish populations and their cultivation in Delaware Bay and beyond. His work has established him as a global leader in the field, marked by numerous significant contributions. In 2013, he was named “Inventor of the Year” by the New Jersey Inventors Hall of Fame for his innovations in shellfish genetics.

L-R: Jillian Jamieson, laboratory researcher and doctoral student in the Guo lab; Dave Bushek, director of Rutgers Haskin Shellfish Research Laboratory; Distinguished Professor Ximing Guo; and Sam Ratcliff, operations manager at Rutgers Cape Shore Laboratory and doctoral candidate in the Guo lab. Photo: Courtesy of WRA.

Guo leads the Shellfish Breeding and Genetics Program at the Haskin Lab, an internationally recognized center for fisheries and aquaculture research, particularly on species of commercial importance to New Jersey. He is also a lead principal investigator and key architect of the East Coast Oyster Breeding Consortium, and a co-investigator on the Hard Clam Breeding Consortium.

“Dr. Guo’s work provides a foundation on which we build many other programs supporting shellfish research, production and conservation benefiting the state, the region and beyond,” said David Bushek, professor in DMCS and director of the Haskin Shellfish Research Laboratory.

Among his recent achievements, Guo is part of a team that successfully mapped the complete genetic code of a hybrid oyster—an advancement that offers powerful new tools for aquaculture. Using advanced DNA sequencing technology, the team identified nearly 60,000 genes across 20 chromosomes, producing the first chromosomal-level genome assembly of an allotetraploid oyster, a hybrid containing genetic material from two closely related species.

This genetic breakthrough has significant implications for climate resilience and food security.

“Having this complete genome sequence gives oyster breeders a powerful new resource,” said Guo. “By understanding how genes from these two species work together in a hybrid, we can potentially develop more resilient oyster stocks and make the aquaculture industry more efficient and sustainable.”

Read more in WRA’s full profile of Guo’s distinguished career and transformative research.

Scientists looking for sources that generated life on Earth are considering hydrothermal vents of different types, from vents found in the deep sea to others created by meteor impacts.

Meteor impacts may have helped spark life on Earth, creating hot, chemical-rich environments where the first living cells could take shape, according to research integrated by a recent Rutgers University graduate. 

“No one knows, from a scientific perspective, how life could have been formed from an early Earth that had no life,” said Shea Cinquemani, who earned her bachelor’s degree in marine biology and fisheries management from the Rutgers School of Environmental and Biological Sciences in May 2025. “How does something come from nothing?”

Shea Cinquemani, who earned her bachelor’s degree from the School of Environmental and Biological Sciences in May 2025, has published a paper based on research she started during the spring of her senior year. Photo: Courtesy of Shea Cinquemani

Cinquemani is the lead author of a scientific review, published in the peer-reviewed Journal of Marine Science and Engineering, examining where life may have first formed on Earth. The paper focuses on hydrothermal vents, places where hot, mineral-rich water flows through rock and emerges into surrounding water, creating the chemical conditions and energy gradients needed for complex reactions.

Her research points to hydrothermal systems created by meteor impacts as a potentially critical and underappreciated setting for the origin of life, strengthening the case beyond conventional deep-sea vent theories. Cinquemani said such systems would have been widespread on early Earth, making them especially compelling environments for life to begin.

The paper, co-authored with Rutgers oceanographer Richard Lutz, marks a rare achievement for a recent undergraduate whose work began as a class assignment and was transformed into a publication in a highly respected scientific journal.

“It’s amazing,” Lutz said. “You often have undergraduates that are part of papers – faculty choose undergraduates all the time to work on papers and projects. But for an undergraduate to be the lead author is a huge deal.” 

The project started in the spring of Cinquemani’s senior year in a course called “Hydrothermal Vents,” taught by Lutz, a Distinguished Professor in the Department of Marine and Coastal Sciences. Cinquemani’s assignment was to examine whether hydrothermal vents on Mars could have been harbingers of life there.

“I was like, ‘I know nothing about this topic,’” she said. “Thinking about the origins of biology on another planet was like, whoa. Not sure how I’m going to do this.” The topic went beyond her usual comfort zone of biology and extended into chemistry, physics and geology, she said.

Distinguished Professor Richard Lutz emerges from the research submersible, Alvin, after a deep-sea dive. Lutz was part of the team that discovered hydrothermal vents.
Photo: Courtesy of Richard Lutz

Cinquemani expanded the assignment after graduation into a full scientific review of both impact-generated and deep-sea vent systems, which was accepted after what Lutz described as a demanding peer-review evaluation.

“I have never seen such a rigorous review process,” Lutz said. “There were 15 pages of comments and five different rounds of reviews. She had the patience and perseverance, and the paper turned out magnificently.”

Deep-sea hydrothermal vents have long been considered a possible birthplace of life. Discovered in the deep ocean in the late 1970s, these systems host entire ecosystems that thrive without sunlight. Instead of photosynthesis, microbes use chemical energy from compounds released by vent fluids, such as hydrogen sulfide, in a process known as chemosynthesis.

Some deep-sea vents are powered by heat from the Earth’s interior near volcanic activity while others are driven by chemical reactions between water and rock that generate heat without magma. This heat facilitates chemical processes and provides a warm oasis in the otherwise barren seafloor of the deep ocean. 

Cinquemani’s paper places more focus on a different category that has recently begun gaining attention: hydrothermal systems created by meteor impacts.

When a large meteor strikes Earth, the impact generates intense heat and melts surrounding rock. As the area cools and water fills the crater, a hot, mineral-rich environment can form, similar in some ways to deep-sea vents.

“You have a lake surrounding a very, very warm center,” Cinquemani said. “And now you get a hydrothermal vent system, just like in the deep sea, but made by the heat from an impact.”

To explore how these systems might support life, she examined research on three well-studied crater sites that span vastly different periods of Earth’s history. The oldest is the Chicxulub impact structure beneath Mexico’s Yucatán Peninsula, formed about 65 million years ago and later shown to have hosted a long-lived hydrothermal system. Next is the Haughton impact structure in the Canadian Arctic, formed about 31 million years ago. The youngest is Lonar Lake in India, created about 50,000 years ago, where the crater still contains water and offers clues about how these systems evolve over time.

Hydrothermal vents on the ocean floor spew black smoke, which forms when super-hot vent water hits the cold ocean. Scientists view them as candidates for where life may have started, because they provide heat, minerals and chemical energy that early life could have used to form and grow. Photo: Richard Lutz

These impact-generated systems may last thousands to tens of thousands of years, giving simple molecules time to form more complex structures that could lead to life.

Scientists say such environments may have been especially important on early Earth, which experienced frequent asteroid impacts. In that sense, events often seen as destructive also may have helped create the conditions for life.

The idea builds on decades of research into deep-sea vents while expanding the search for life’s origins into new territory.

Lutz helped explore these deep-sea environments several decades ago when they were still a scientific mystery. As a young postdoctoral researcher, he joined the first biological expedition to study hydrothermal vents and descended more than a mile beneath the ocean surface in the research deep-sea submersible Alvin, where he observed thriving communities of organisms in total darkness.

Those dives helped open a new field of research and shaped scientists’ understanding of how life can exist in extreme environments without sunlight.

“We have talked for many years about the possibility that life may have originated at deep-sea hydrothermal vents,” Lutz said.

Cinquemani’s work brings together those long-standing ideas with newer evidence that impact-generated systems also could play a role and may in some cases offer favorable conditions for early chemical reactions.

Scientists pilot the research submersible Alvin in the deep ocean to explore that world. Rutgers scientists have played an important role in discoveries made through Alvin. Photo: Richard Lutz

The implications extend beyond Earth. Hydrothermal activity is thought to exist on the ocean floors of icy moons such as Jupiter’s Europa and Saturn’s Enceladus, and may have existed in impact craters on young Mars. If these environments on Earth can support the chemistry of life, they could become key targets in the search for life elsewhere.

For Cinquemani, the work is driven by curiosity.

“Humans are insanely curious beings,” said Cinquemani, who works as a technician at Rutgers’ New Jersey Aquaculture Innovation Center in Cape May, N.J., where she supports aquaculture research while preparing to pursue advanced study in marine science. “We question everything. We may never know exactly how we began, but we can try our best to understand how things might have occurred.”

Microfluidic system used by the researchers to study the dissolution of calcium carbonate in marine snow mounted. Photo: Yuval Jacobi

As any diver knows, oceans can be cloudy places. Even on sunny days, snow-like particles drift through the water column, obscuring the aquatic world below.

Scientists have long known that this “marine snow” carries inorganic calcium carbonate – the building block of shells – but couldn’t explain how the mineral dissolves in the upper part of the ocean.

New research from Rutgers University-New Brunswick points to the culprit: bacteria.

“Think of marine particles as the megacities of the ocean,” said Benedict Borer, an assistant professor of marine and coastal sciences at the Rutgers School of Environmental and Biological Sciences and lead author of the study published in the journal Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences. “Within these tiny spaces, there are huge amounts of microbial activity. It’s here where calcium carbonate dissolves.” 

The findings could reshape how climate scientists model carbon sequestration – the natural or engineered process by which carbon dioxide gas is removed from the atmosphere – and ocean carbon cycling (the exchange of carbon between the atmosphere and the ocean), Borer said.

Benedict Borer.

“Oceanographers often think about the macro-scale, but in this instance, what’s happening in microscopic particles is controlling the entire ocean,” he said. 

Oceans are central to the planet’s biological carbon pump. At the surface, microscopic algae called phytoplankton absorb carbon dioxide from the atmosphere – including that released by the burning of fossil fuels – and convert it into biomass and, in the case of a phytoplankton called coccolithophores, calcium carbonate shells. 

When marine organisms die and sink, billions of tons of organic and inorganic carbon are carried downward each year. The deeper the carbon sinks, the longer it is stored. Eventually, in the cold, acidic depths, calcium carbonate dissolves, carbon dioxide is released, and the cycle continues.

However, while oceanographers have long known that calcium carbonate dissolves in the upper few thousand meters of the ocean, they could not explain the mechanism. The chemistry doesn’t favor it, Borer said.

Recent studies have provided clues, showing that acidic microenvironments in the guts of zooplankton enhance calcium carbonate dissolution, and suggesting that the interiors of marine snow particles may be additional hotspots for calcite dissolution, the crystalline form of calcium carbonate.

To test this theory, Borer and colleagues at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology and Woods Hole Oceanographic Institution studied how the chemistry of marine snow behaves in shallow seas.

In the lab, Borer built a three-layer microfluidic chip to mimic marine snow sinking through the water column. The middle layer held marine particles with calcite and marine bacteria. The top and bottom layers sealed the system, while artificial seawater flowed through the narrow channel between them, simulating particle sinking.

By controlling gas pressure, temperature, oxygen, and bacterial abundance, the team recreated the conditions within a sinking particle and measured how bacterial growth affected calcite.

As particles settled, bacterial respiration increased acidity around them, accelerating calcite dissolution. As a critical consequence, less calcite acting as ballast means that particles sink more slowly.

The results suggest that microbially driven changes in marine snow may dissolve enough calcite near the surface to slow sinking rates and reduce the efficiency of carbon sequestration. And because growing bacteria release carbon dioxide as a byproduct, the process may accelerate the return of heat-trapping gases to the atmosphere, Borer said.

More work is needed to confirm the findings in the open ocean, but the discovery clarifies bacteria’s role in carbon cycling and could improve future climate models and inform geoengineering approaches, he said.

“Our results provide a critical first step to decipher the influence of microbial-enhanced calcite dissolution in marine snow particles, and how it impacts the ocean’s ability to sequester carbon at the global scale,” Borer said.

He added: “The question now is how the biological carbon pump will change in the future. Will the transport of carbon to depth become more efficient, or will bacteria respire the carbon more quickly, releasing carbon dioxide back into the atmosphere? To predict this, we need to understand all mechanisms that impact carbon transport to depth, such as the microbially enhanced dissolution of ballasting calcite. What I find quite scary, honestly, is that this process could go either way.”

This article first appeared in Rutgers Today.

L-R: Frances Wood (UKRI), and collaborators Bruce Greive (U Manchester), Siobain Duffy (Rutgers), Linda Hanley-Bowdoin (North Carolina State U), Hujun Yin (U Manchester), Jose Trino Ascencio-Ibáñez (NCSU), Vasthi Alonso-Chavez (Rothamsted Research) pictured at the Pioneering UK–US Breakthroughs (PUB) Award event on March 4, 2026. Photo credit: Thomas Pospiech – UKRI North America Thomas.Pospiech@ukri.org

At a reception hosted at the British Embassy in Washington, D.C. on March 4, Professor Siobain Duffy and her international research team were recognized with the Pioneering UK–US Breakthroughs (PUB) Award, a distinction honoring seven collaborative teams whose work is addressing some of the world’s most urgent challenges.

Presented by His Majesty’s Ambassador to the United States, Sir Christian Turner, and UK Research and Innovation (UKRI) International Director Frances Wood, the award highlights the global impact of cross-border scientific partnerships. Duffy, professor and chair of the Department of Ecology, Evolution, and Natural Resources, was part of one of the seven selected teams, recognized for pioneering a transformative technology to detect crop viruses.

Duffy serves as principal investigator on the NSF-BBSRC-funded project, “US-UK Collab: Resurrecting a role for roguing: Presymptomatic detection with multispectral imaging to quantify and control the transmission of cassava brown streak disease.” The research introduces a novel multispectral imaging device capable of detecting viral infections in crops earlier, faster, and more cost-effectively than traditional genetic testing.

Genetic analysis of cassava brown streak disease root necrosis using image analysis and genome-wide association studies. Copyright © 2024 Nandudu, Strock, Ogbonna, Kawuki and Jannink.

“This award reflects the strength of international collaboration in tackling complex global problems,” said Duffy. “By bringing together expertise across disciplines and continents, we are developing tools that can make a real difference for farmers and food systems worldwide.”

At the center of the team’s work is cassava brown streak disease, a devastating viral infection threatening cassava crops across sub-Saharan Africa. Cassava, a staple food for hundreds of millions of people, is also gaining traction globally as a climate-resilient alternative to wheat because it requires less water and can survive in harsher conditions.

The challenge, Duffy explains, is that the disease often goes undetected until it is too late. “The symptoms of the disease are often so subtle on the above-ground parts of the plant that farmers do not know their fields are infected,” she said. “The disease spreads throughout the growing season, and when the roots are harvested, they are full of necrotic lesions.”

To address this, the team has developed a cutting-edge multispectral imaging system that scans cassava leaves using wavelengths beyond the visible spectrum. Combined with machine learning models, the device can identify infected plants before visible symptoms appear—and even earlier than conventional molecular diagnostics.

“Our team has developed a multi-spectral imager that scans cassava leaves with many wavelengths of light,” Duffy explained. “Extensive training has yielded machine learning models that can detect diseased plants earlier than molecular tests, and much earlier than slight symptoms develop.” Early detection enables farmers to remove infected plants before the disease spreads. “If we had a better way to detect which plants were infected earlier in the season, then farmers could ‘rogue’ the diseased plants and prevent further spread of the disease,” she added.

A new device for field-testing crops for Cassava Mosaic and Brown Streak disease. Photo courtesy of UKRI.

The project brings together a highly interdisciplinary team spanning institutions in the United States, the United Kingdom, and East Africa, including molecular virologists, evolutionary biologists, engineers and AI specialists, mathematical modelers, and field-based researchers working directly with farming communities. Field testing of the imaging device is currently underway in Tanzania, where the team is evaluating its effectiveness in real-world conditions.

Looking ahead, Duffy notes that if the technology proves successful, the team plans to partner with Tanzania’s clean seed system to ensure that certified cassava planting material is free of the disease.

The broader implications of the research are significant. By enabling earlier detection and containment of plant viruses, the technology has the potential to reduce crop loss, boost yields, and decrease reliance on expensive laboratory diagnostics. In doing so, it supports local livelihoods, strengthens rural economies, and contributes to more resilient global food systems.

“This technology can help safeguard food security,” said Duffy, underscoring its importance for regions where cassava is a dietary and economic cornerstone.

Funded jointly by the U.S. National Science Foundation and the UK Biotechnology and Biological Sciences Research Council through the Ecology and Evolution of Infectious Disease Program, the project exemplifies how international collaboration can drive innovation with meaningful, far-reaching impact.

Sampling rosette with gray sampling bottles at left, the ship’s rail at lower right, and the face of the ice shelf in the background. Photo: Rob Sherrell

For scientists who study the Southern Ocean, a long-standing silver lining in the gloomy forecast of climate change has been the theory of iron fertilization. As temperatures rise and glaciers in Antarctica melt, ice-trapped iron would feed blooms of microscopic algae, pulling heat-trapping carbon dioxide from the atmosphere as they grow.

There’s just one problem: The theory doesn’t hold water.

In what researchers describe as the most accurate measurement of iron inputs from a glacier in Antarctica, marine scientists from Rutgers University-New Brunswick have discovered that meltwater from an Antarctic ice shelf supplies far less iron to surrounding waters than once thought.

The findings, published in the journal Communications Earth and Environment, raise questions about the sources of iron in the Southern Ocean near Antarctica, and could significantly alter how climate change predictions are forecasted and modeled, the researchers said.

“It has been widely assumed that glacial melting underneath ice shelves contributes considerable bioavailable iron to these shelf waters, in a process of natural glacier-driven iron fertilization,” said Rob Sherrell, a professor in the Department of Marine and Coastal Sciences at the Rutgers School of Environmental and Biological Sciences and the study’s principal investigator. 

Sherrell said the study modifies those assumptions by determining that the amount of iron in meltwater is several times lower than previously thought and that most of that iron comes from a different type of meltwater than is produced by ice shelves melting.

Despite being shrouded in darkness for several months a year, the Antarctic waters of the Southern Ocean are a highly productive region for growth of phytoplankton – the vital food source for krill, which feeds penguins, seals and whales. As phytoplankton grow, they absorb vast amounts of carbon dioxide through photosynthesis, making the region the world’s largest oceanic sink for the climate-warming gas. 

Previous research into iron sources in the Southern Ocean has primarily been through simulations and computer modeling. Together with researchers from Rutgers and several universities in the United States and the United Kingdom, Sherrell, who also is a professor at the Department of Earth and Planetary Sciences at the Rutgers School of Arts and Sciences, took a different approach. In 2022, they traveled aboard a now-decommissioned U.S. icebreaker, the Nathaniel B. Palmer, to the Dotson Ice Shelf, located in the Amundsen Sea in West Antarctica, to collect melting glacial water at the source.  The Amundsen Sea accounts for most of the sea level rise driven by Antarctic melting. 

In the Amundsen Sea, glacial meltwater comes from beneath floating ice shelves – the seaward extensions of glaciers from the continent – and the melting is caused primarily by warm water that flows from the deep ocean into the cavities under the ice.

At the Dotson Ice Shelf, Sherrell and his team identified where seawater enters one such cavity and where it exits after meltwater is added. They collected water samples from entry and exit points.

Back in New Jersey, Sherrell’s colleague Venkatesh Chinni, a postdoctoral scholar and lead author of the study, analyzed the samples for iron content in both its dissolved state and in suspended particles.  Collaborators Jessica Fitzsimmons, a professor and chemical oceanographer, and Janelle Steffen, an assistant research scientist, both at Texas A&M University, measured the isotopic ratios to “fingerprint” and distinguish the sources. Steffen carried out initial isotopic measurements in the laboratory of Tim Conway, an associate professor at the University of South Florida.

Chinni and the team then calculated how much more iron was coming out of the cavity than went in and deduced from the isotopic data the type of melting that was responsible.

The results were surprising, Sherrell said. Total meltwater contributed about 10% of the outflowing dissolved iron, with the majority contributed by inflowing deep water (62%) and another 28% as inputs from shelf sediments.

“Roughly 90% of the dissolved iron coming out of the ice shelf cavity comes from deep waters and sediments outside the cavity, not from meltwater,” Chinni said.

Additionally, iron isotope ratios from the samples suggest that somewhere beneath the glacier is a liquid meltwater layer that lacks dissolved oxygen, a condition that promotes the dissolution of solid iron oxides in the bedrock, seemingly a larger source of iron than ice shelf melting, Chinni said.

Taken together, the findings challenge prevailing assumptions about iron sources in the Southern Ocean in a warming world, though additional research is needed to better understand how the subglacial processes are involved, the team said.

“Our claim in this paper is that the meltwater itself carries very little iron, and that most of the iron that it does carry comes from the grinding up and dissolving of bedrock into the liquid layer between the bedrock and the ice sheet, not from the ice that is driving sea level rise,” Sherrell said. 

For some colleagues, this will be a very surprising realization, he added.

This article first appeared in Rutgers Today.

This illustration shows how greenhouse gas emissions and movement are studied at three scales: local, small regional, and large regional. Local scales focus on individual sites, such as factories as well as “sinks” like carbon dioxide removal projects. Regional scales track multiple nearby sources and sinks, while large scales capture how gases mix across wide areas of the atmosphere. Graphic: Keck Institute for Space Studies/Victor Leshyk

A study published by the W. M. Keck Institute for Space Studies in collaboration with Rutgers University, NASA’s Jet Propulsion Laboratory and the California Institute of Technology, presents a roadmap for harnessing global-scale trace gas and atmospheric wind observations to improve the monitoring, attribution and mitigation of the greenhouse gases that drive climate change. 

The report, Tracing Greenhouse Gases: A Blueprint for a Joint Meteorology and Atmospheric Composition Program, highlights that the rapidly increasing volume of trace gas observations from satellites, aircraft and surface-based sensors presents an opportunity to improve air quality assessments and surface temperature outlooks. However, the researchers said the true value of these observations depends on the ability to interpret them accurately.  

A critical finding is that improved understanding of the vertical movement of air in the atmosphere is essential for translating trace gas measurements into actionable insights, a challenge that requires close collaboration among scientific communities that have traditionally worked separately. 

“The complexity of air movement and atmospheric composition have fostered two relatively separate research communities,” said Mary Whelan, an associate professor with the Rutgers Department of Environmental Sciences who is one of three lead authors of the study. “We can be more effective by bringing them together in a thoughtful way.” 

The study emerged from a five-day workshop held in early October 2024, titled “Forging Community Consensus for an Integrated GHG and Winds Program.” Hosted by the Keck Institute in Pasadena, Calif., the workshop was led by Whelan, Nick Parazoo of NASA’s Jet Propulsion Laboratory, and Paul Wennberg of the California Institute of Technology.  

The effort convened leading experts in surface-air exchange science, which examines how much carbon is emitted and absorbed by the Earth’s surface, along with specialists in meteorology, space-based remote sensing and atmospheric modeling reflecting broad engagement across academia, federal laboratories and research organizations. 

“Bringing together 29 participants from four countries representing 20 organizations, the study exemplifies the mission of the Keck Institute to foster interdisciplinary collaboration, advancing integrated, space-based approaches to greenhouse gas monitoring,” said Harriet Brettle, executive director of the institute. 

Whelan noted the publication marks a step forward in aligning space-based atmospheric science with societal needs for reliable, transparent greenhouse gas monitoring and verification. By proposing an integrated greenhouse gas and winds program, the report lays the groundwork for future mission concepts, shared community platforms and policy-relevant tools that can support climate action worldwide. 

“The integrated greenhouse gas and wind program targeting multiscale carbon management needs would be timely as NASA begins the process for the next Decadal Survey,” Parazoo said. 

The Earth Science Decadal Survey is a report published every ten years by the National Academies. It outlines the most important research priorities in Earth science, especially studies that use satellites and other space-based tools to observe and understand our planet. 

As global demand increases for high-fidelity emissions data, the blueprint positions the research community to help bridge a critical gap between atmospheric measurements, transport modeling and actionable information on emissions and removals. 

“I think one of the interesting things that emerged from the workshop was the idea of a coordinated research program that integrates data across both existing and potential future missions,” Wennberg said. “I am hopeful that the next decadal will be less focused on promoting individual missions and rather addressing key questions.” 

To accelerate progress, researchers behind the study propose closer integration between researchers who study air movement and people who study what that air is made of. The shared goal of this multiinstitution effort is to translate observations into actions that support effective climate mitigation strategies and informed decision-making. 

This article first appeared in Rutgers Today.

The R/V Falkor (too) is a state-of-the-art research vessel operated by the Schmidt Ocean Institute. Photo: Courtesy of the Schmidt Ocean Institute

Long before leaving port, Rutgers oceanographers Joe Gradone and Corday Selden are focused on packing crates of sensors, autonomous underwater gliders and instruments—some “as delicate as a potato chip”—for a mission to probe one of the ocean’s most elusive processes. In August 2026, the pair will lead a 28-day expedition aboard the state-of-the-art R/V Falkor (too), operated by the Schmidt Ocean Institute, to study salt fingering, a small-scale mixing phenomenon that may shape ecosystems and global climate.

Corday Selden (left), an assistant professor, and Joe Gradone (right), an assistant research professor, are in the Department of Marine and Coastal Sciences in the Rutgers School of Environmental and Biological Sciences. Photo: Courtesy of Rutgers University

Gradone, an assistant research professor in the Department of Marine and Coastal Sciences (DMCS), studies the physics that stir the sea. Selden, an assistant professor and biological oceanographer, also in DMCS, investigates how that mixing affects marine life and chemistry. Together, they are bridging microscopic ocean processes with climate-scale consequences. Ocean mixing regulates everything from hurricane intensity to nutrient supply, influencing phytoplankton growth and the biological carbon pump—the mechanism that removes carbon dioxide from the atmosphere.

The mission, “Surveying Salt Fingering in the Caribbean,” will target the western equatorial North Atlantic, a hotspot for thermohaline staircases—layered waters where warm, salty water overlies cooler, fresher water, triggering vertical exchanges of heat, salt and nutrients. The team will deploy four autonomous gliders, a vertical microstructure profiler to measure turbulence, a CTD rosette to sample discrete water layers and an Imaging FlowCytobot to photograph individual phytoplankton cells.

Researchers will investigate whether salt fingering has intensified as ocean salinity patterns shift and whether the process delivers enough nitrogen to stimulate phytoplankton growth and carbon export. Supported at no cost by the Schmidt Ocean Institute through a highly competitive selection process, the expedition brings together 24 scientists, including students from Rutgers and partner institutions in Barbados, Brazil and Sweden.

As the R/V Falkor (too) departs Trinidad for the equatorial North Atlantic, it will carry more than advanced instruments. It represents a rare opportunity for early-career Rutgers scientists to lead an international effort aimed at understanding how fine-scale ocean mixing can ripple through marine ecosystems and the global climate system.

Read the full article, which first appeared in Rutgers Today.

An Amsterdam albatross, among the world’s rarest seabirds, seen during a Southern Ocean research expedition.

In a groundbreaking study of ancient ocean geochemistry, a Rutgers researcher and a former Rutgers graduate student have found evidence that the end of the latest ice age some 18,000 years ago, a period of rapid planetary warming, coincided with the emergence of salty water that had been trapped in the deep ocean.

The findings, published in the journal Nature Geoscience, shed new light on how salt levels in the Earth’s deepest waters may influence the amount of carbon dioxide – a principal heat-trapping gas – in the atmosphere. 

“In today’s oceans there are different major water masses, and each has a distinctive salinity,” said Elisabeth Sikes, a professor in the Department of Marine and Coastal Studies at Rutgers-New Brunswick. “Researchers have long speculated that deep ocean salinity levels were linked to changes in atmospheric carbon dioxide across ice age cycles. Our paper proves it.” 

Oceans contain vast amounts of carbon dioxide, which absorbs infrared energy and contributes to global warming. Much of this carbon is taken up by marine organisms at the surface during photosynthesis. As these organisms live, die and sink, their remains break down and release the carbon dioxide into the deep waters. The differences in salinity of the deep layers of the ocean help form a barrier between the layers, keeping the gas from returning to the atmosphere.

Warming and cooling are cyclical, and this speeds up and slows down ocean overturning circulation – known as “the global ocean conveyor belt.” During warm periods, like today, the ocean circulates faster, keeping deep water from gathering as much carbon dioxide. When ocean circulation slows and denser water sinks in cool regions, more carbon dioxide is trapped with it. Eventually, the accumulation of carbon dioxide in the deep ocean helps cool the planet, and the cycle repeats.

During the latest ice age, which peaked about 20,000 years ago, the deep ocean stored carbon dioxide more efficiently than today, Sikes said, which helps explain why average temperatures were much lower.

Scientists know that the planet’s warming at the end of the last ice age was marked by a huge release of the carbon dioxide from the deep ocean. But what happened to the salt that supposedly helped lock carbon dioxide away has remained a mystery.

“The exact mechanism, the actual physical explanation for why that happens, is something researchers have been trying to resolve,” said Ryan H. Glaubke, a postdoctoral research associate at the University of Arizona and lead author of the study. Research for the study was conducted while Glaubke was a graduate student in Sikes’ lab at the Rutgers School of Environmental and Biological Sciences.

“This paper supports the idea that it’s the salinity of deep ocean water – the ‘salty blob’ – that keeps carbon dioxide locked away for long periods of time,” Glaubke said. 

Read more on the study in the original article, which appeared on Rutgers Today. 

James Simon, Rutgers Distinguished Professor in the Department of Plant Biology in the School of Environmental and Biological Sciences, with students at Rutgers Horticultural Research Farm 2. Photo: Micah Seidel

The Rutgers plant biologist was elected to the 2025 Class of the National Academy of Inventors

When basil crops across the United States began collapsing 15 years ago, farmers were desperate. A mysterious strain of downy mildew began wiping out crops with no treatments, no way to stop the disease from spreading and no basil varieties that were resistant to the destructive plant disease. 

That’s when James Simon, Rutgers Distinguished Professor in the Department of Plant Biology in the School of Environmental and Biological Sciences (SEBS) organized a team that spent more than a decade identifying the pathogen, developing a solution and breeding the first downy-mildew-resistant basil varieties that are now grown worldwide. 

The achievement remains a celebrated agricultural breakthrough. As a result of his cutting-edge plant breeding research on basil and many other food crops and discoveries that impact human health, Simon was elected to the 2025 class of the National Academy of Inventors (NAI), one of the highest honors for academic innovators.

Rutgers breeders Jim Simon and Rong Di attend to sweet basil bred at Rutgers Hort Farm III.

Simon is one of 169 U.S. inventors elected to the 2025 Class of Fellows and the 14th Rutgers professor to be named and elected to the prestigious organization. He will be formally inducted during a ceremony in June in Los Angeles.

“NAI fellows are a driving force within the innovation ecosystem, and their contribution across scientific disciplines are shaping the future of the world,” said Paul R. Sandberg, president of the NAI. 

Simon’s goal is to develop new plant varieties, strengthen food systems and identify natural products that can address serious health issues. His research includes breeding culinary herbs and medicinal plants, identifying natural compounds that treat inflammation, stroke risk, diabetes, anxiety, depression, and addiction, and discovering natural insect repellents that includes a catnip-based compound that is safe and effective.

Simon’s team is now breeding nutrient-dense vegetables, that surveys indicate are preferred by Latino, African and South East Asian communities. These types of specialty crops support New Jersey farmer livelihoods while providing culturally desired vegetables for New Jersey residents.

The NAI recognition, Simon said, makes him want to continue innovating. His team is advancing new natural pharmaceuticals, next-generation insect repellents, new generations of Thai and lemon basils, culturally preferred nutrient-rich crops, baby greens with new flavors and aromas, and vegetables that can withstand extreme heat and drought.

The full article first appeared in Rutgers Today.