Wendie Cohick, Vice Provost and Vice Chancellor for Research, Rutgers-New Brunswick.

Wendie Cohick, Vice Provost and Vice Chancellor for Research, Rutgers-New Brunswick and faculty in the Department of Animal Sciences, is one of eight Rutgers faculty named to the 2026 class of American Association for the Advancement of Science (AAAS)  fellows. Cohick and her Rutgers colleagues were among the 500 scientists, engineers and innovators spanning 24 scientific disciplines ranging from research, teaching and technology to administration in academia, industry and government, to excellence in communicating and interpreting science to the public. Individuals are elected annually in a tradition dating back to 1874.

Wendie Cohick’s scientific life began in an agricultural research lab at Cornell University, where, as an undergraduate studying animal science, she learned to sit with questions that did not yet have answers. 

Working with dairy cows, she sensed that beneath visible physiology lay an unseen network of signals. 

“How does the body know to divert nutrients to the fetus or to the mammary gland to make milk?” she recalled wondering. “What are the long-term signals that control how the body allocates energy?” 

The search led her into endocrinology and into the emerging field of insulin-like growth factors, or IGFs. The literature was sparse, the players unknown. The field resembled a half-finished puzzle, with only a few edge pieces turned face up and most of the picture obscured. In 1996, Cohick arrived at Rutgers University’s School of Environmental and Biological Sciences as an assistant professor. Studying the cells in the mammary gland that make milk, she began determining how the pieces connected. IGF-1 proved central to normal growth and survival, but a complex system of binding proteins was needed to keep its activity in check. 

Her lab uncovered surprises. One binding protein long thought to dampen IGF-1 instead amplified its effects, strengthening the hormone’s drive toward cell growth. The finding reinforced a principle that guided her work. 

“If you don’t understand the mechanism, you can’t know whether targeting it will ultimately help patients or make things worse,” she said. 

Over time, the biological pathways she traced in cows revealed patterns that held in humans, including the intersection, or “crosstalk,” of hormone systems such as IGF and estrogen. Since alcohol consumption, a risk factor for breast cancer, increases estrogen, Cohick wondered if IGF-1 could also be involved. This shaped her studies of breast cancer and what she calls “the developmental window,” when early exposures like alcohol may influence lifelong risk. 

As her leadership expanded at Rutgers, her instinct remained constant: Understand how the pieces lock together. Whether guiding a laboratory or a universitywide research agenda, she urges scientists to look beneath the surface, to understand not just what happens, but why. Today she envisions more precise, molecularly-guided cancer treatments. 

“What happens inside cells may be invisible to us, but it holds the key to giving patients better futures,” she said. 

AAAS, the world’s largest multidisciplinary scientific society and a leading publisher of cutting-edge research through its Science family of journals, announced the newest members of the class of fellows on March 26. It is among the most distinctive honors within the scientific community. 

Wendie Cohick’s profile was written by Kitta Macpherson. For complete coverage of the 8  Rutgers faculty named to the 2026 class of AAAS fellows, read more in Rutgers Today.

    

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Researchers are examining the relationship between childhood obesity and future success. Sergio Arjona, Shutterstock

Childhood obesity may be quietly undermining one of the central promises of American life.

 A study by a Rutgers researcher has found that children who are obese are far less likely to climb the economic ladder as adults, raising concerns that a rising health problem also could deny many young Americans the chance to achieve the American dream.

“Childhood obesity isn’t just a health crisis,” said Yanhong Jin, a professor with the Department of Agricultural, Food and Resource Economics at the Rutgers School of Environmental and Biological Sciences and a coauthor of the study. “It is an economic mobility crisis.”

The research, published in the Journal of Population Economics, examined how childhood obesity affects intergenerational mobility, which measures whether children grow up to earn more than their parents.

The study draws on data from the National Longitudinal Study of Adolescent to Adult Health, often called Add Health, a nationwide project that has followed thousands of Americans from adolescence into adulthood for more than two decades. The study is composed of a nationally representative sample of more than 20,000 adolescents who were in grades 7 through 12 during the 1994-1995 school year, and have been followed for six waves of data collection to date, with the  most recent wave from 2022 to 2025. The dataset includes information about participants’ health, education, income and genetic markers linked to body weight.

Professor Yanhong Jin, an agricultural and health economist, is exploring whether children today have the same opportunities their parents had at the same age.

Jin conducted the study with economists Maoyong Fan of Ball State University and Man Zhang of Renmin University in China.

Using the Add Health data allowed researchers to explore the question in a new way. The study includes genetic information that helped the team separate the effect of obesity itself from other factors such as family income or neighborhood conditions.

The results were striking. Adults who were obese as children ended up much lower on the national income ladder than those who had a normal weight as children. A child is considered obese if his or her Body Mass Index is at or above the 95th percentile for children of the same age and sex, based on standardized growth charts.

“If children are obese compared with normal weight children, assuming everything else is the same, their income ranking is about 20 percentile points lower relative to their parents,” Jin said.

The researchers then examined why that economic gap appears to emerge over time.

“The evidence points to lower educational attainment, persistent health problems and disadvantages within the labor market,” said Fan, a coauthor of the study. “These include higher reported job discrimination and adverse occupational sorting.”

For Jin, an agricultural and health economist, the topic carries personal meaning. As a first-generation immigrant from China, she said she has long been interested in the idea that each generation should have a chance to do better than the one before.

Her interest in intergenerational mobility deepened as she began thinking about the American dream and whether children today still have the same chances their parents had.

“We wanted to explore the link between childhood conditions and intergenerational mobility to see what we can do,” she said.

The researchers also found that people who were obese as children were less likely to live in neighborhoods with strong economic opportunities later in life. They were less likely to live in areas with higher average incomes and less likely to live in communities with low poverty rates.

Most previous research on economic mobility has focused on neighborhood conditions and family background. Jin said her team wanted to explore another factor that had received less attention.

Studies that focused on the long-term impacts of obesity were more likely to examine its relationship with social stigma and educational attainment.

“But few have considered its relationship to intergenerational mobility,” Jin said.

The effects weren’t the same for everyone. The study found that the economic penalty linked to childhood obesity was larger for girls than for boys. It also was stronger among children from low-income families and among those who grew up in the South and Midwest.

Jin said the findings highlight the importance of preventing obesity early in life. Many policies focus on treating obesity after it develops, but the research suggests that prevention in childhood before it develops could have long-term benefits for both health and economic opportunity.

“If you are obese in childhood, for whatever the reason, you have a penalty in your adult economic status,” Jin said.

For policymakers, the study offers a broader way to think about the issue, the researchers said. Childhood obesity has often been viewed mainly as a medical concern. The research suggests that, if left unaddressed, childhood obesity may also shape economic opportunity and social mobility for decades to come.

“Interventions that reduce childhood obesity can deliver benefits well beyond lowering medical spending,” said coauthor Zhang. “They can support higher educational attainment, improve job prospects and increase upward economic mobility for the next generation.”

This article first appeared in Rutgers Today.

    

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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 vi

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.

    

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Post-doc Deepangsu Chatterjee is with the Xiaomeng Jin Lab in the Department of Environmental Sciences.

The School of Environmental and Biological Sciences (SEBS) is among three schools at Rutgers University-New Brunswick to benefit from a $1.5 million grant from the Gordon and Betty Moore Foundation to support 37 postdoctoral researchers.

The funding strengthens research in SEBS, the School of Arts and Sciences and the School of Engineering, advancing discovery in areas such as astrophysics, quantum and condensed matter physics, materials science, molecular and cellular biology, and microbiology.

The Postdoctoral Fellowship Commitment supports scholars across 12 scientific fields at Rutgers-New Brunswick. The grant award is administered by the Rutgers–New Brunswick Office for Research and led by Dr. Sheila Borges Rajguru, executive director for Research Development & Strategy, who serves as principal investigator and collaborates with the respective school research deans.

Post-doc Da Guo is with the Chi Chen Lab in the Department of Ecology, Evolution, and Natural Resources.

“Investing in our early-career research workforce is critical, particularly for postdoctoral researchers who are building independent careers while advancing scientific discovery,” said Josh Kohut, dean of research at SEBS and director of research for the New Jersey Agricultural Experiment Station.

At SEBS, the grant will support researchers who are investigating volcanic carbon emissions, tracing the chemical history of Earth’s mantle and studying how ecosystems respond to environmental stress, and include:

• Deepangsu Chatterjee of the Xiaomeng Jin Lab, Department of Environmental Sciences
• Da Guo of the Chi Chen Lab, Department of Ecology, Evolution, and Natural Resources
• Dr. Liang’s Lab, Department of Food Science
• Dr. Maddamsetti’s Lab, Department of Biochemistry and Microbiology
• Dr. Roy’s Lab, Department of Environmental Sciences
• Dr. Shmarakov’s Lab, Department of Animal Sciences

This award provides a valuable opportunity to complement and strengthen support for postdoctoral researchers who have invested many years in rigorous training. The Gordon and Betty Moore Foundation’s investment supplements faculty-supported postdocs while also creating opportunities for strategic new hires.

Rutgers-New Brunswick is one of 30 research universities in the United States selected to receive support through the foundation, which is investing $55 million nationally in natural science research. Read an in-depth article about the grant award at Rutgers Today.

    

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Images of healthy (left) and SCTLD-diseased (right) Montastrea cavernosa corals in waters near the Dominican Republic. Images by divers at the Marine Innovation Center, Punta Cana. Photo credit: Debashish Bhattacharya

A mysterious disease has been quietly destroying coral reefs across the Caribbean for over a decade. Stony coral tissue loss disease, or SCTLD, causes coral tissue to simply fall away, killing entire colonies — and no one has been able to pinpoint exactly what causes it. Now, new research is offering some of the clearest clues yet.

Debashish Bhattacharya, Distinguished Professor in the Department of Biochemistry and Microbiology and affiliate of the Rutgers Climate and Energy Institute, supervised the work that was led by graduate student Shrinivas Nandi in his lab and published in ISME Communications. The research examined the microscopic communities — bacteria, viruses, and other microbes — living inside diseased and healthy corals collected from reefs in the Dominican Republic.

The authors found that when corals get SCTLD, the rich and diverse community of microbes that normally lives inside a healthy coral essentially collapses. In its place, harmful bacteria move in and take over. The study also found strong evidence that viruses may be setting this collapse in motion — disrupting the healthy microbiome and opening the door for dangerous bacteria to thrive. This phenomenon is referred to as dysbiosis.

Five specific viruses were found in significantly higher amounts in diseased corals. Strikingly, the same viruses turned up in SCTLD-affected corals from Florida — over 1,000 miles away — suggesting these viruses are consistently linked to the disease across the Caribbean.

Perhaps the most surprising finding was the discovery of two coral colonies that appeared healthy for at least nine months after sampling, yet contained the same viruses found in sick corals. These “asymptomatic” corals had a different bacterial community than diseased ones, hinting that the right mix of microbes or a resistant coral genotype might protect some colonies from getting sick — even when the virus is present.

“Finding corals that appear resistant to this disease is genuinely exciting. It opens the door to the possibility of identifying beneficial microbial communities (natural probiotics) or resistant genotypes that could be used for coral conservation. Given how rapidly SCTLD is spreading across the Caribbean, there is also a need for SCTLD diagnostic tools to screen wild and nursery populations for signs of the disease (virus DNA), an area we are actively working on with our partners in the region,” said Bhattacharya.

As climate change warms and stresses the ocean, coral diseases like SCTLD are expected to become more severe and widespread. These findings offer a potential path forward: by identifying the molecular “fingerprints” of disease — and resistance — scientists may be able to develop early warning tools to flag at-risk reefs and guide targeted conservation efforts before it’s too late.

You can read the full study here.

This article was written with assistance from Artificial Intelligence, was reviewed and edited by Oliver Stringham, and was reviewed and editted by Debashish Bhattacharya, senior author of the study.

    

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New research has shown a way to easily differentiate healthy guts from unhealthy guts headed toward disease.

Scientists have identified a new way to distinguish healthy guts from diseased ones and track how some illnesses progress by measuring how gut bacteria interact with one another.

According to a study published in Science, a Rutgers-led team of scientists found that healthy and diseased digestive systems behave like two distinct ecological states, driven not by individual microbes but by how entire bacterial communities compete and cooperate.

“Instead of asking which bacteria are there, we started asking how they are related to other bacteria,” said Juan Bonachela, an assistant professor with the Department of Ecology, Evolution and Natural Resources at the Rutgers School of Environmental and Biological Sciences and a senior author of the study. “That change in perspective allowed us to see health and disease as two fundamentally different states of the gut microbiome.”

To measure how bacterial communities shift between health and disease, the team developed a new metric called the Ecological Network Balance Index, or ENBI, which captures whether microbial communities are dominated by competitive or cooperative interactions.

Applied to stool samples, ENBI consistently separated healthy individuals from patients across multiple diseases. In colorectal cancer, the index rose as the disease progressed.

“This new measure captures this shift using stool samples and can distinguish healthy people from diseased people,” said Maria Gloria Dominguez-Bello, the Henry Rutgers Professor of Microbiome and Health in the Department of Biochemistry and Microbiology at the School of Environmental and Biological Sciences and an author of the study. 

Rod-shaped bacteria and spherical cocci, shown here in contrasting colors, represent different microbes that share the gut’s complex ecosystem. Scientists have found that shifts in how these microbes compete and cooperate can signal the difference between health and disease. Graphic: Xuesong Zhang/Center for Advanced Biotechnology and Medicine

Dominguez-Bello said the findings show how disease emerges when microbial communities reorganize themselves.

“This work shows that gut health is not just about which bacteria are present, but how they interact with one another,” she said. “In diseases such as inflammatory bowel disease, C. difficile infection, irritable bowel syndrome and colorectal cancer, bacteria form more cooperative, tightly connected groups that can dominate and disrupt normal function.”

Martin Blaser, an author of the study and director of Rutgers Health’s Center for Advanced Biotechnology and Medicine, said the findings help explain why so many gut-related diseases have been difficult to predict and treat.

“This gives us a new way to think about what goes wrong in the microbiome,” Blaser said. “Instead of focusing on individual microbes, it shows that disease emerges when the entire system shifts. That opens the door to earlier detection and more targeted interventions.”

The team started their research by building computer models that simulate how gut bacteria compete for nutrients and exchange metabolic byproducts.

“At first we were just testing whether the model could reproduce basic features of real microbiomes,” said Roberto Corral Lopez, the study’s lead author, who conducted the research as a Fulbright doctoral scholar at Rutgers and now is a postdoctoral associate at the Universidad de Granada and the Instituto Carlos I de Física Teórica y Computacional in Spain. “But very early on, we saw that it naturally produced two distinct patterns, one that looked like health and one that looked like disease.”

That prompted the researchers to compare their simulations with stool DNA data from patients.

“When we checked the data, we saw the same pattern,” Corral Lopez said. “That’s when we realized we were capturing something fundamental about how these communities reorganize in disease.”

The gut microbiome consistently settled into one of two configurations: a diverse, competitive state associated with health, and a second state dominated by small, tightly connected groups of cooperating bacteria linked to disease.

Bonachela said the insights and the tool could eventually help doctors identify problems earlier.

“In theory, it should be possible to measure it from just stool samples, which is a very non-invasive way to monitor gut health,” he said.

The findings also may help explain why gut therapies such as probiotics and fecal microbiota transplants sometimes succeed and sometimes fail.

“Treatments are typically based on the idea that you need particular bacteria to be there,” Bonachela said. “But if that is not the issue, if the issue is the relationships, then it does not matter that you give the bacteria.”

With fecal transplants, he said, the benefit may come not from introducing individual species, but from restoring entire microbial communities.

“The interesting aspect is not that you introduce the species,” Bonachela said. “It is that you introduce a whole community, and therefore you are keeping the interactions that allow that community to be healthy. It is not that bacteria need to be there. They need to be there with the right partners.”

Corral Lopez said the work eventually could make microbiome-based therapies more predictable.

“Right now, donor selection is largely based on availability and basic health screening,” said Corral Lopez, referring to the process preceding fecal transplants. “What this opens up is the possibility of matching microbial communities based on how their interaction networks fit together, rather than just which species are present. That could help us design treatments that are tailored to each patient’s microbiome instead of relying on trial and error.”

Bonachela said the team hopes their work will eventually lead to earlier detection and more personalized care.

“We are trying to understand how these systems work so we can make a real difference in people’s lives,” he said.

Michael Manhart of the Department of Biochemistry and Molecular Biology at Rutgers Robert Wood Johnson Medical School contributed to the study. Other contributors include Simon Levin of Princeton University and Miguel Munoz of the Universidad de Granada.

This article originally appeared in Rutgers Today.

    

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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.

    

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Haskin Lab scientists performing oyster stock assessment on an industry vessel. Photo credit: Jenn Gius

The Haskin Shellfish Research Laboratory has played a central role in supporting New Jersey’s oyster industry through decades of research, collaboration, and science-based management. Since 1953, the lab has worked closely with the Delaware Bay oyster industry and the New Jersey Department of Environmental Protection Division of Fish and Wildlife to address challenges affecting oyster populations and to help sustain this vital natural resource.

The partnership began when the industry sought assistance in identifying the causes of declining oyster stocks in 1953. In response, the Haskin Lab established annual population surveys of oysters in Delaware Bay. These surveys continue today and provide the scientific foundation for managing the fishery and supporting a sustainable harvest. Over time, and with external expert review that includes NJDEP scientists and active oyster harvesters, the lab has helped guide the development of a sustainable oyster fishery recognized as a leading model both regionally and nationally.

A key component of this success is the use of a “total allowable catch” approach, which differs from many shellfisheries that rely on license limits or shortened harvest seasons. This method allows for more precise, science-based management of the resource while balancing ecological sustainability and industry needs.

An industry vessel moving oysters to enhance the oyster population. Image courtesy of Haskin Lab.

The Haskin Lab continues to convene and contribute to important statewide discussions and decision-making processes. On February 4–5, 2026, the lab hosted the Annual Delaware Bay Stock Assessment Workshop, bringing together scientists, industry representatives, and resource managers to develop harvest recommendations based on the status of the stock.  Results were presented to the Shellfisheries Council on March 3, helping inform policy decisions grounded in current data and research.

Following these recommendations, the council approved a potential harvest of 79,866 bushels, which is about 2% of the stock. The fishery works hard with the NJDEP and the Lab to complete enhancement activities designed to support long-term population recovery.

The Delaware Bay oyster fishery has a meaningful economic impact, particularly in rural areas of southern New Jersey. The industry supports a network of related businesses, including marinas, shipyards, and local suppliers, in addition to the oystermen themselves. By the time oysters reach consumers, the total economic impact of the fishery is estimated to exceed $26 million.

Through its ongoing research, statewide collaboration, and leadership in hosting and presenting at key events, the Haskin Lab continues to play a critical role in sustaining both New Jersey’s oyster resources and the communities that depend on them.

    

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Image by Kruwt, licensed via Adobe Stock (Education License)

Miles off the coast of New Jersey and New England, two major forces are converging: the rapid expansion of offshore wind energy and some of the most valuable fisheries in the United States. A new editorial published in Fisheries Oceanography takes stock of what we know — and what we urgently need to find out — about how these two uses of the ocean can coexist as climate change reshapes the sea.

Daphne Munroe, associate professor in the Department of Marine and Coastal Sciences and the Haskin Shellfish Research Laboratory at Rutgers University, and affiliate of the Rutgers Climate and Energy Institute, is the lead author. She and co-author Eileen Hofmann of Old Dominion University introduce a special issue of the journal dedicated entirely to this challenge.

The stakes are significant. East Coast fisheries generate $2 billion per year in revenue — about 40% of the national total — and many of the most productive fishing grounds sit squarely within zones already leased for wind farm construction. The Atlantic sea scallop fishery alone averages roughly $465 million in annual landings, and scallop habitat overlaps heavily with planned wind energy sites.

At the same time, warming ocean temperatures are pushing fish and shellfish to new areas, meaning the ocean these wind farms are being built in today will look different in 30 years — the typical lifespan of a wind installation. Research featured in the special issue projects, for example, that Atlantic surfclam populations will likely shift northward over time, potentially opening new fishing grounds in areas currently outside wind lease zones.

The collection of studies also highlights an opportunity. With several U.S. offshore wind projects currently delayed or stalled due to economic and political headwinds, there may be a window to conduct critical baseline studies before construction begins — research that would make it far easier to measure and manage the impact of these projects down the road.

“The offshore ocean is a shared resource, and decisions made today about wind energy development will shape the future of our fisheries for decades. Getting the science right — understanding how fish habitats, fishing communities, and renewable energy development interact — is essential for making sure we can have both a clean energy future and healthy, productive fisheries,” said Munroe.

You can read the full editorial here.

This article was written with assistance from Artificial Intelligence and was reviewed and edited by Oliver Stringham and Daphne Munroe, a co-author on the study.

    

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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.

    

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