atmos-news

Ring-of-fire eclipse: How to see it

October 6, 2023

Ring of Fire Eclipse

 

“It’s like when you make a circle with your fingers and close one
eye. When you move your hand closer to your face, the circle gets bigger. Move it away, and it appears smaller.”

Paul RIcketts. Credit: Sara Tabin/Park Record

This is what Paul Ricketts has to say about the upcoming eclipse on Saturday October 14. “This will be a cool event. You’ll still see the surroundings get darker, you’ll feel it get colder, but you won’t be able to look at the eclipse without protective glasses,” continued  Ricketts, the director of the University of Utah’s South Physics Observatory. “Plus, this will last way longer than the total eclipse.”

This is a front row seat for Utahns to an annular eclipse the morning of the 14th. The so-called ring-of-fire eclipse is different than the total eclipse of 2017 but will still be spectacular.

A solar eclipse occurs when the moon’s orbit moves between the sun and the earth so that it blocks out the sun’s light and casts a shadow on Earth’s surface. During an annular eclipse, the moon is at a farther distance from the Earth. The distance makes the moon appear smaller, and it fails to block out the entire sun. The moon looks like a large black disk in front of the bright sun disk. This results in a ‘ring of fire’ around the moon’s silhouette.

Every year the moon drifts slowly farther away from the Earth—around one inch farther per year. Ricketts said that’s one reason to take advantage of these astronomical events while you can.

“Right now, our Earth position with the moon and the sun, they appear the same size in the sky, which is why we can enjoy total eclipses. A few billion years down the road, the moon will appear too small and we’d only get these types of annular eclipses.” Ricketts said. “We’re lucky to be alive right now. In the future, we’d only able to see annular eclipses that look like a much smaller black dot crossing the sun’s surface.”

While many will enjoy viewing the solar spectacle, the event is sacred to local Indigenous tribes. For some Indigenous tribes, an eclipse is a time of renewal and reflection through cultural practices that include fasting and meditation. Diné (Navajo) and Ute Indian Tribes do not watch, or even look at images of the eclipse. When posting images on social media, be mindful of people who want to avoid such images. Consider using a filter so your followers can opt-in to view any multimedia of the eclipse.

 

Learn how to see the eclipse by reading the rest of the story by Lisa Potter in @TheU.

Safe Landings Weather-wise

September 27, 2023

SAFE LANDINGS Weather-wise

 

Aviation meteorologists like 2008 atmospheric science alumnus Warren Weston connect the dots between severe weather and flight schedules by creating detailed forecasts to help planes and their travelers arrive at destinations safely.

From thunderstorms and limited visibility to scorching temperatures and turbulence, the weather dictates when and where planes can fly. Severe weather is the leading cause of air travel disruptions in the United States.

Aviation meteorologists plan for and around difficult conditions, crafting weather forecasts used to determine the nuances of flights, from altitude to optimal routes. They play an essential role in ensuring travelers get to their destinations safely and efficiently.

Several major domestic carriers, including Delta Air Lines, have in-house meteorologists who monitor global weather 24 hours a day. Delta has 28 meteorologists on staff — the largest team of any airline, it declares — who sit in the carrier’s Operations and Customer Center, alongside flight dispatchers, customer service agents and hundreds of other staffers, at its headquarters in Atlanta.

In this cavernous and screen-filled room, Warren Weston, Delta’s lead meteorologist, recently spoke about the importance of data, the difference between surface weather and upper-air hazards, and how even one degree of temperature can change a flight plan. The conversation has been edited and condensed for clarity.

Photo credit: Delta Air Lines

Read the full Q&A with Warren Weston conducted by journalist Christine Chung in the New York Times.

A widely used instrument for monitoring black carbon in real time.

August 22, 2023

Black carbon sensor could fill massive monitoring gaps

Black carbon is the most dangerous air pollutant you’ve never heard of. Its two main sources, diesel exhaust and wood smoke from wildfires and household heating, produce ultrafine air particles that are up to 25 times more of a health hazard per unit compared to other types of particulate matter.

 

Despite its danger, black carbon is understudied due to a lack of monitoring equipment. Regulatory-standard sensors are wildly expensive to deploy and maintain, resulting in sparse coverage in regions infamous for poor air quality, such as the greater Salt Lake City metropolitan area in Utah.

A University of Utah-led study found that the AethLabs microAeth MA350, a portable, more affordable sensor, recorded black carbon concentrations as accurately as the Aerosol Magee Scientific AE33, the most widely used instrument for monitoring black carbon in real time. Researchers placed the portable technology next to an existing regulatory sensor at the Bountiful Utah Division of Air Quality site from Aug. 30, 2021-Aug. 8, 2022. The AethLabs technology recorded nearly identical quantities of black carbon at the daily, monthly and seasonal timescales. The authors also showed that the microAeth could distinguish between wildfire and traffic sources as well as the AE33 at longer timescales.

Because black carbon stays close to the source, equipment must be localized to yield accurate readings. The microAethsensor’s portability would allow monitoring at remote or inaccessible stationary sites, as well as for mobile use.

E

“Having a better idea of black carbon exposure across different areas is an environmental justice issue,” said Daniel Mendoza, research assistant professor of atmospheric sciences at the University of Utah and lead author of the study. “The Salt Lake Valley’s westside has some of the region’s worst air quality partly because it’s closest to pollution sources, but we lack the ability to measure black carbon concentrations accurately. Democratizing data with reliable and robust sensors is an important first step to safeguarding all communities from hazardous air pollution.”

The study was published on Feb. 1, 2024, in the journal Sensors.

In the dark

Black carbon pollutants are a type of fine particulate matter (PM2.5), a class of air particles small enough to be inhaled into the lungs and absorbed into the bloodstream. Black carbon is true soot, produced when hydrocarbons do not fully burn, and has been shown to migrate into the heart, brain, fetal tissue, and other biological systems.

“The combination of increasing wildfires driven by anthropogenic climate change and steady population growth along the Wasatch Front in coming decades will result in new pollution challenges that Utah will have to face,” said Erik Crosman, assistant professor of environmental sciences at West Texas A&M University and a co-author of the study.“The portable MA350 ‘micro’ aethalometer could be utilized in building a better spatial observational network of accurate but lower cost black carbon sensors across the region.”

Though research suggests exposure to black carbon is 10 to 25 times more hazardous to respiratory and cardiovascular health than other PM2.5, long-term health outcomes are largely unknown. An accurate observation network is the first step to establishing disease risk and creating effective public health policies. This study, funded by the Salt Lake City Corporation, aims to help regions with poor air quality establish a baseline of black carbon distribution.

“It’s crucial that we target our measurements to identify the largest and most relevant black carbon sources,” said Drew Hill, a study coauthor who leads data science and applied research work at AethLabs. “We’ve added a feature rooted in physical principles to provide real-time estimates of the amount of measured black carbon produced by fossil fuel burning versus wood burning to allow researchers and policy makers to triangulate such sources.”

Having established the portable sensor’s accuracy and regional relevance, the researchers are measuring black carbon levels around the Salt Lake Valley, including testing concentrations present inside school buildings.

“First, you need to get readings. In some neighborhoods you could look at air quality concentrations, then look at the cancer or other disease rate in that neighborhood,” said Mendoza, who is also an adjunct assistant professor in the Division of Pulmonary Medicine at University of Utah Health. “Getting measurements with a high degree of accuracy, now we can really think about health and policy avenues to really protect everyone’s lung health.”

Jeffrey Blair of AethLabs also contributed to the study, titled, “A long-term comparison between the AethLabs MA350 and Aerosol Magee Scientific AE22 Black Carbon Monitors in the Greater Salt Lake City Metropolitan Area.” Sensors 2024, 24 (3), 965; https://doi.org/10.3390/s24030965.

What happened to Co2 emissions during pandemic lockdown?

June 28, 2023

Reduced traffic during the COVID-19 lockdown was likely the primary driver behind reduced CO2 emissions in Salt Lake City (SLC), according to a new study led by University of Utah professors Derek Mallia and John Lin, published in the Journal of Geophysical Research – Atmospheres.

Derek Mallia

High-density measurements of CO2 were combined with a statistical model to estimate reductions in greenhouse gas emissions across SLC during the lockdown.

The paper reports on evidence of an observable decrease in anthropogenic CO2 emissions. The analysis used measurements from the Salt Lake area’s two CO2 networks–Utah Urban Carbon Dioxide Network (UUCON) and a CO2 instrument installed on a light-rail train car (TRAX) that traverses the Salt Lake Valley. Together, the two networks estimated CO2 concentrations across SLC. The results suggest that high-density CO2 monitoring networks could be used to track the decarbonization of cities.

Of the paper, titled “Can we detect urban-scale CO2 emission changes within medium-sized cities?” Mallia said, “This work demonstrates that mobile-based carbon monitoring networks, like the one deployed on Salt Lake City’s TRAX train, will be critical tools for tracking decarbonization efforts for cities across the globe.”

Given that over half of anthropogenic CO2 is emitted from urban areas, cities will play a pivotal role in future decarbonization efforts, and quantifying CO2 emissions at the city-scale will be important for determining whether cities are meeting CO2 decarbonization targets.

The research was funded by the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration’s Climate Program Office (CPO) as part of an air quality research initiative to track impacts of COVID-19 lockdowns & recovery on urban atmospheric composition. The research showed that CO2 emissions across SLC relative to 2019 were reduced by ~20% during the first COVID-19 lockdown and that the largest reductions in CO2 were likely driven by reduced traffic, especially in downtown SLC on the northern end of the Salt Lake Valley.

Unlike other cities used to investigate emission reductions during the COVID-19 lockdown, SLC is a medium-sized metropolitan area with a population just over 1 million people and emits an order of magnitude less CO2 relative to larger cities like Los Angeles, San Francisco, and Washington DC/Baltimore. Determining whether CO2 emissions reductions are traceable for smaller cities and metropolitan areas has been an outstanding question which this paper now addresses. The study is the first to demonstrate that CO2 emissions in medium/small cities can be measured.

“While no one wishes for a repeat of the COVID shutdown, it does illustrate the large leverage a shift in societal behavior has on reducing greenhouse emissions, whether from reduced traffic or the transition to electric vehicles,” said Lin.

Ultimately, the analysis carried out here suggests that inverse models, combined with stationary and mobile CO2 observations, can track modest emission reductions in medium-sized cities, and to some degree, geographically identify emission adjustments at the city-scale. According to the researchers, novel urban CO2 observation networks, like the TRAX network, combined with new satellite-based measurements approaches, will also play a key role towards monitoring decarbonization efforts in cities.

Other contributors to the paper include Logan Mitchell, Andres Eduardo Gonzalez Vidal, Dien Wu, and Lewis Kunik.. Read the full paper here.

This research was tagged as a highlighted feature by Eos.org

By David Pace

Watch the cool video from Utah Educational Network about monitoring air quality in Salt Lake County along UTA TRAX lines below:  

Utah’s Environmental Challenges

June 27, 2023

“As bad as it is, I think there’s hope,” says John Lin, professor of atmospheric sciences in the College of Science at the University of Utah.

John Lin. Banner photo credit: Jim Steenburgh

Lin, who is also assistant director of the newly formed Wilkes Center for Climate Science & Policy, says the state’s desire to eventually host the Winter Olympics again has added some urgency to the matter of addressing Utah’s climate-related challenges, especially around air quality. He adds that the state’s response to such issues is often reflective of the “Utah way,” in which people with different beliefs talk to each other and work through problems.

The challenges are real, according to a story in U.S. News & World Report which often touts the Beehive State as “best” in many categories. The environment, including air quality, is not, however, one of them.

“With its five national parks, scenic mountain vistas and stunning red rock landscapes, environmental problems likely aren’t top of mind in most people’s perceptions of Utah,” the magazine reports.

“But the proof – and the pollution – is in the data.”

Utah ranks near the bottom in the natural environment category of the magazine’s recently released Best States rankings. “It’s a black mark on a largely sterling record for the No. 1-ranked state overall.”

 

Read the entire article by Elliot Davis Jr.

Dirtiest snow-year in the Wasatch accelerated snowmelt by 17 days

June 23, 2023

As the shrinking Great Salt Lake exposes an ever-growing area of its lakebed, wind-blown dust becomes more dangerous for those living in Utah’s most populous region. It also makes the snowpack dirty, which threatens the state’s most precious resource—water.

“You might see 17 days and think it’s no big deal, but our current snowmelt models don’t account for dust,” said McKenzie Skiles, assistant professor of geography at the U and senior author of a new study in which researchers analyzed the impact of dust on Utah snow during the 2022 season. They found that 2022 had the most dust deposition events and the highest snowpack dust concentrations of any year since observations began in 2009on the paper. “So, the snow is melting, water is coming out earlier and faster than we expect it to, and we’re not prepared to use it in the most efficient way. The landscape is also not expecting the water earlier, so it impacts watershed functionality as well as water availability downstream.”

The study published on June 15, 2023, in the journal Environmental Research Letters.

In 2018 Skiles authored a study that found that a single dust event accelerated snowmelt in the Wasatch by one week. That paper identified the Great Salt Lake as a relatively new dust source due to historically low water levels. Subsequent years of prolonged drought, increased evaporation and sustained agriculture and domestic water consumption drove the Great Salt Lake to record lows in 2021 and 2022 and exposed even more dry lakebed.

“Anecdotally, we kept saying, ‘This is crazy—this is the dirtiest snow in the Wasatch I’ve seen since I started making observations,’” said Skiles. “Ultimately, after we analyzed everything, it was the dirtiest year.”

You don’t need a weatherman to know which way the dust blows …

Derek Mallia

… you need co-author of the study Derek Mallia, a research assistant professor in the Department of Atmospheric Sciences at the U. Strong winds can loft dust into the atmosphere and degrade air quality, which can trigger yellow or red air pollution warnings. Dust-on-snow deposition requires a specific set of factors; nearby dust sources, relatively dry conditions and winds that are strong enough to loft dust into the atmosphere. Mallia developed a dust transport model that can pinpoint where the dust on snow originated by synthesizing meteorological and soil data. For every dust event, Mallia ran his model to identify dust sources that were responsible for accelerating snow melt in the Wasatch Mountains.

“We were expecting large areas like the Great Salt Lake Desert to be a major source of dust, but we were somewhat surprised that we observed such large contributions of dust coming from the Great Salt Lake, and especially Farmington Bay. While the lake’s dust sources are much smaller than the West Desert in terms of area, the exposed dry lakebeds are much closer to the Wasatch Mountains,” said Mallia. “These results suggest that the Great Salt Lake is an important factor when it comes to accelerating snow melt across the Wasatch Front and will become a bigger player if it continues to shrink.”

Read the full article by Lisa Potter in @TheU.

 

Geologist Brenda Bowen, to chair Department of Atmospheric Sciences

June 12, 2023

The College of Science and the College of Mines and Earth Sciences (CMES) are pleased to announce that Professor Brenda Bowen has agreed to serve as the next chair of the Department of Atmospheric Sciences (ATMOS).

Bowen is a Professor of Geology and Geophysics and Director of the Global Change and Sustainability Center (GCSC). She will continue as the Director of the GCSC while serving as chair and will replace John Horel who has been at the helm of ATMOS for five years.

“Brenda Bowen is an internationally prominent researcher and an experienced academic leader,” said Peter Trapa, Dean of the College of Science. “Bowen’s vision will guide the Department of Atmospheric Sciences in exciting new directions.” 

“As most of you know, Brenda is a dynamic leader on campus who has a collaborative vision of academics and research,” said Darryl Butt, out-going dean of the CMES to his colleagues. “I am really looking forward to watching the synergy between departments in our merged college structure as you all continue to break down barriers of academics and, as I like to say, make two plus two equal something greater than four.”

 Said Bowen who begins her tour as chair on July 1, 2023, “I am excited for the opportunity to serve as Chair of Atmospheric Sciences.  I look forward to leading ATMOS in a way that creates stronger connections between our departments and the College of Science as a whole. My goal is to build on the department’s leadership in advancing field stations and long-term field-based science, commitment to conducting and advancing community-based research with highly significant societal relevance, and dedication to training students for careers of the future.”  

An interdisciplinary geoscientist, Bowen explores the links between sedimentology, geochemistry and environmental change, particularly in extreme environments.  Recent work is focused on how surface process, groundwater flow and geochemical change impact landscape evolution in human-modified systems using field observations, satellite and airborne remote sensing and a range of lab-based analytical techniques including geochemistry and microscopy. 

In addition to her geologic research and teaching, Bowen works to facilitate interdisciplinary sustainability research, practice, and academic programs that address critical issues related to understanding global change and creating sustainable solutions related to energy, resources and climate.

ATMOS is the leading program of weather and climate related research and education in the Intermountain West and is recognized internationally for its expertise in cloud-climate interactions, mountain meteorology, climate physics and dynamics, weather and climate modeling, and tropical meteorology. The department, which celebrated its 75th anniversary earlier this year, houses research and teaching endeavors that provide the knowledge and tools needed by society to address the challenges posed by hazardous weather and climate change in the 21st century. The department is a student-centered department with faculty who are dedicated graduate student mentors and classroom instructors. Several of ATMOS professors have won college or university-wide teaching awards. For more information, read the department’s 2023 magazine Air Currents.

 

Tinker Toy Rises

June 9, 2023

After months of earth-moving, the Applied Science Project gets some serious hardware.

Senior Risk and Safety Manager Carlyn Chester and flagman Alan. Credit: David Pace

These days pedestrians along University Street on the westside of campus are typically met by Alan, a bearded, sixty-something employee and certified UDOT flagger dressed in Okland Construction garb, including hard hat with neck sunshade that cascades to his shoulders and sometimes flaps in the wind. Alan’s here keeping order at the gated threshold to the construction site of the Applied Science Project and is happy to give you a fist bump as you walk to work along the detour they’ve put up. Armed with a push broom, and a mobile phone, he slows traffic for entering and exiting trucks, and lines up arrivals carrying everything from timbers to a porta-potty called “Honey Bucket.”

On the morning of June 7th, the team was preparing for the delivery of a giant tower crane, in sections, which will stand around 265 feet tall for a full year at the site like a giant Tinker Toy. A tower crane features a jib or “jib arm” as a horizontal beam used to support the load clear of the main support. It can typically lift 19.8 tons (18 metric tons).

“So these cranes are so big they need to have all these counterweights and stuff,” says Carlyn Chester BS’09, Senior Risk and Safety Manager at Okland Construction. She spells her name for us: “Like George Carlin [the late sometimes raunchy comedian] but with a ‘y’ . . . and I’m not a dirty old man,” she says with a laugh. Chester oversees all of the many Okland projects at the University of Utah.  The cranes need to be “strong enough to pick up those tower pieces,” she continues over the relentless beeping of a nearby steer loader pushing gravel.  “You need a crane to build a crane. You have to put in all the counterweights and footings . . . [There are] two big semis worth of materials just to get that crane set up tomorrow before the tower crane comes in.”

Credit: Todd Anderson

The gaping hole in front of the old Stewart Building—site of the new Applied Science Building—is squared off with wooden bulwarks holding up the sides (temporary) backed by a cement retaining wall (permanent). It looks like a neatly squared-off grave for a giant of sorts, two stories deep at the back and the sides sloping down the hill to a mere curb at the street. It’s a striking contrast to the bucolic Cottam’s Gulch with its brick path and towering hybrid trees to the north which will be a preserved historic asset to what will become the College of Science’s Crocker Science Complex.

“Did you find any bones?” we ask. Back in 2017 when the George Thomas Building was being retrofitted and expanded for the Crocker Science Center, Okland unearthed human bones that turned out to be the remains of old cadavers that had been discarded decades earlier by the medical school, originally located in the Life Sciences Building, another Okland project on campus.

“We found a couple of things,” says Chester. “The paleontologist people were here every single day when we were digging.” (It turns out the bones were from modern animals.)

Credit: Todd Anderson

Carlyn points at a boxy, hexagonal structure to the left where a temporary footing has been positioned in the bottom of it. The footing is inspected by a structural engineer “to make sure it’s level and plumb so that when we start building, [the tower crane is] stable. There’s so much science that goes into it and mathematics,” she says.

Meanwhile, Alan has ambled back to the street to talk to a truck driver who has just pulled up. When he returns, he and Carlyn pose for a picture together­–all smiles under their hard hats and neck shades that faintly remind one of Lawrence of Arabia’s. Alone, we ask Alan to “Flash the U” for us which he struggles a bit with. “My dad went to BYU,” he says sheepishly.

Bright and early next morning, Alan was back giving his signature fist bumps to passers-by. They stopped for a few moments to witness the newly arrived crane-to-build-a-crane with a synchronized telescoping boom as high (or higher) than one of those vertiginous, gut-wrenching rides at Lagoon amusement park north of here. Soon the semis arrived with tower segments which were off-loaded, rigged and then lofted off the ground vertically.

Even the rowdy fox squirrels in Cottam’s Gulch paused in a moment of awe as the Tinker Toy began to rise, a flash of yellow latticed steel against the summer sky.

By David Pace

 

 

 

2023 Outstanding Undergraduate Research Mentors

June 2, 2023

The Office of Undergraduate Research has created a faculty award to honor mentors for their work with students. The Outstanding Undergraduate Research Mentor Award, now in its inaugural year, is given to those who were selected by their college leadership and peers for their dedicated service to mentorship.

Of the 420 mentors across campus who worked with the Office of Undergraduate Research this year, two of the 2023 winners of the Outstanding Undergraduate Research Mentor Award are seated in the College of Science: Ofer Rog (biology) and Gannet Hallar (Atmospheric Sciences).

Dr. Ofer Rog’s research focuses on the complex regulation of chromosomes during meiosis. Dr. Rog and his assembled team of top-notch researchers have developed new methods, used innovative approaches, and carried out meticulous studies that are now revealing key elements of this complex process. The work conducted by him and his research group has provided stunning insights into the fundamental cellular processes explaining the origin and maintenance of different sexes, including our own. As Director Frederick Adler states, “Dr. Rog is also an extraordinary communicator with a dedication to helping colleagues and students find new ways to communicate.”

The Mario Capecchi Endowed Chair in the School of Biological Sciences (SBS), Rog was a catalyst in forming and managing the LGBTQ+ STEM interest group in the College of Science. The group seeks to create change in our campus community with an inclusive environment for LGBTQ+ individuals and allies.

You can read about Rog’s work with condensate illustration in a recent feature in SBS’s OUR DNA here.

 

Dr. Gannett Hallar has been successfully mentoring undergraduate researchers at the University of Utah since 2016. Her mentees participate in the Hallar Aerosol Research Team (HART) making connections between the atmosphere, biosphere, and climate. Her mentees have successfully received awards such as the Undergraduate Research Opportunity Program and Wilkes Scholars. Her commitment to mentoring includes her role as a faculty fellow with Utah Pathways to STEM Initiative (UPSTEM), training in inclusive teaching and mentoring strategies.

As stated by Dean Darryl Butt, “Dr. Hallar is a world-class mentor. Her dedication to our undergraduate students comes naturally, but she is also very deliberate in creating a structure of experiential learning that is inherently unforgettable.”

Director of the Storm Peak Lab, the premier, high-elevation atmospheric science laboratory in the Western U.S., Hallar says the facility atop Steamboat Springs Ski Resort is “the perfect place, to have your head in the clouds.” The laboratory sits in the clouds about 40 percent of the time in the winter. “That allows us to sample clouds and the particles that make clouds at the same time. And from that, the lab has produced about 150 peer-reviewed publications.”

Outstanding Undergrad Research Awards 2023

April 25, 2023

The University of Utah is one of the top research academic institutions in the Intermountain West, and it’s thanks in major part to the U’s undergraduate student researchers and the faculty who advise and mentor them.

Some of the university’s up-and-coming researchers and mentors were honored at the 2023 Office of Undergraduate Research (OUR) Awards, held virtually on April 3 due to a winter weather advisory in the Northern Utah area.

Every year, OUR recognizes one undergraduate student researcher from each college/school with the Outstanding Undergraduate Researcher Award, according to the office’s website. Partnering colleges and schools are responsible for selecting the awardee.

Dr. Annie Isabel Fukushima, director of the Office of Undergraduate Research and associate dean of Undergraduate Studies at the U, said the OUR recognizes that to foster a culture of future problem-solvers working in tandem with current premier researchers in their fields of study, they must also foster a culture of recognition and rewards.

This year, 16 undergraduate researchers were honored with the Outstanding Undergraduate Researcher Award, three of them from the College of Science:

Yexalen Barrera-Casas (left) Mentor: Professor Michael Morse, Dept. of Chemistry

Alison Wang (center) Mentor: Professor Caroline Saouma, Dept. of Chemistry

Nancy Sohlberg (right) Mentor: Professor Gannet Hallar, Dept. of Atmospheric Sciences

“The Outstanding Undergraduate Researcher Awards exemplify excellence in research at the University of Utah across the disciplines,” Fukushima said. “The awardees are creative thinkers, innovators, and solving pressing societal problems.”

Dr. Carena Frost, Associate Vice President for Research Integrity and Compliance at the University of Utah, gave opening remarks on behalf of the Office of the Vice President for Research (VPR). Frost told the audience there’s no doubt the student researchers will continue to innovate in science, medicine, technology and many more fields thanks to the work they do.

“Research is all about helping people,” she said. “Finding solutions for our society is what gets me most excited about the future of research at the U, and you are at the forefront of it.”

At the ceremony event, award recipients were able to thank their mentors, family and others for their support. Four students were honored for being Parent Fund Undergraduate Research Scholarship recipients.

For the first time in the event’s history, mentors were honored with the Outstanding Undergraduate Research Mentor Award. Nineteen mentors were recognized at this year’s event.

Fukushima, who is also an associate professor of Ethnic Studies, was one of the mentor award honorees. She said mentoring relationships are successful because of commitment, communication, and a culture — both within a department and university-wide — that is invested in research occurring at all stages of academic, from undergraduate to faculty.

“Student-faculty collaborations are successful because mentors invest the time, and mentees are willing to risk going into the unknown and the uncomfortable,” Fukushima said. “Doing research is hard, but it can be rewarding.”

More information and criteria for both awards can be found on the OUR’s website to see OUR awards program click here.