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The U is a leader in science and technology education

January 21, 2025

He has previously served as the chair of Department of Physics and Astronomy and prior to that, the chair of the Department of Mathematics at the U.

In addition to overseeing these departments, Trapa has also been involved in the Wilkes Center for Climate Science and Policy and is the founder of the Science Research Imitative. He talks about the college, their programs and amazing opportunities for students.

Here he talks with KPCW's Cool Science Radio co-hosts Lynn Ware Peek and Kate Mullaly on how STEM disciplines in the College of Science and beyond have elevated the state's flagship university into a national reputation for in science and technology education.

Listen to the podcast here.

Technology for oxidizing atmospheric methane?

January 21, 2025

One recent proposal seeks to infuse the atmosphere with hydrogen peroxide, insisting that it would both oxidize methane (CH₄), an extremely potent greenhouse gas while improving air quality.

Too good to be true?

Jessica Haskins. Credit Todd Anderson

Alfred Mayhew. Credit Todd Anderson

University of Utah atmospheric scientists Alfred Mayhew and Jessica Haskins were skeptical, so they set out to test the claims behind this proposal. Their results, published on Jan. 3, confirm their doubts and offer a reality check to agencies considering such proposals as a way to stave off climate change.

“Our work showed that the efficiency of the proposed technology was quite low, meaning widespread adoption of the technology would be required to make any meaningful impact on atmospheric CH₄,” said Mayhew, a postdoctoral researcher with the U’s Wilkes Center for Climate Science & Policy. “Then, our results indicate that if this technology is adopted at scale, then we start to see some negative air-quality side effects, particularly for wintertime particulate matter air pollution.”

To conduct the study, the Utah scientists modeled what would happen if you deployed the technology patented by a Canadian company, which is proposing to spray aerosolized hydrogen peroxide, or H₂O₂, into the atmosphere during daylight hours from 600-meter towers. These towers would approach the height of the world’s tallest radio towers.

Read the full article by Brian Maffly in @ TheU.
This story also appeared in Space Daily, Eureka Alert and Science Blog.

Why mobile farm technology won the 2024 Wilkes Climate Launch Prize

January 7, 2025

This story is jointly published by nonprofits Amplify Utah and The Salt Lake Tribune to elevate diverse perspectives in local media through student journalism.

A "pyrolizer," a machine that can apply high heat without oxygen to crop waste and create a soil additive called biochar, dumps loads of the substance into bags. Applied Carbon, a Texas startup, has received a $500,000 prize from the U's Wilkes Center to develop the technology as a way to store carbon. Credit: Applied Carbon

The stalks and husks of corn plants — the waste product left by combine harvesters — could be a key tool in the fight against climate change, and the University of Utah is putting up $500,000 to test the idea.

The U.’s Wilkes Center for Climate Science and Policy recently awarded its half-million-dollar Wilkes Climate Launch Prize to Applied Carbon, a Texas-based startup.

Applied Carbon won the prize for its mobile farm technology, which turns crop waste into a soil additive that decreases the need for fertilizer and stores the remaining carbon in the earth’s soil.

William Anderegg, director of the Wilkes Center, said one of the main selling points of Applied Carbon’s technology is its potential to be made for scale.

“The scalability is very exciting, and you can see a path for them to really scale up across many different agricultural fields in the next couple of years,” he said.

The crop waste is produced when combine harvesters sail through tall corn fields, their rotating blades slicing through the stalks, filtering them into the machine’s mouth, where its spinning cylinders rip the corn kernels from the husk and stems. The combine saves the kernels of corn in its body and spits out the stalk and husk remnants, leaving it to waste on the flattened field.

The prize, one of the largest university-run climate prizes in the world, was created in 2023 to help jump-start promising climate solution ideas. At a September reception in partnership with the Southwest Sustainability Innovation Engine, Anderegg awarded the prize money to Jason Aramburu, Applied Carbon’s CEO and co-founder.

At the reception, Aramburu said that “as a startup company … there’s often a funding gap, particularly in this sector, to get your technology to market.” He later added that the prize money will help the company produce more of their biochar machines and get them into the field.

Applied Carbon now has four mobile pyrolizers, a machine that can reach high temperatures without oxygen, and the company will apply the prize money to its field operations in Texas, Aramburu said. These operations, he said, work in partnership with the U.S. Department of Agriculture through the Natural Resources Conservation Service.

“We’ve got about 4,000 acres of corn that we’re working with. We will test our equipment [in Texas] and also test how effective the biochar is on the soil,” he said.

The yield and soil chemistry testing, Aramburu said, will determine if the process works and to measure the impact of the technology. The project, in its first multi-season trial run, is expected to remove 100,000 tons of carbon from the atmosphere by 2026, he said.

Biochar, a charcoal-like substance derived from biomass waste, is made through pyrolysis, a heat-driven process that uses virtually no oxygen and stores carbon in the waste product, according to Utah State University. Biochar, Anderegg added, is promising as a nature-based tool for fighting climate change because its carbon storage is stable and lasts hundreds of years.

“By contrast, a huge number of companies and governments are interested in tree planting, … but forests are at increasing risk from fire and drought and climate change,” he said. “We really worry about planting trees in one area that may be dead in 10 to 20 years.”

By Giovanni Radtke

You can read the full story for free at Amplify or with a subscription in the Salt Lake Tribune.

2024 Clarivate’s Most Cited

December 9, 2024

Highly Cited Researchers have demonstrated significant and broad influence in their field(s) of research.

William Anderegg, associate professor in the School of Biological Sciences and director of the Wilkes Center for Climate Science and Policy has again been selected as one of Clarivate's Highly Cited Researchers for 2024. Each researcher selected has authored multiple Highly Cited Papers™ which rank in the top 1% by citations for their field(s) and publication year in the Web of Science™ over the past decade.

Citation activity, however, is not the sole selection indicator. This list, based on citation activity is then refined using qualitative analysis and expert judgment as the global analytics company observes for evidence of community-wide recognition from an international and wide-ranging network of citing authors.

Of the world’s population of scientists and social scientists, Highly Cited Researchers are 1 in 1,000.

“As the need for high-quality data from rigorously selected sources is becoming ever more important," says David Pendlebury, Head of Research Analysis at the Institute for Scientific Information at Clarivate, "we have adapted and responded to technological advances and shifts in the publishing landscape. Just as we have applied stringent standards and transparent selection criteria to identify trusted journals in the Web of Science™, we continue to refine our evaluation and selection policies for our annual Highly Cited Researchers™ program to address the challenges of an increasingly complex and polluted scholarly record.”

According to the Clarivate's website, "The Highly Cited Researchers 2024 list identifies and celebrates individuals who have demonstrated significant and broad influence in their fields of research. Through rigorous selection criteria and comprehensive analysis, we recognize researchers whose exceptional and community-wide contributions shape the future of science, technology and academia globally."

"This program also emphasizes our commitment to research integrity. Our evaluation and selection process continues to evolve with filters to address hyper-authorship, excessive self-citation, anomalous citation patterns and more, ensuring that recognized researchers meet the benchmarks we require for this program."

Exploring the "global landscape of top-tier research talent," they continue, "provides us with insights on global research and innovation trends."

This year Clarivate™ awarded 6,886 Highly Cited Researcher designations to 6,636 individuals. Some researchers have been recognized in more than one Essential Science Indicators™ (ESI) field, resulting in more designations than individual awardees. This analysis, which includes the distribution of designations across nations and institutions, reflects the impact of these 6,886 appearances, distributed across fields, in accordance with the size of each.

While the sole researcher from the College of Science this year to be honored with the designation, Anderegg, one of three at the University of Utah, was the only one at the U to appear in two categories, Plant & Animal Science and Environment & Ecology.

This table summarizes the number of researcher designations by field of research and the cross-field category.

One-U Responsible AI

William-Anderegg

Anderegg is also the executive committee member who leads the One-U Responsible AI’s environmental working group. The group’s members bring their diverse expertise to establish ethical policy, explore AI’s impact on society and the environment, and develop responsible methods for using AI to improve climate research.

“Our goal of this working group is to put together a vision and a mission about responsibly developing and using AI to address human environmental challenges across scales to promote resilience and foster sustainable development,” said Anderegg at the group's inaugural symposium this past September. “AI could have an enormous negative impact on the environment itself. There are direct impacts for the cost of running AI—the power and water needed to run the massive data centers, and the greenhouse gas emissions that result. Then there are indirect challenges—misinformation, polarization, and increasing demands on the power grid. At the same time, there are another set of opportunities in using AI to tackle the marginal problems in forecasting and grid rewarding systems.”

The working group’s vision is to utilize AI to bolster our resilience to climate change with collaboration, training, technology, and ethical governance.

“The University of Utah is set to engage in these two focal areas of developing sustainable AI—how we use AI in a manner that minimizes environmental impact and maximizes long-term sustainability? Then, how do we harness AI for environmental resilience challenges?” Anderegg noted.

This is the second year in a row that Anderegg has made the Highly Cited Researcher list. With his mentor, biology professor emeritus John Sperry, the two were honored in the 2023 cohort. The two of them worked closely together, publishing multiple papers over the course of about six years in the areas of plant hydrology and forest stress. Their research is an auspicious example of how, in the tradition of peer-reviewed research, scientists routinely stand on the shoulders of others to move forward human understanding.

You can link to selected publications by Bill Anderegg here.

AI: The Promise and Peril for the Planet

December 4, 2024

While artificial intelligence (AI) has existed in primitive forms since the 1950s, it has now advanced to a readily accessible and ubiquitous state. Browser-based programs like ChatGPT are well-known, but they represent only a small portion of the scope, demands, capabilities and consequences of AI.

At its inaugural symposium last September at the University of Utah, the One-U Responsible AI Initiative invited over two hundred attendees, including researchers, university faculty, government oﬃcials, and industry leaders, to discuss the role and responsible usage of AI. Three key issues were addressed at the ﬁrst panel of the symposium; the environmental impacts of AI, the dangers of AI-generated misinformation, and the application of AI for wildﬁre forecasting, an issue that poses challenges for the West’s electrical grid.

Resilience and sustainability

William Anderegg, director of the U-based Wilkes Center for Climate Science & Policy, is the executive committee member who leads the One-U RAI’s environmental working group. The group’s members bring their diverse expertise to establish ethical policy, explore AI’s impact on society and the environment, and develop responsible methods for using AI to improve climate research.

The working group’s vision is to utilize AI to bolster our resilience to climate change with collaboration, training, technology, and ethical governance.

AI for wildﬁre forecasting

Researchers, including Derek Mallia, research assistant professor of atmospheric sciences, have also utilized AI to forecast wildfires and its hazardous smoke.

“When you think of extreme weather, you think of hurricanes, tornadoes and so on. But one of the biggest causes of mortality is actually poor air quality,” said Mallia. “Wildﬁres cause a degradation in air quality during the summer, and these eﬀects are becoming more widespread. We’re not just seeing smoke across the western U.S., but also in areas that traditionally don’t see a lot of wildﬁre smoke—parts of NewYork, for example.”

The Universal Connection

October 14, 2024

#8 Warix (with ball) about to make a goal.

Warix has been fascinated by our dependence on water from an early age. An avid swimmer born and raised in Sacramento, it was commonplace for wildfire smoke to cancel her practices. This irony fascinated her: to jump into a large pool of water and be forced to get out due to a lack of water to fight those fires. This dynamic captured her curiosity and established the watery track of her education moving forward. She did her undergrad at the University of Pacific, continued her education at Idaho State, and culminated in a PhD in Hydrologic Science and Engineering from the Colorado School of Mines. The flow of this journey has now led to a Department of Geology & Geophysics faculty position here at the University of Utah.

Drawn to the dynamic relationship our region has with water dependency (as well as the bike trails and ski slopes!), Warix's field of research focuses on understanding headwater streams. Headwater streams are supported by upwelling groundwater before they flow into larger rivers that source downstream water supply. When asked as to their importance, Warix explains, “As the quantity and quality of water in headwater streams change, they carry those effects into the downgradient streams. Upstream changes in water quality are going to be mirrored in the downstream water quality.” An example given is that headwater stream drying frequency is expected to increase as climate alters precipitation patterns and increases temperature warming. As more headwater streams dry, there are going to be impacts on the downstream water resources that they feed into, but the severity of drying on downstream water resources is unknown.

Warix, right, collecting water samples from a tributary to the Upper Snake River, June 2024. Credit: Wyoming Public Radio

Such studies are critical, as the impacts of climate change on stream chemistry are difficult to capture in climate change models. Climate change impacts on stream and groundwater chemistry are convoluted, hidden in the subsurface and vary regionally. More pressingly, the lack of understanding of these impacts has led to a dearth of policy protections regarding drying streams. As such there is a ticking timer to deepen this understanding and to motivate a better protection of these systems. Many faculty at the U are currently working on this topic and Warix, as assistant professor, now joins them in their pursuits.

In addition to research, Warix will also begin teaching next semester, and in both roles she brings a uniquely valuable perspective. Co-mentored by Alexis Navarre-Sitchler and Kamini Singha, a geochemist and geophysicist respectively, Warix had to learn how to view and explain her research through multiple scientific lenses and to meet one mentor on their level while also learning how to “translate” their expertise to the other. Such experience with scientific communication is vital and will surely assist in explaining these concepts to students in kind.

Whether teaching, playing, or dominating the U’s water polo team in 2022, Warix’s life has always been connected to water. In a way, this is the headwater stream of her teaching career. With the skills she’s brought to the surface, she’ll surely carry those skills downstream to the students that need them.

A panel discussion on the future of Salt Lake City’s trees

October 7, 2024

Few trees existed across the valley when Mormon Pioneers arrived in 1847. But as the human-planted forest rapidly proliferated after settlement creating a richly diverse urban forest of mostly non-native tree species, the forest functions to shade, protect, nourish and beautify our neighborhoods.

From left to right: Alexandra Ponette-Gonzalez, Charlie Perington and Tony Gliot.
PHOTO CREDIT: Ross Chambless

As our cities become hotter with climate change, how can the urban Wasatch Front ensure that trees today will remain healthy and viable in the coming decades?

On Sept. 23, the Wilkes Center for Climate Science and Policy and Red Butte Garden and Arboretum co-hosted a panel discussion with urban tree experts to discuss strategies for maintaining a healthy urban forest in the face of increasing extreme heat events and climate change.

Sarah Hinners, director of conservation and research for Red Butte Garden and Arboretum, guided the discussion with Gliot; Red Butte Arborist Charlie Perington; and City & Metropolitan Planning Associate Professor Alexandra Ponette-Gonzalez.

“Supernatural forests”

Gliot said while we all want to save the Great Salt Lake, maintaining a healthy urban forest is a challenge coming to the forefront. “We have to engage with our tree stewards, which is every person in the city, to find that balance of maintaining one precious resource (our water) with another precious resource—our trees.”

The panel discussed some key challenges and some guidelines for solutions facing Utah urban forests and those caring for them.

Utah FORGE Receives $80 million from DOE

October 3, 2024

Managing Principal Investigator Joseph Moore, professor in the U’s department of Geology and Geophysics, says that “this next phase allows us to build on our important achievements and to further develop and de-risk the tools and technologies necessary to unlock the potential of next-generation geothermal power.”

Utah FORGE is managed by a team at the Energy & Geoscience Institute, part of the University of Utah’s John and Marcia Price College of Engineering.

Kris Pankow

Earlier this year, in April, Utah FORGE achieved a critical breakthrough after hydraulically stimulating and circulating water through heated rock formations a mile and a half beneath its drill site in the Utah desert and bringing hot water to the surface. The test results are seen as an important step forward in the search for new ways to use Earth’s subsurface heat to produce hot water for generating emissions-free electricity. The successful well stimulations and a nine-hour circulation test were the fruits of years of planning and data analysis at the Utah FORGE facility near Milford, 175 miles southwest of Salt Lake City.

More than two-thirds of the water that was injected underground and pushed through the fractured formation — acquiring heat on the way — was extracted from a second well, offering proof that enhanced geothermal systems (EGS) technology could be viable, according to John McLennan, a co-principal investigator on the project formally at Utah FORGE.

“Nine hours is enough to prove that you have a connection and that you’re producing heat,” said McLennan, a U professor of chemical engineering. “It really is a Eureka moment. It’s been 60 years coming, and so this actually is significant.”

Equally promising was the absence of any noticeable ground shaking associated with the stimulations and circulation test. U seismologists led by geology professor Kris Pankow, associate director of the U of U Seismograph Stations, are overseeing an extensive network of seismometers to document ground movement associated with the project.

Learn more about the critical breakthrough earlier this year when FORGE team members hydraulically stimulated and circulated water through heated rock formations a mile and a half beneath its drill site and bringing hot water to the surface. Read the story by Brian Maffly in @TheU.

Biochar Robots win $500K Wilkes Climate Launch Prize

September 26, 2024

The resulting product is deposited back onto the field, simultaneously increasing soil health, improving crop yields, reducing fertilizer needs, and providing a carbon removal and storage solution that lasts millions of years.

Jason Aramburu, CEO and co-founder Applied Carbon, receives Wilkes Climate Launch Prize in September 2024. CREDIT: University of Utah

The 2024 Wilkes Climate Launch Prize is one of the largest university-affiliate climate awards in the world and is geared to spur innovation and breakthroughs from organizations at all stages, both for-profits and nonprofits—anywhere in the world—to help fund and accelerate solutions to climate change.

“People talk about the ‘missing middle’ of funding in climate tech. For early-stage research, you use government grants to prove the science. Once you have a working design, you might get VC money. But when it comes to building your first few prototypes, investors can’t take the risk,” said Jason Aramburu, CEO and co-founder Applied Carbon. “Programs like the Wilkes Climate Launch Prize are really important to fill a crucial funding gap.”

William Anderegg, director of the Wilkes Center for Climate Science & Policy, awarded the prize to Aramburu during an evening reception held in partnership with the Southwest Sustainability Innovation Engine (SWISIE), a multi-institutional enterprise in which the U and collaborators confront climate challenges facing the desert Southwest and spur economic development in the region.

“Applied Carbon’s bold climate solution addresses a major opportunity for agriculture to contribute to removing carbon from the atmosphere, benefiting farmers and soil health at the same time,” said William Anderegg. “It’s exactly the type of scalable and impactful solution that the Wilkes Climate Launch Prize seeks to supercharge.”

Aramburu and Applied Carbon COO and co-founder Morgan Williams dreamed of a better system that could pick up crop waste and produce and distribute biochar in one pass. Now, they’ve developed an agricultural robot called a pyrolizer that does it all in-field, in one pass.

Fielding Norton Named College of Science Senior Fellow

September 24, 2024

The University of Utah College of Science has announced that Fielding Norton has been appointed to the role of Senior Fellow.

In this role, Norton will serve as a resource for the College’s faculty and staff, focusing on the intersection of climate science, technology, and insurance. He will help develop project-based learning opportunities for students in the College and identify ways to unlock the commercial potential and societal benefit of research & innovation across the College. Norton will also serve as an advisor to the Wilkes Center for Climate Science & Policy and serve on the College’s Energy & Environment Advisory Board.

Norton currently advises insurtech and climatech companies that use AI and other technologies to enable a profitable transition to a low-carbon economy. His career spans more than 35 years, first as a science and math educator in Kansas and Maine, then as recipient of teaching awards while earning a MS in applied physics and a PhD in earth & planetary sciences at Harvard University. Later, in the global reinsurance industry, he and his teams managed and priced the risk of extreme disasters including hurricanes, floods and wildfires. Among his recent leadership roles, Norton worked in Bermuda as chief enterprise risk officer of XL Group, a Fortune 100 global insurer and reinsurer.

“I am thrilled to join the College of Science as Senior Fellow,” said Norton. “The College and the Wilkes Center can play a pivotal role in creating common sense, pragmatic solutions to complex environmental, societal and economic problems. I look forward to working with Dean Trapa and the faculty and staff of the College to help Utah flourish and find opportunity in the environmental challenges we face.”

“Fielding Norton is a world-class innovator with deep roots in climate science and STEM education,” said Peter Trapa, dean of the College of Science. “I am eager to collaborate with Fielding to bring his wide-ranging expertise to our students across many disciplines.”

College of Science Senior Fellows represent a variety of industries and provide key insights and guidance to leadership and faculty. Fielding Norton joins Tim Hawkes, attorney and former Utah legislator, and Berton Earnshaw, AI Founding Fellow at the clinical-stage “techbio” company Recursion, as senior fellows.

By David Pace

College of Science

The U is a leader in science and technology education

U a Leader in Science & Tech Education

The University of Utah is a global leader in science and technology education, research and development and leading these endeavors is Peter Trapa, dean of the College of Science.

Technology for oxidizing atmospheric methane?

tech for oxidizing atmospheric methane?