DEEPS Assistant Professor James Dottin is featured in the latest installment of PBS's award-winning documentary series, NOVA. The five-part series premiers on October 2nd, and will focus on the solar system.

Physics Today contacted early-career faculty in the physical sciences to discuss the unexpected challenges of their new role, including securing funding, building labs, teaching, and recruiting students—often without formal training. Assistant Professor James W. Dottin shared his experience setting up his lab.

The endeavour to leverage mycotecture – called the Mycotecture Off Planet Structures at Destination project – has recently been awarded a Phase III contract with NASA, meaning it will receive the funding necessary to continue. The mycotechnology has the support of prominent NASA figures such as DEEPS Professor Jim Head, who once trained astronauts for the Apollo lunar exploration programme, and Apollo 15 commander David Scott.

This summer, DEEPS Assistant Professor Emily H. G. Cooperdock, graduate student Anahi Carrera, and Columbia University Professor Steven L. Goldstein visited the island of Unalaska to collect samples that will help interpret data from a 2015 NSF GeoPRISMS campaign, as well as pave the way for future research.

Professor Jan Tullis, a beloved member of the Brown University community, passed away on September 15, 2024.

Professor Greg Hirth has been awarded the 2024 Harry Hess Medal from the American Geophysical Union. The Harry H. Hess Medal is given annually to a senior scientist in recognition of outstanding achievements in research on the constitution and evolution of the Earth and other planets.

Each year, AGU celebrates individuals who have made significant contributions to the Earth and space sciences. This year, DEEPS graduate student Manar Al Asad was honored with the 2024 Study of the Earth's Deep Interior Section Award for Graduate Research.

A new paper published earlier this year by alumn Benjamin Boatwright PhD’22 and Professor James Head PhD’69 proposes new refinement to current imagining technologies using a method they call “shape-from-shading.”

Logan Tullai ’25 oversaw the creation of large-scale cyanotype prints using two rolls of NASA Lunar Orbiter film, decommissioned from the repository of NASA data and images once housed within DEEPS. “I thought it would be cool to use the sun’s UV to make pictures of the moon,” Tullai said.

Brown offers transformational opportunities for students to conduct summer research with faculty colleagues and present results at the Summer Research Symposium. Impact: Research at Brown shared highlights from the event, including a quote from WaTae Mickey Jr. ’26, whose ultimate goal is to plan missions to space.

Many researchers describe public outreach as a labour of love, often carried out in their spare time. But some funders reward these activities. In an interview with Nature, Voss Postdoctoral Research Associate Lina Pérez-Angel described her insight and experience with science communication, noting “Science communication is as real and as hard as doing research.”

Voss Postdoctoral Research Associate Lina Pérez-Angel discussed the rapid acceleration of climate change in an interview with The Guardian, saying “there’s nothing in Earth’s history that shows a change happening this quickly.”

From missions to the Moon & Mars, to lake sediments, to climate modeling, many undergraduate students worked on groundbreaking research in DEEPS this summer break. This year, we are excited to showcase these diverse research projects through a special combination of art, writing, and photography developed by Claire Xu ‘27.

In a recent study published in the PLanetary Science Journal, researchers describe an odd surface feature that supports the presence of underground caves termed subsurface voids. DEEPS professor and study co-author James Head indicated that the relatively low lunar gravity likely allowed big bubbles of gas to form in magma, leaving behind subsurface voids.

In a recent study published in Science Advances, DEEPS PhD candidate Manar Al Asad and Assistant Professor Harriet Lau demonstrate that Earth's early tectonic activity was likely very different from what we see today. They propose a 'sluggish-lid' mode, where the Earth's outer layer moved slowly and was partially disconnected from the mantle. The new model addresses previous challenges in understanding Earth's thermal history and tectonic evolution, offering new insights into how Earth's magnetic field is maintained throughout most of Earth's history.

Since last July, Earth’s average temperature has been at least 1.5 degrees Celsius (2.7 degrees Fahrenheit) above preindustrial levels. IBES Director and DEEPS Professor Kim Cobb spoke with the Washington Post about this trend, saying “We’re dancing about a climate average that is very dangerous for communities and ecosystems around the world.” Read more.

Postdoc Lily Dove explains how seals have become valuable allies with scientists who are studying how the oceans are changing in the remote reaches of the Southern Ocean. Tags on the seals' heads collects data while the seal dives and transmits its location and the scientific data back to researchers via satellite when the seal surfaces for air.

The Department of Earth, Environmental and Planetary Sciences is proud to welcome Professor Meredith Hastings, the George Ide Chase Professor of Physical Sciences, as the new Department Chair. Hastings has been a member of the Brown faculty since 2008 and steps into this new role as the first woman to chair the department.

Rhode Island Superior Court Associate Justice Brian Stern has issued a temporary restraining order after a fire at Rhode Island Recycled Metals LLC. The fire released smoke and potentially harmful chemicals detected throughout the city and into Pawtucket by Breathe Providence sensors, according to expert testimony from Meredith Hastings, DEEPS Chair and project lead for Breathe Providence.

New research shows that, rather than an opening of the passage, the safe shipping season declined along several “choke points” through the Canadian Arctic, especially on the northern route. The finding matches expectations that ice will survive longest in the Canadian Arctic, noted DEEPS Professor Amanda Lynch, who was not involved with the study.

Brown's Initiative for Sustainable Energy recently announced Seed Research Awards for 2024-2025, including Assistant Professor Dan Ibarra for his project, “Investigating Mineralogical, Geochemical, & Thermodynamic Mechanisms Governing Lithium Enrichment in Lake Clay Deposits.”

Gabriel Traietti ‘25, concentrating in Geochemistry, investigates the terrestrial paleoclimate of the Congo River Basin in Senior Associate Dean James Russell’s lab. He emphasizes how DEEPS gave him the tools to explore his passion for reconstructing ancient climate to help anticipate the effects of climate change on a local level.

Assistant Professor Dan Ibarra and his team have published a special outreach article in in PAGES Horizons highlighting their cave monitoring efforts in the Philippines. Ibarra said, "it is exciting to share our efforts to develop this work in multiple cave systems in the Philippines over the last several years." The work is led by former Voss Postdoc Natasha Sekhon, co-authored by Celia Kong-Johnson, Justin Custado, Carlos CP David, Mónica Geraldes Vega, and many others, and made possible with support from the National Cave and Karst Research Institute and the Institute at Brown for Environment and Society (IBES).

LUMIO is a newly approved CubeSat mission to observe meteoroid impacts on the lunar farside. This week, the ESA approved the next stage of the Lunar Meteoroid Impacts Observer (LUMIO) CubeSat mission, meaning it could be ready for launch as early as 2027. In 2023, Postdoctoral Research Associate Aleksandra Sokołowska was selected to be a member of the LUMIO Science Team. She shared her excitement for the project, saying "Being a part of this mission in its early stages has been incredibly fun and rewarding because members of our Science Team come from many different countries, work collaboratively, and the areas of expertise are very diverse. This final mission approval means that the journey continues."

A recent NASA Innovative Advanced Concepts award will provide $2 million over two years to continue technology development of the Mycotecture Off Planet project in preparation for a potential future demonstration mission. With support from the 2018 Stanford-Brown-RISD iGEM team, the project is developing technologies that could “grow” habitats on the Moon and beyond using fungi.

Climate Change AI has announced the grantees for the 2023 Innovation Grants program, including "EMPIRIC_AI: AI-enabled ensemble projections of cyclone risk for health infrastructure in Pacific Island Countries and Territories" lead by Visiting Assistant Professor (Research) Chris Horvat. The EMPIRIC_AI project aims to develop higher resolution climate models and targeted cyclone risk projections to support health resilience for frontline communities.

China’s Chang’e-6 lunar module returned to Earth on Tuesday, June 25th, with the first ever samples retrieved from the far side of the moon. Professor James Head spoke with CNN about the significance of these samples and their importance for the international research community, saying "It’s a gold mine… a treasure chest.”

After decades of research, a reliable earthquake prediction system remains elusive as ever. Michael Blanpied ’85 ScM, ’89 PhD isn’t worried.

DEEPS professor and IBES Director Kim Cobb spoke with MSNBC's Alex Witt about the ongoing climate crisis and how 2023 was the warmest year on record.

Research Matters, hosted by the Graduate School, is an annual live event featuring short talks by Brown graduate students on why their research matters. DEEPS graduate student Alexia Rojas presented on her research, "Lead Absorption in Zeolites and Community Science."

Research Matters, hosted by the Graduate School, is an annual live event featuring short talks by Brown graduate students on why their research matters. DEEPS graduate student Peter Van Katwyk presented on his research, "Improving Sea Level Projections with AI."

For their AP environmental science and biology field trip, Barrington High School students visited the Blackstone River to learn about Rhode Island's history of pollution. The trip was supported by the RI NASA Space Grant. “We want to get students outside the classroom beyond the textbooks and internet articles they read about,” said Ralph Milliken, Program Director and DEEPS Associate Professor. “So they can understand the interplay on human society and the natural environment.”

Professor Jim Head commented on China's Chang'e-6 Moon-lander samples, saying, "Obtaining dates and compositional information from the many hundreds of fragments sampled by the Chang’e-6 drill and scoop is like a having treasure chest full of critical parts of lunar history, and will very likely revolutionize our view of the entire Moon."

Celia Kong-Johnson ’25 is a rising senior studying Geochemistry and Applied Mathematics who works as a research assistant in Assistant Professor Dan Ibarra’s lab, studying past hydroclimate variability in the Philippines. In our fourth Student Research Story, Celia spoke of the friendliness of DEEPS faculty and the department’s welcoming, tight-knit community.

In a new publication in AGU Advances, Postdoctoral Fellow Lily Dove and her colleagues present a framework for graduate programs to evaluate and modify their qualifying examinations. "Most importantly", explained Dove, "the proposed process is iterative and data-driven, meaning that programs can continually refine and make changes to qualifying examinations based on student outcomes and experiences."

Ayushman Choudhury ’25 is a rising senior studying Applied Mathematics-Computer Science and Music and a research assistant in the Mara Freilich Lab, where he investigates ocean flux dynamics in the Southern Ocean. In our third Student Research Story, Ayushman emphasizes his passion for using computer science and mathematical modeling to improve our understanding of climate change and help fight the climate crisis.

Our second Student Research Story features Allison Cavallo ’25, a Geophysics concentrator at Brown. She started her research journey by joining the Baylor Fox-Kemper lab, and went on to join the Anti-Podal Oceanography Group where she coordinates science communications for the Scale-Aware Sea Ice Project based in France. This summer she will be pursuing her dream job as an intern at Woods Hole Oceanographic Institute

In our first Research Assistant Spotlight, Jonah Bernstein-Schalet ’24, graduating this Spring with an ScB in Geology-Biology, stresses the importance of fieldwork in kindling his passion for wildfire research. As an assistant in Assistant Professor Dan Ibarra’s lab, Jonah investigates chemical weathering and soil formation in the Oregon Cascades with the goal of understanding more about wildfires in the area.

The Department of Earth, Environmental and Planetary Sciences joins Brown University in celebrating the achievements of the graduating class of 2024. Here we will be sharing an expanded version of our Commencement Program, listing the accomplishments of our new graduates, photos of the event, and other resources.