In a groundbreaking study published in Nature, scientists reveal that the return of sea otters to their former habitat in a Central California estuary has slowed erosion of the area’s creekbanks and marsh edges on average by 69%.
Celebrating first-generation college students
Nov. 8 marks First Generation Day, as part of the University of Florida’s First-Generation college students’ weeklong celebration.
Contaminated floodwaters could cost life and limb, warns UF engineer
Direct contact with flooding caused by hurricanes may lead to increased pathogens from different water systems that could result in the loss of limbs or even death, a University of Florida researcher told Newsweek.
Simmons selected as ASEE Fellow
Denise R. Simmons, Ph.D., PE, PMP, LEED-AP, was selected as a Fellow of the American Society for Engineering Education (ASEE) for Exemplary Contributions to Civil Engineering Workforce Development.
UF researcher: Floridians must “rise to the occasion” to fortify against impact of storms
David O. Prevatt, Ph.D., professor of Civil & Coastal Engineering, studied the damage caused by Hurricane Ian and said Floridians continue to be slow to make the changes needed to fortify themselves against the costly impacts of storms. “When we rise to the occasion, we learn from our failures,” he said. “I contend that our learning from failure in a context of wind hazards is too slow and the growth of housing — being built in very vulnerable areas — far exceeds our ability to do something about it.”
Understanding nature’s fury: UF researchers take their lab to the middle of the hurricanes
Forrest Masters, a civil engineer and interim dean of the Herbert Wertheim College of Engineering, and his team take field data gathered during storms and compare it to wind tunnel modeling performed at UF’s Powell Family Structures & Materials Laboratory. With support from the National Science Foundation, UF is developing new tools that test hazardous winds on a variety of artificial landscapes inside the lab’s wind tunnel to help better understand how storms impact cities and towns.
CCS researcher developing AI model to predict harmful algal blooms in southwest Florida
Enrique Orozco Lopez, Ph.D., a postdoctoral associate at the Center for Coastal Solutions (CCS), spoke with FOX 4 Southwest Florida about the AI model he has been developing to better manage the water flow from Lake Okeechobee to the Caloosahatchee River, with the goal of reducing the amount of released nutrients that produce harmful algal blooms.
Animal ecosystem engineers much stronger driver of salt marsh accretion than expected, study shows
Researchers at the University of Florida (UF) and the Royal Netherlands Institute for Sea Research have shown that ecosystem engineering by mussels in Southeastern US salt marshes is a stronger driver of coastal ecosystems’ ability to keep pace with sea-level rise than expected.
AAAS honors 19 UF, 5 college faculty as lifetime fellows
The American Association for the Advancement of Science (AAAS), the world’s largest general scientific society and publisher of the Science family of journals, has elected 19 faculty from the University of Florida, including 5 from Herbert Wertheim College of Engineering, to its newest class, breaking previous records for the number of faculty awarded in a single year.
Expanding Pathways For Black Engineers
Denise R. Simmons, Ph.D., associate professor in the Department of Civil & Coastal Engineering and associate dean for Workforce Development in the Herbert Wertheim College of Engineering, is the leading principal investigator for the $1.28 million, four-year project “Critical Conversations: Systemic and Agentic Empowerment of Black Ph.D. Students and their Faculty Advisors in Engineering,” which is sponsored by the Racial Equity in STEM Education program, an initiative of the National Science Foundation’s Education and Human Resources (EHR) division that supports racial equity in STEM.