Sample return from Asteroids, and beyond! (Ryan Ogliore, Washington University, Department of Physics)

The origin of the Solar System as we know it today is encoded in the stuff that makes up the Sun, planets, moons, asteroids, and comets. Laboratory techniques have the precision to answer important questions, but how do we get the worlds of our Solar System into the lab? I will talk about the "astromaterials" we have studied, what we learned, how we got them, and how we plan to get more in the future.

Forward to the Moon: Science and exploration of the 21st century space race. (Jeffrey Gillis-Davis, Washington University, Department of Physics)

Unlike the sixties, when only two countries were vying to finish the race to the Moon first, today, more than six countries and private industries aim for the Moon. The US, China, Europe, and Russia have announced plans to return humans to the lunar surface between 2024 and 2030. The main reason for this renewed space rush is the discovery of water on the Moon, which boosted its importance as a launchpad for space exploration to Mars and beyond. I will talk about discoveries lunar scientists hope to make and what these findings can tell us about the Earth and the inner Solar System.

Why is Venus Not Earth's Twin?(Paul Byrne, Washington University, Department of Earth , Environmental and Planetary Sciences)

I will discuss why Venus and Earth are so similar on paper, how they're anything but in real life, why the two worlds might be so different, and what that might mean for understanding the habitability of our own planet.

Our Speakers

Ryan Ogliore, Ph.D.
(he/him/his)

Ryan is an associate professor of physics at Washington University in St. Louis. Ryan received his Ph.D. in 2007 from the California Institute of Technology. His past research includes the study of galactic cosmic rays and solar energetic particles. HIs current research interests include the analysis of samples from NASA’s Stardust mission to comet Wild 2, surface regolith of asteroid Itokawa, and the Genesis solar wind samples, in order to learn about the formation and evolution of the Solar System.

Follow the work of Ryan and his colleagues on @WashUPhysics and @MCSSWashU

Jeffrey Gillis-Davis, Ph.D
(he/his/him)

Jeff is a Research Professor of Physics at Washington University in St. Louis. He combines experiments, remote sensing, and sample analysis to study the geology of the Moon, Mercury, and asteroids. He has mapped the composition and morphology of the Moon and Mercury as a science team member of three NASA missions: Clementine, Lunar Reconnaissance Orbiter Miniature Radio-Frequency team, and MESSENGER. He also leads a national and international team of researchers who study the complex processes and environments that determine where ice will be, how it may be modified, how water was delivered to the Moon, and its active water cycle. This team is called the Interdisciplinary Consortium for Evaluating Volatile Origins (ICE Five-O), which is one of NASA’s Solar System Exploration Research Virtual Institute (SSERVI).

Follow the work of Jeff and his colleagues on @WashUPhysics and @MCSSWashU

Paul Byrne, Ph.D.
(he/his/him)

Paul is an associate professor in the Deparment of Earth, Environmental and Planetary Sciences at Washington University in St. Louis. Byrne's research focuses on comparative planetary geology—comparing and contrasting the surfaces and interiors of planetary bodies, including Earth, to understand geological phenomena at the systems level. Byrne’s research projects span the solar system from Mercury to Pluto and, increasingly, to the study of extrasolar planets. He uses remotely sensed data, numerical and physical models, and fieldwork in analog settings on Earth to understand why planets look the way they do.

Follow the work of Paul and his colleagues on @WUSTL_EEPS and @MCSSWashU

July 2022 Flash Flood, University City, Missouri (Robert E. Criss, WashU, Department of Earth and Planetary Sciences;University City Storm Water Commission)

Urban flash floods are extraordinary hazards that develop suddenly, cause enormous damages, and endanger thousands of people. The record flash flood of July 26, 2022 in University City provides a stunning example.  In University City alone, this flood resulted in a fatality, approximately 300 condemned homes, destroyed hundreds of automobiles, and greatly damaged the MetroLink train, aggregating to more than $30M in damages. New methods and equipment for the prediction, monitoring, survey and analysis of the upper River des Peres (uRdP) basin in St. Louis County were in place and operational during the highly destructive urban flash flood of July 2022, together providing the most complete record yet available of such an event.

Major takeaways are:

1. Peak flooding occurred after only 3 hours of heavy rainfall.  Characterization of this as a "1000 year event" based on the remarkable, >9" of rainfall delivered in 15 hours is appropriate for the storm, but not for the flood.

2. According to FEMA's theoretical models, the model intensity of the flood increased downstream, from <10 years in the upper reaches of the uRdP, to >500 years near the 22 ft. high entrance to the RdP tunnel. 

3. Eleven of the twelve vehicular bridges that span the uRdP thalweg in University City were overtopped, two of them by nearly five feet. In several cases, overtopping increased due to debris clogging.

4. The flood wave moved down the channel at an average rate of 2.4 mph (3.9 km/h), but progressed fastest along much of the lower channel. This velocity is similar to flood peak propagation rates on other midwestern rivers.

5. )  The upper River des Peres is the most flash-flood prone stream in Missouri, due to the high impervious character of its watershed (43%), and the extreme channelization of the stream.

6. More than half of the 26 homes bought out after the 2008 flood would have experienced first-floor flooding in July 2022.  All would have experienced serous basement flooding and utility damage in 5 years since 2008. Thus, the buyout program has already been cost effective. Floodproofing is also recommended.

Impacts In A Flash: The Science And Messaging Behind Flash Flooding In The NWS (Matthew Beitscher, National Weather Service -- St. Louis, MO)

Not all thunderstorms are created equal. Some produce flash flooding, while others simply cause heavy rain. What's the difference between the two, and how does the National Weather Service know the difference? In this presentation, we'll take a glance at what makes a thunderstorm "efficient," and primed to cause flash flooding. We'll also explore methods the National Weather Service uses to track rainfall on the ground and convey impacts.

Changing climate, shifting rivers (Claire Masteller,WashU, Department of Earth and Planetary Sciences)

River channels both control and adjust to the flow of water and sediment within them. This feedback between flow and form modulates flood risk, and the impacts of climate and land-use change.  Considering widely varying hydro-climates, land use, geology and vegetation, it is surprising that the shape of rivers is remarkably consistent across the globe. As climate change intensifies and extreme precipitation events become more and more common, how will our rivers adjust? In this talk, I will discuss how river rivers may (or may not) change their shape in response to climate change and the associated consequences for future flood hazards. 

Our Speakers

Robert E.Criss, Ph.D.
(he/him/his)

Robert E. Criss is an emeritus professor in the Department of Earth and Planetary Sciences at Washington University in St. Louis. He specializes in hydrogeology, the geology of water and systems of water. He investigates the transport of aqueous fluids in environments such as rivers, cool potable groundwater systems essential to civilization, and deeper, hotter hydrothermal systems. Since 1990, the mid-continent experienced floods of such severity that they would not, under normal circumstances, be expected to have all occurred in a period of less than several centuries. Criss and a colleague have proven that engineering modifications of waterways have increased the frequency and severity of floods on most Midwestern rivers.

Follow the work of Bob and his colleagues on twitter @WUSTL_EPS

Matthew Beitscher, Msc Meterology
(he/his/him)

Matt is a meteorologist at the National Weather Service in Saint Louis (MO). He obtained in Master degree at Saint Louis University 2020 where he studied synoptic/mesoscale interactions in fire weather. He is working now as a meterologist at the NWS in Saint Louis.

Follow the work of Matt and his colleagues on twitter @NWSStLouis

Claire Masteller, Ph.D.
(she/her/)

Claire Masteller is an assistant professor in the Department of Earth and Planetary Sciences at Washington University in St. Louis. Her  research investigates the processes and patterns that shape the surface of the Earth and other planetary bodies, or the "science of scenery." She earned her Ph.D. from the University of California - Santa Cruz in 2017.

Follow the work of Claire and his colleagues on twitter @ccmasteller and @WUSTL_EPS

Imaging Permafrost and Wildfire interactions in the Arctic from Space (Roger Michaelides, WashU, Department of Earth and Planetary Sciences)

The Arctic is one of the fastest-changing regions on the Earth. Air temperature records have shown a warming trend of nearly 3°C since the 1960s. This warming is responsible for rapid changes across the Arctic, from melting of ice sheets and glaciers, to thawing of permafrost. Rising air temperatures have led to an increase in the severity and frequency of wildfires across the Arctic. Wildfires threaten the stability of permafrost -- ground that is perenially frozen for more than two consecutive years -- which can degrade and release elevated levels of greenhouse gases for years after a fire. In this talk, I will discuss how wildfire-induced changes to Arctic permafrost can be measured from space with satellite-based radar imagers, and what the implications of these findings are for the Arctic.

Using climate models to investigate extreme precipitation in St. Louis (Alex Thompson, WashU, Department of Earth and Planetary Sciences)

On July 26, 2022, record-breaking rain fell throughout the metropolitan area of St. Louis, producing catastrophic flooding. Although the intense 24-hour rainfall from this storm was estimated to occur only once in 1,000 years, the accuracy of this assessment is limited by the relatively short data record of fewer than 100 years. Since extreme precipitation in the Midwest is occurring more frequently as the planet warms, it is critically important that we accurately calculate the past and future frequency of these types of extreme events. In this talk, I will share ongoing work where I am combining daily rainfall from rain gauge observations with over 1,000 years of climate model simulations to assess the frequency of the July 2022 storm in St. Louis more accurately than previous methods. With our innovative approach, we have greater confidence in the evaluation of the historical frequency of a storm of this magnitude and quantify the increase in likelihood of this extreme rainfall happening again in the future.

Our Speakers

Roger Michaelides, Ph.D.
(he/him/his)

Roger Michaelides is an assistant professor in the Department of Earth and Planetary Sciences at Washington University in St. Louis. He is a radar geophysicist and uses a variety of remote sensing and satellite imaging techniques to study dynamic processes in the Arctic. He earned his Ph.D. from Stanford University in 2020.

Follow the work of Roger and his colleagues on twitter @WUSTL_EPS and his personal website.

Alex,Thompson Ph.D.
(he/him/his)

Alex Thompson is a postdoctoral researcher in the Department of Earth and Planetary Sciences at WashU in St. Louis. He uses global climate models to explore past and future climate change with a focus on the hydrologic cycle. Alex earned his Ph.D. from the University of Michigan in 2021.

Follow the work of Alex and his colleagues on twitter @WUSTL_EPS @ajtclimate and his personal website .

Where do animals go in their free time?

Why did the snake cross the road?

Benjamin Jellen (University of Health Science & Pharmacy)

Brittany Neier

Snakes are very difficult to find in the wild and, therefore, the use of technology greatly helps us understand their behavior. The use of space is one key behavioral trait that is important for knowing where animals reside, feed, and reproduce. Such basic knowledge is still lacking for many snake species, despite their importance for the balance of prey and overall ecosystem health. General public conversations would be focused on radio telemetry tools and their uses for ecological studies, general snake facts, and answering any snake-related concerns that guests may have.

Monkeying around

Gisela Sobral (WashU, Department of Anthropology)

Radiotelemetry is a common practice in primate studies. Although we use it to find them, our understanding on primate movement is still made primarily on direct observations. American primates are all diurnal, small, and arboreal, and very rarely do they come to the ground. Their African/Asian cousins can be small and nocturnal, large and terrestrial, or medium and arboreal. These differences in movement and space use are also deeply connected with very distinct social behavior and physiology.

Our Speakers

Benjamin Jellen, Ph.D.
(he/him/his)

Ben is an associate professor at the University of Health Science & Pharmacy in St. Louis. He works on Natural history and conservation of amphibians and reptiles. He is working to understand the movements of copperhead snakes with radio telemetry on land owned by the Missouri Dept of Conservation.

Follow the work of Benjamin and his colleagues on their lab website.

Brittany Neier, MA in Biology
(she/her)

Brittany has always been fascinated with the natural world and that helped guide her to complete her MA in Biology through Miami University and continue a path of life-long learning. She has spent years working on a project tracking a local snake species and is looking forward to sharing more about the work.

Gisela Sobral, Ph.D.
(she/her)

Gisela is a biologist and currently a postdoc at WashU. With a Master’s in Evolutionary Biology and a PhD in Animal Reproduction, she worked with mammals, particularly South American rodents and primates. Her work has been on correlating hormones and behavior of primates. She will talk about how American and African primates differ in their space use, social behaviour and physiology.

Follow the work of Gisela and her colleagues on twitter @WUSTLAnthro and lab website.

The Secrets of the Universe

Six Decades of Discoveries with Black Holes (Michael Nowak, WashU, Department of Physics)

If black holes are black, then how do we see them? And how do we know they are the objects described by Einstein’s Theory of General Relativity? We’ll discuss the history of astrophysical black hole research, starting with the discovery of Cygnus X-1 in 1964 leading up to the recent "imaging" of the supermassive black hole M87* by the Event Horizon Telescope. We’ll talk about how we infer the presence of a black hole, and how we study the extreme behaviors that these objects present.

Cosmic Forensics Using Stardust Grains (Nan Liu, WashU, Department of Physics)

In pristine extraterrestrial materials, we identify microscopic dust grains with exotic compositions, pointing to their formation in gas outflows or explosions of ancient stars. Since their stellar birth at more than 4.6 Ga, these stardust grains have borne witness to a diverse array of astrophysical and cosmochemical processes. I will outline how we can utilize stardust grains to understand the origin and evolution of the solar system.

Our Speakers

Michael Nowack, Ph.D.
(he/him/his)

Michael Nowak is a Research Professor in the Department of Physics at Washington University in Saint Louis. Prior to this, he was a research scientist at the MIT-Kavli Institute for Astrophysics and Space Research in Cambridge, Massachusetts. He conducts astrophysics research with NASA and European Space Agency satellites, in collaboration with ground based observers. His primary interests concern high energy phenomena related to the physics of black holes --- stellar mass black holes in our own galaxy, as well as supermassive black holes in our own Galactic center and in the centers of other galaxies --- and neutron stars. he is also involved with a proposal to NASA for a new X-ray satellite to study hot gas between galaxies.

Follow the work of Mike and his colleagues on twitter @WashUPhysics and his personal website https://space.mit.edu/home/mnowak

Nan Liu, Ph.D.
(she/her)

Dr. Liu studies nuclear astrophysics and cosmochemistry. She applies micro-analytical techniques to study microscopic stellar fossils extracted from extraterrestrial materials. Dr. Liu obtained her Ph.D. in cosmochemistry from the University of Chicago in 2014. She then spent 3 three years at Carnegie Institution for Science in D.C. as a postdoctoral researcher. She has been a research assistant professor at Department of Physics at WashU since 2018. Dr. Liu has received the Meteoritical Society's 2021 Nier Prize, for her contributions to the field of presolar grains and nucleosynthesis.

Follow the work of Nan and her colleagues on twitter @WUSTL_EPS and @WashUPhysics and her personal website https://physics.wustl.edu/people/nan-liu.

At the corner of epidemiology and anthropology, please join us for a discussion about the depth and breadth of social science. Our first guest, Nick Allen, is a graduate student in epidemiology (the social science about how disease spreads) and disaster preparedness at St Louis University, who has done work for Bayer/Monsanto and is currently working at Mercy Hospital. Our second guest, Dr. Laura Miller, is a professor of Anthropology and Japanese Studies at the University of Missouri St. Louis.

Discovering lipids as indicators to improve outcomes during sepsis and chemical terror events with Dr. David Ford, director of the Saint Louis University Center for Cardiovascular Research and professor at the Saint Louis University Department of Biochemistry and Molecular Biology .

Feed your mind and your belly with a discussion about GMOs at a favorite St. Louis pub. Larry Gilbertson of Bayer will provide the food for thought. Also come find out the science behind fracking with Korey Harvey, a scientist from NGA.

GMOs and Gene Editing in Agriculture and Food

Genetically modified organisms (GMOs) have played an important role in medicine and agriculture for decades. The use of GMOs in global agriculture has a long track record of safety, and has brought many benefits to farmers, however public debate surrounds the technology. Dr. Gilbertson has been developing GMO crops for more than 20 years at Bayer Crop Science, and will discuss the science and public debate related to GMOS, the potential of gene editing, and answer your questions on these topics.

Hydraulic Fracturing: A Discussion with a Petroleum Geologist

An open discussion on what is hydraulic fracturing ('fracking'), legislation, impacts, and recommendations. The goal will be to educate attendees on how to be the most informed on this topic and how to identify misinformation.