Environmental sciences

The Interfacial Transport group explores contaminant flow physics using applied mathematics combined with numerical simulations and experiments.

Geomimicry, Emergence, and Meta Soil Unit re-imagines soil as adaptive matter. We learn nature's microscopic design rules to engineer "meta soils" with tailored composition and function.

The Quantitative Macroecology group explores how natural ecosystems are assembled and maintained, using quantitative approaches combining data and theory.

The Solar-Terrestrial Environment and Climate Unit conducts research to enhance our understanding of the Sun, its surrounding environment, and their impacts on Earth’s climate and weather.

Our unit focuses on understanding how environmental changes impact soil microbes, particularly those that are symbiotic with or pathogenic to plants, and drive biogeochemical cycling.

The Marine Physics and Engineering Unit advances the forecast of ocean dynamics and the development of hydrodynamic disaster mitigation alternatives, paving the way for novel ocean technologies.

The biological nonlinear dynamics data science unit investigates complex systems explicitly taking into account the role of time. We do this by instead of averaging occurrences using their statistics, we treat observations as frames of a movie and if patterns reoccur then we can use their behaviors in the past to predict their future. In most cases the systems that we study are part of complex networks of interactions and cover multiple scales. These include but are not limited to systems neuroscience, gene expression, posttranscriptional regulatory processes, to ecology, but also include societal and economic systems that have complex interdependencies. The processes that we are most interested in are those where the data has a particular geometry known as low dimensional manifolds. These are geometrical objects generated from embeddings of data that allows us to predict their future behaviors, investigate causal relationships, find if a system is becoming unstable, find early warning signs of critical transitions or catastrophes and more. Our computational approaches are based on tools that have their origin in the generalized Takens theorem, and are collectively known as empirical dynamic modeling (EDM). As a lab we are both a wet and dry lab where we design wet lab experiments that maximize the capabilities of our mathematical methods. The results from this data driven science approach then allows us to generate mechanistic hypotheses that can be again tested experimentally for empirical confirmation. This approach merges traditional hypothesis driven science and the more modern Data driven science approaches into a single virtuous cycle of discovery.

Theory-driven research on macroevolution, biodiversity, and evolutionary patterns across space and time, integrating fossils, fishes, biomechanics, phylogenies, and models.

The Biodiversity and Biocomplexity Unit explores how ecological and evolutionary processes generate and sustain biodiversity, and how those processes are being altered by human activities.

Our unit employs theory-informed experiments, genetics, and mathematical models to identify how species interactions vary over time and space to influence ecosystem dynamics and functioning.

The Marine Climate Change Unit aims to understand how coral reef fish respond to human society driven environmental changes such as climate change, heatwaves, overfishing, and urbanization.

We work in experimental nonlinear, non-equilibrium and soft matter physics. Our current research focuses on fluids, granular media, fluctuations in renewables and quantitative life sciences.