News
Food Production Data Scarcity
DSI Resident Faculty member Kyle Davis and DSI Fellow Hanan Abou Ali are co-authors of a new paper from the University of Delaware which shows that across food production databases, there are substantial global variations in data timeliness, granularity — or the level of detail, both spatially and by food category — and transparency when it comes to national and international food production data.
For The Record
DSI Faculty Council member Rodrigo Vargas, professor of ecosystem ecology and environmental change, was a contributing author of the 2023 U.S. Department of Agriculture National Climate Change Roadmap. The resource includes an assessment of the state of climate adaptation research in agriculture, forestry and working lands, along with key needs and gaps. For each gap, the authors identified research questions to address the impacts of climate change on agriculture, food systems, forests and natural resources.
The Role of the Ocean in Climate Change
Former DSI Fellow Kelsea Edwing (left) and Lei Huang (center) both recently had papers published in the scientific journal Geophysical Research Letters. They are pictured here at graduation in 2023 with Edwing’s sister, former DSI Fellow Deanna Edwing (right), who was also a member of contributing co-author and DSI Faculty Council member Xiao-Hai Yan’s lab, graduated from UD and served as a co-author on Huang’s paper.
Sloan Research Fellowship
DSI Affiliated Faculty member Maryam Vaziri-Pashkam, assistant professor of psychological and brain sciences at the University of Delaware, has been selected to receive the Sloan Research Fellowship, one of the most competitive and prestigious awards available to scholars early in their careers.
Methane Mystery
DSI faculty council member Rodrigo Vargas, an ecosystem ecology and environmental change professor in the Department of Plant and Soil Sciences, co-authored a study recently published in Global Change Biology, which explores where the methane produced in soils of tidal salt marshes goes. UD researchers took their project to the St. Jones Reserve, a tidal salt marsh near Dover that is part of Delaware National Estuarine Research Reserve that flows into the Delaware Bay.
Supporting Cybersecurity Scholars
UD Engineering receives $3.4 million from NSF’s Scholarships For Service program to support top-tier cybersecurity students and bolster professional development opportunities. UD’s new “Defending cyberspace through active learning” SFS program, is led by PI DSI Affiliated Faculty member Kenneth Barner (third from right) and co-PI DSI Affiliated Faculty member Nektarios Tsoutsos (third from left).
For The Record
DSI Faculty Council member Jennifer Horney, professor and founding director of the Epidemiology Program in the College of Health Sciences, has been appointed to the planning committee for the Communities, Climate Change, and Health Equity Workshop Series: Exploring Flood Adaptation Strategies to Support Health Equities.
‘Costless’ Mitigation
A new paper co-authored by DSI affiliated faculty member James Rising, assistant professor in UD’s School of Marine Science and Policy, looks at a report from the United Nations Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC) that showed global greenhouse gas emissions can be reduced by at least half in 2030 at a cost of less than $100 per ton of CO2 equivalent. This study, however, points out that these estimates do not consider some hidden, underlying frictions that might prevent people from simply adopting a newer, greener technology to replace an older, more familiar one.
Explainable AI
University of Delaware computer scientist and DSI Resident Faculty member Xi Peng and oceanographer and DSI Faculty Council member Art Trembanis are using artificial intelligence and machine learning to analyze seafloor data from the Mid-Atlantic Ocean. The goal is to develop robust machine-learning methods that can accurately and reliably detect objects in seafloor data.
For The Record
Interdisciplinary disaster research involving the College of Health Sciences and the College of Engineering will be supported by a nearly $400,000 grant from the U.S. Department of Commerce’s National Institute of Standards and Technology (NIST) and the National Science Foundation (NSF). DSI Faculty Council member Jennifer Horney, professor and founding director of the Epidemiology Program, will work on research that aims to improve the ability of infrastructure and communities to withstand severe natural hazards.