{"id":85043,"date":"2024-03-14T04:00:55","date_gmt":"2024-03-14T08:00:55","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/news.utoledo.edu\/?p=85043"},"modified":"2024-03-15T08:57:08","modified_gmt":"2024-03-15T12:57:08","slug":"utoledo-geophysicist-receives-nsf-career-award","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/news.utoledo.edu\/index.php\/03_14_2024\/utoledo-geophysicist-receives-nsf-career-award","title":{"rendered":"UToledo Geophysicist Receives NSF Career Award"},"content":{"rendered":"

Environmental scientists are used to getting their hands dirty, particularly if they\u2019re interested in the properties and processes of soil.<\/p>\n

Samples and sensors have long been standard operating procedures when it comes to gathering data in this line of research. But there are limitations inherent to these point-by-point measurements, said Dr. Kennedy Doro, an assistant professor in The University of Toledo\u2019s Department of Environmental Sciences.<\/p>\n

\"Portrait

Dr. Kennedy Doro, an assistant professor in the Department of Environmental Sciences, studies the environmental applications of geophysics. His latest research is supported by a National Science Foundation CAREER Award.<\/p><\/div>\n

That\u2019s why he\u2019s among the environmental scientists exploring more holistic ways to gather data about shallow subsurface environments through the use of geophysical imaging techniques. He recently received a five-year, $680,238 award through the National Science Foundation\u2019s Faculty Early Career Development (CAREER) Program, supporting his research proposal focused on coastal systems that are facing transformation tied to a warming climate.<\/p>\n

\u201cDiscontinuous point measurements are not enough information for us if we really want to know what is happening within the soil,\u201d Doro said. \u201cThrough this project we\u2019ll develop ways to scan the subsurface and learn more about the environment without having to dig.\u201d<\/p>\n

CAREER Awards are among the most prestigious under the National Science Foundation, and they support early-career faculty who have the potential to serve as academic role models in research and education and to lead advances in the mission of their department or organization. Doro is one of two recent awardees at The University of Toledo. Dr. Abbas Semnani, an associate professor in the Department of Electrical Engineering and Computer Science, also received a 2024 CAREER Award.<\/p>\n

\u201cIt\u2019s very exciting,\u201d Doro said. \u201cThere is no better award to get as an early career professor.\u201d<\/p>\n

Doro specializes in environmental applications of geophysics, a combination of geology and physics that until relatively recently was more commonly applied toward the identification of subsurface resources like oil, gas and mineral deposits. Doro applies geophysical methods such as electrical conductivity and induced polarization, in which an electric current is transmitted or stored in the subsurface, to instead investigate ecological processes that occur beneath the soil surface. What can the electrical conductivity of an environment tell us about the way water cycles through it, for example?<\/p>\n

Doro studied geology at Delta State University in Nigeria, and continued his education with a master\u2019s degree in applied and environmental geoscience and a doctorate in applied geoscience from the University of Tuebingen in Germany. Since he joined the faculty at UToledo in 2019, he has lent his expertise in geophysics to several ongoing environmental research projects including the H2Ohio Wetland Monitoring Program and Coastal Observations, Mechanisms and Predictions Across Systems and Scales (COMPASS-FME).<\/p>\n

COMPASS-FME is a large-scale collaborative effort to collect coastline data to ultimately improve models predicting the consequences of a changing climate. It\u2019s headed by the Department of Energy\u2019s Pacific Northwest National Laboratory, and UToledo leads operations in the western basin of Lake Erie.<\/p>\n

Doro will build on COMPASS-FME in his research supported by his CAREER Award, for which he plans to utilize data from COMPASS-FME and non-COMPASS-FME sites along Lake Erie and the Chesapeake Bay. His proposal calls for both the development of geophysical methods to scan sites, rather than sampling at discrete points, and for an investigation into what we can learn from the resulting data.<\/p>\n

\u201cWe think that as microbes feed on nutrients in the soil, they create electrical signals,\u201d Doro said, offering an example. \u201cCan we measure these electrical signals? And what can these signals tell us about the biogeochemical processes that are occurring in these areas where land meets a body of water?\u201d<\/p>\n

These coastal interfaces are particularly significant in the face of increasingly intense disruptions to the ecosystem, like seiches or sea level rise, that are tied to a warming climate.<\/p>\n

\u201cThese regions do a lot for us,\u201d Doro said. \u201cScientists have discovered that they\u2019re very reactive. There are reactions that take place there that transform nutrients and chemical substances before they reach bodies of water, sometimes making them less dangerous environmental contaminants.\u201d<\/p>\n

CAREER Awards support both research and education, and Doro plans to train his students on the methods he develops and applies to his target sites in Lake Erie and the Chesapeake Bay. His award will support two undergraduate students and one doctoral student to work with him each year of the five-year award period, as well as the development of an undergraduate course on applied environmental geophysics that he anticipates will have a cross-disciplinary interest among students studying environmental science, engineering and archeology at UToledo.<\/p>\n

\u201cThe goal is to expand the types of measurements we can take,\u201d Doro said. \u201cEnvironmental scientists have options beyond discontinuous point measurements. We can compare it to a doctor, who no longer has to perform surgery or a biopsy to find out what\u2019s happening within the body. In many cases, they can use techniques such as MRI. We\u2019re doing the same thing to the ground.\u201d<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"\"Portrait<\/a>

Dr. Kennedy Doro, an assistant professor in the Department of Environmental Sciences, studies the environmental applications of geophysics.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":908,"featured_media":85044,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[50,39,1,3,7],"tags":[],"aioseo_notices":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/news.utoledo.edu\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/85043"}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/news.utoledo.edu\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/news.utoledo.edu\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/news.utoledo.edu\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/908"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/news.utoledo.edu\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=85043"}],"version-history":[{"count":2,"href":"https:\/\/news.utoledo.edu\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/85043\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":85046,"href":"https:\/\/news.utoledo.edu\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/85043\/revisions\/85046"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/news.utoledo.edu\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/85044"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/news.utoledo.edu\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=85043"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/news.utoledo.edu\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=85043"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/news.utoledo.edu\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=85043"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}