Science & Engineering

Ashley McGuigan, graduate student in the Biology Department at UHM, received a grant from the Fulbright Student Program, a program wherein students design their own research project and typically work with advisers at foreign universities or other institutes of higher education. Austin describes more about her research and path to this field of study: I grew up in Minnesota until I moved to …

An international team of scientists led by University of Hawaiʻi at Mānoa researcher Joanne Yew may have discovered a new and effective way to control insect pests that are a threat to agriculture and humans. Yew and her team identified a gene in vinegar flies responsible for the insect’s waterproof coating, which provides them protection from microbes and environmental stress. …

With more than 400 federally endangered or threatened plants, Hawaiʻi is considered an “endangered species hotspot.” This means the tissue culture work of the Hawaiian Rare Plant Program Micropropagation Laboratory at the University of Hawaiʻi at Mānoa’s Lyon Arboretum is critical. “If you lose one species it’s going to be a ripple effect,” said Erin King, a Hawaiian Rare Plant …

The University of Hawaiʻi at Mānoa has received a Research Experiences for Undergraduates (REU) Site award from the National Science Foundation (NSF). Through this award, undergraduates will use high-throughput DNA sequencing, phylogenetic methods and bioinformatics to study microbiomes and the identities and origins of Hawaiʻi’s endemic, native and introduced organisms. Mentorship will be provided by faculty from the UH Mānoa …

University of Hawaiʻi at Mānoa’s Rich Gazan has been awarded an Institute of Museum and Library Services grant for the project Online Q&A in STEM Education: Curating the Wisdom of the Crowd. The project received $491,973 in funding. Gazan is an associate professor in the College of Natural Sciences’ Department of Information and Computer Sciences. In partnership with Chirag Shah at …

Klaus Sattler, a professor at the University of Hawaiʻi at Mānoa Department of Physics and Astronomy, has edited the first reference book to cover the field of carbon nanomaterials in a comprehensive fashion, reflecting its interdisciplinary nature that brings together physics, chemistry, materials science, molecular biology, engineering and medicine. The two-volume Carbon Nanomaterials Sourcebook contains 1324 pages and 799 illustrations in 53 chapters. …

Increasing population, changing land use practices and issues relating to climate change are contributing to growing concerns over water quality and quantity in Hawaiʻi. To help the state address this critical issue, the National Science Foundation has awarded $20 million to the University of Hawaiʻi to do a five-year, groundbreaking study of water sustainability issues through a collaboration called ʻIke …