易胜博官网

易胜博官网 doctoral student Alexandra Padilla has received a prestigious (NSF) Graduate Research Internship Program (GRIP) fellowship that will take her from 易胜博官网鈥檚 to Woods Hole on Cape Cod this coming spring. There, at a lab operated by the U.S. Geological Survey (USGS), she鈥檒l advance her work on the acoustic properties of bubbles, work that will help us understand how much gas 鈥� specifically methane 鈥� is in the ocean.

鈥淚鈥檓 really excited about this award,鈥� Padilla says. 鈥淭his internship will give me the opportunity to conduct research within a federal government lab setting, which can be very different from the academic research point of view.鈥� The goal of GRIP is to provide professional development experiences to Graduate Research Fellows 鈥� Padilla is one 鈥� through research internships developed in partnership with federal agencies.

During her time at , Padilla will continue her research on how bubbles interact with underwater sound 鈥� she conducted baseline experiments conducted in Chase鈥檚 ocean engineering acoustics tank 鈥� with existing mathematical models. She鈥檒l look specifically at how the surface coating on bubbles affects their acoustic properties. 鈥淭his research will play an integral role in my dissertation and will lead to peer-reviewed journal articles and presentations at conferences,鈥� she says,

Ultimately, Padilla鈥檚 work aims to aid in the process of determining bubble sizes, using acoustic methods, as they rise through the water column to determine how much gas is in the ocean.

鈥淲ith the information obtained from acoustic measurements, we observe how bubbles dissolve as they rise; this can provide researchers and policymakers information about how much methane is dissolving into the water column and how much actually survives the journey to the surface of the ocean and potentially the atmosphere, where it鈥檚 important for climate change assessments,鈥� she says.

Padilla credits her advisor, associate professor of mechanical engineering Tom Weber, as well as Jeanne Sokolowski, director of 易胜博官网鈥檚 Office of National Fellowships, and Carolyn Ruppel and William Waite, research scientists at the USGS Woods Hole Coastal and Marine Science Center, for their support of her successful application.

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