College of Sciences

Laura Cadonati, Associate Dean for Research in the College of Sciences and a professor in the School of Physics, will serve as a General Councilor for the American Physical Society, following recent APS elections. Her term will begin January 1, 2024. Cadonati, who is also a member of Georgia Tech's Center for Relativistic Astrophysics, will join other elected members to advise the Society on all matters regarding science and membership, including science policy. "Throughout my research journey in nuclear physics, astrophysics, and gravity, along with my active participation in large scientific collaborations, I have developed an understanding of the interconnectedness and the different traditions in various branches of physics," Cadonati says. "These insights will enable me to represent the wide constituency of APS."

Around the coasts of the continents, where slopes sink down into the sea, tiny cages of ice called clathrates trap methane gas, preventing it from escaping and bubbling up into the atmosphere. Until now, the biological process behind how methane gas remains stable under the sea has been almost completely unknown. In a breakthrough study, a cross-disciplinary team of Georgia Tech researchers discovered a previously unknown class of bacterial proteins that play a crucial role in the formation and stability of methane clathrates. College of Sciences team members include Jennifer Glass, associate professor in the School of Earth and Atmospheric Sciences; Raquel Lieberman, professor and Sepcic-Pfeil Chair in the School of Chemistry and Biochemistry; Dustin Huard, a researcher in Lieberman’s lab and first author of the study;  Abigail Johnson, a former Ph.D. student in Glass’ lab and co-first author on the paper, and James (JC) Gumbart, professor in the School of Physics. (The study was also covered at SciTechDaily, Space.com, and Astrobiology.) 

This summer, wildflowers brought an unusually bright splash of color to Colorado’s hillsides. Although the blooms were largely the product of a slow-melting snowpack and a wet spring, native pollinators like bees and butterflies played a critical role in creating these colorful habitats. But a new study shows that these flying insects are in trouble. Researchers at Colorado University of Denver and Georgia Tech analyzed data on 800 species of insects around the world and discovered that flying insects — many of which play a crucial role in pollinating the world’s plants and crops — are migrating at slower rates than their non-flying counterparts and appear to be dying at faster rates. James T. Stroud, assistant professor in the School of Biological Sciences, is a co-author of the study.