RSI Research Showcase Day
The inaugural RSI grant showcase day will highlight the sustainability research being done across campus. We will have a day full of presentations from RSI impact grant project teams, along with an afternoon poster session and light reception featuring some of the work done by the RSI fellows and scholars.
9:30 AM - Opening Remarks
9:35 AM - The Caltech Critical Zone Initiative
PIs: Christian Frankenberg, Michael Lamb, Ruby Fu, Woodward Fischer, and Michael Alvarez
Earth's near surface environment—the top few meters of soil, rock and organic material—is known as the critical zone because it supports life. It is a complex system that is changing in known and unknown ways due to climate and anthropogenic influences. We will develop, test and apply a new state-of-the-art, multi-scale numerical model—the Critical Zone Model (CZM)— that will bridge the gap between process-based land-surface models at local scales and the Earth system models used to predict climate change at the global scale. We will predict and measure the transport, storage, and cycling of water, carbon and sediment, and model their coupling to predict the impact of anthropogenic and climate change on landscape sustainability, the carbon cycle, and the surface energy balance that feeds back to the global climate. Field measurements will focus on two critical environments at the frontline of climate change: permafrost floodplains of Arctic Alaska and a conservation laboratory in a last remaining stronghold of coastal California wilderness. We will integrate social science data and modeling to predict how social systems impact and are impacted by the critical zone under a changing climate, with a focus on understanding stakeholder perceptions and the opportunities for persuasion to take specific actions that work toward sustainability.
10:25 AM - Engineering a technology platform for monitoring gene expression dynamics within soil microbes in the undisturbed rhizosphere: lateral gene transfer, conditional guide RNAs, and sentinel plants
PIs: Gozde Demirer, Bruce Hay, Elliot Meyerowitz, and Niles Pierce
We propose to develop the first technology platform for continuously monitoring the expression dynamics of microbial genes of choice within the undisturbed rhizosphere by engineering efficient and promiscuous lateral gene transfer, programmable molecular signal transducers, and sentinel plants that integrate together to provide a "window" into the opaque rhizosphere by displaying aboveground optical changes in sentinel plant foliage in response to gene expression changes in soil bacteria at the roots. This platform will enable mechanistic investigations into the structure and function of the rhizosphere and its impact on sustainability-relevant processes like microbially-mediated nutrient cycling and greenhouse gas emission.
11:15 AM - Engineering Nitrogenase for the Bioelectrocatalytic Reduction of N2 to Ammonia
PIs: Steven L. Mayo and Douglas C. Rees
Industrial ammonia production for use as agricultural fertilizer is dominated by the Haber-Bosch process which for all applications consumes ~5% of the global supply of natural gas, makes up ~3% of global CO2 emission and consumes ~1% of the global power supply. Our mission is to replace the Haber-Bosch process with a solar powered bioelectrocatalytic process that utilizes an engineered nitrogenase enzyme to sustainably produce fertilizer that is essential for modern agriculture.
12:00-1:30 PM - Lunch Break
1:30 PM - Monitoring Bioavailable Phosphorus with an Integrated Biosensor and Wireless Reporter System
PIs: Azita Emami, Julie Kornfield, Dianne Newman, and Changhuei Yang
Global phosphorus reserves are rapidly dwindling, and generally excessive fertilization of agricultural lands is causing economic costs and environmental harms. Standard methods for phosphorus measurement require soil extraction and testing ex-situ. These methods do not measure biologically available phosphorus, which is what is most relevant to crop growth, nor are they well suited for monitoring heterogeneous fields overtime. Accordingly, we propose to develop an integrated biosensor with a wireless reporter system to monitor in-situ bioavailable phosphorus. Our long term goal is to leverage this system for monitoring of diverse environmental parameters to guide more sustainable fertilization of crops.
2:20 PM - Fiber Seismic Sensing for Soil Moisture Monitoring
PI: Zhongwen Zhan
The Los Angeles Aqueduct provides one third of the water for Los Angeles, diverting it from the Owens River. Within ten years of the diversion, Owens Lake dried up and caused numerous air quality and sustainability issues. As the L.A. Department of Water and Power continues efforts to revive Owens Lake amid climate change by recharging the groundwater basin, we will apply a new technology, Distributed Acoustic Sensing (DAS), to advance the groundwater monitoring and management in the Owens valley. DAS converts fiber optic cables around the lake into sensitive seismic arrays with which we can measure mechanical changes of rocks caused by groundwater fluctuations. The time-dependent seismic images of the aquifers under Owens Lake will add a new dimension to our ability to measure the injection, withdrawal and intra-basin movement of groundwater, with the goal that these tools will help ensure sustainable management of underground aquifers.