Inquiring Minds

Mason engineers develop “rusty” coffee grounds to remove pollutants from water

Teresa Donnellan — Thu, 25 Jan 2024 19:03:14 +0000

Mason engineers develop “rusty” coffee grounds to remove pollutants from water Teresa Donnellan Thu, 01/25/2024 - 14:03

The most elegant solutions are sometimes the simplest, like using one waste product to eliminate another. By combining spent coffee grounds with iron oxide (aka rust), Mason engineers have created CoffeeBots, which can bind to several different pollutants in seawater before being removed via magnets.

From left to right: Jeff Moran, Amit Kumar Singh, and Tarini Basireddy pose with CoffeeBot samples.
Photo by Teresa Donnellan.

High school lab assistant Tarini Basireddy, post-doc Amit Kumar Singh, and assistant professor Jeff Moran recently published their findings in Nanoscale demonstrating how their invention, which they call “CoffeeBots,” can effectively remove three types of pollutants from seawater: oil, microplastics, and methylene blue.

Singh proposed creating CoffeeBots as a way for Basireddy to gain hands-on experience without having to interact with the many dangerous chemicals in Moran’s laboratory, which focuses mainly on developing artificial, self-propelled microparticles for different medical and environmental applications.

“Tarini and Amit developed a simple strategy to coat spent coffee grounds, which I brought from home after brewing my morning coffee, with iron oxide nanoparticles,” said Moran.

Coffee grounds have a porous, irregular surface, so they have ample surface area to which pollutants can bind, even with much smaller iron oxide nanoparticles attached, he explained. Moreover, because iron oxide is magnetic, a simple handheld magnet can both drive CoffeeBots through polluted water and remove them once they have absorbed the pollutants. Basireddy used Fourier transform infrared (FTIR) spectroscopy to confirm that the iron oxide nanoparticles had bonded to the coffee grounds.

“Tarini’s extensive research experience and skillset were crucial to the success of this project," Moran noted. She’s way ahead of where I was at her age.”

While using coffee grounds to clean up oil spills is not entirely new, this team is the first to show that moving CoffeeBots outperform stationary ones at removing pollutants, since moving CoffeeBots encounter pollutant molecules more often than stationary coffee grounds do. Making the coffee grounds magnetic has another benefit: Once the CoffeeBots are recovered, they can be reused several times with little loss in water-cleaning efficacy.

Methylene blue

The team demonstrates that
CoffeeBots are drawn to magnets.
Photo by Teresa Donnellan.

The team assessed how CoffeeBots fare in seawater polluted with methylene blue, a dye commonly used in textile production. In addition to being a carcinogen, Basireddy explained, methylene blue can cause serious health problems: “It can cause skin irritation, if there's too much in the water; it can cause a lot of digestive problems; it can cause nausea, fever, lots of symptoms.” She added that it can negatively impact marine life as well.

The team found CoffeeBots can be an effective solution for cleaning methylene blue from seawater, especially when they are first also loaded with ascorbic acid, which helps break down the dye and render it nontoxic. Basireddy noted the potential simplicity of a CoffeeBots-based solution to methylene blue pollution, saying, “It's cool because the countries that are big textile producers also happen to be the countries that are big in coffee production.” The team cited Brazil, Colombia, Ethiopia, India, Peru, and Vietnam as countries that produce both dyed textiles and coffee and struggle with water pollution.

Oil and microplastics

The final pollutant tested is perhaps the most exciting, as it’s been a burgeoning topic of concern in recent years: microplastics. In water, microplastics cling to coffee grounds for the same reason that oil does: each substance is hydrophobic.

“One reason why microplastics and nanoplastics are such a tricky environmental problem is that they're so small, and that makes it difficult to locate them just to remove them,” said Moran. “By driving the CoffeeBots through the water, the hydrophobic interactions cause the microplastic particles to build up and accumulate on the surface of the coffee grounds.”

Singh noted that, while other (perhaps more expensive) techniques exist for remediating oil spills and removing chemical pollutants from water, developing a technique to make microplastic removal more efficient is an exciting new development.

Further plans

The team has applied for a patent to protect the technology and are excited to determine the full capabilities of CoffeeBots. They are optimistic because CoffeeBots are potentially a simple, inexpensive solution to water pollution.

While Basireddy has moved on to her freshman year at Johns Hopkins University, Singh and Moran look forward to finding further applications for CoffeeBots and possibly improving their technology. For example, Singh hopes to find a way to make CoffeeBots move when activated by sunlight, which would enable them to propel themselves through the water without the need for an external magnet. In addition, the team plans to explore the full range of pollutants that can be removed by CoffeeBots and characterize the efficacy of different coffee types.

Get a more detailed look at the team's experiments by reading their paper in Nanoscale, “Eliminating waste with waste: transforming spent coffee grounds into microrobots for water treatment,” which includes several videos of CoffeeBots in action, such as the one below. In addition, Singh created a video to promote CoffeeBots on YouTube.

In This Story

Jeffrey Moran

Join the Mason Nation

New video camera system captures the colored world that animals see

Colleen Rich — Wed, 24 Jan 2024 19:36:54 +0000

New video camera system captures the colored world that animals see Colleen Rich Wed, 01/24/2024 - 14:36

A ��AV scientist and team of researchers developed a new camera system that allows ecologists and filmmakers to produce videos that accurately replicate the colors that different animals see in natural settings, according to a report in the open access journal PLOS Biology.

Mason professor Daniel Hanley and undergraduate Anna Siegle researched floral color diversity of wildflowers and how bees are perceiving them throught the Smithsonian-Mason School of Conservation. Photo by Evan Cantwell/Office of University Branding

Authors of the study include Daniel Hanley, an assistant professor in Mason’s Department of Biology, Vera Vasas at the University of Sussex, UK, and colleagues from the Hanley Color Lab at Mason.

“We’ve long been fascinated by how animals see the world,” said Hanley, who is also a National Geographic Explorer. “Modern techniques in sensory ecology allow us to infer how static scenes might appear to an animal; however, animals often make crucial decisions on moving targets like detecting food items and evaluating a potential mate’s display. Here, we introduce hardware and software tools for ecologists and filmmakers that can capture and display animal-perceived colors in motion.”

Different animals perceive the world differently because of the capabilities of the photoreceptors in their eyes. For example, animals like bees and some birds can see ultraviolet (UV) light, which are outside the range of human perception. Reconstructing the colors that animals actually see can help scientists better understand how they communicate and navigate the world around them.

False color images give us a glimpse into this dynamic world, but traditional methods, such as spectrophotometry, are often time consuming, require specific lighting conditions, and cannot capture moving images.

This image of three male orange sulphurs Colias eurytheme is an example of one such depiction. Photo by Daniel Hanley

To address these limitations, researchers developed a novel camera and software system that captures animal-view videos of moving objects under natural lighting conditions. The camera simultaneously records video in four color channels: blue, green, red, and UV.

This data can be processed into “perceptual units” to produce an accurate video of how those colors are perceived by animals, based on existing knowledge of the photoreceptors in their eyes. The team tested the system against a traditional method that uses spectrophotometry and found that the new system predicted perceived colors with an accuracy of more than 92%.

“We were very surprised by how accurate the method was for quantifying colors on moving targets,” said Hanley. “It is great to involve our students in this meaningful research.”

This novel camera system will open new avenues of research for scientists and allow filmmakers to produce dynamic, accurate depictions of how animals see the world around them, the authors say. The system is built from commercially available cameras, housed in a modular, 3D-printed casing, and the software is available open-source, allowing other researchers to use and build on the technology in the future.

Read their full report

Seek your own discoveries with the Biology Department

Discover more research at Mason

The work-from-home blues have a secret source: nostalgia
September 19, 2024
George Mason team identifies technology to enhance artificial photosynthesis
September 17, 2024
Folklore professor traveled around the world in 90 days for research project
September 16, 2024
How nano roughness could smooth out clotting risks
September 5, 2024
University Professor Faye S. Taxman Earns Additional $16.5 Million Grant
September 4, 2024

This content appears in the Summer 2024 print edition of the Mason Spirit Magazine with the title "What Animals See."

A $6 million NSF grant will translate research into practice to help local communities become climate-resilient

Colleen Rich — Tue, 23 Jan 2024 18:50:38 +0000

A $6 million NSF grant will translate research into practice to help local communities become climate-resilient Colleen Rich Tue, 01/23/2024 - 13:50

��AV scientists and partners will leverage their climate expertise and the university’s resources into broader societal implications, thanks to a $6 million grant from the National Science Foundation (NSF) that is going to translate research into practice to support the creation of climate-resilient communities across Virginia.

Mason researcher Celso Ferreira (far right) and President Gregory Washington take Congresswoman Abigail Spanberger on a tour of Mason's Flood Hazards Research Lab. Photo by Evan Cantwell/Office of University Branding

The funding from the NSF’s Accelerating Research Translation (ART) program will allow Mason to expand its capabilities and capacity for translating research into real-world practical applications, with the creation of programming that will allow Mason faculty to serve communities across the commonwealth—especially within the state’s underserved regions—by co-producing science-based solutions that help them increase their resilience to climate change.

The four-year cooperative agreement, “ART: Translating Research to Practice to Create Climate-Ready Communities Across Virginia,” begins Feb. 1, and will allow Mason faculty and their nonprofit partner, the Center for Climate Strategies, to work with local municipal governments and community partners to produce science-based solutions that will create sustainable, community resilience to the impacts of climate change.

The project proposes two initial seed translational research projects, focusing on the co-production of solutions to mitigate flood hazards and reduce the impacts of urban heat on frontline communities. The latter comes on the heels of the world’s warmest year on record in 2023. Faculty will have the opportunity to propose additional translational research projects that address other climate impacts and response capabilities needed by Virginia communities to become climate-ready.

Mason’s Jeremy Campbell leads a discussion on local resiliency planning with staff from the Northern Virginia Regional Commission at a workshop held by the Virginia Climate Center in March 2023. Photo by VCC

“This really gives universities a chance to have an impact,” said Leah Nichols, the project’s principal investigator and the executive director of Mason’s Institute for a Sustainable Earth. “I think it’s going to help us start to institutionalize things that until now had been one-offs.”

Mason was one of 18 schools to have been awarded an ART cooperative agreement. The NSF overall investment of more than $100 million will enable academic institutions to accelerate the pace and scale of translational research that will grow the nation's economy.

“NSF endeavors to empower academic institutions to build the pathways and structures needed to speed and scale their research into products and services that benefit the nation,” said NSF Director Sethuraman Panchanathan. “The [ART program] identifies and champions institutions positioned to expand their research translation capacity by investing in activities essential to move results to practice.”

Mason’s ART program leverages the model already created by the Virginia Climate Center (VCC)—which was initially established by a $2 million Community Project grant sponsored by Congressman Gerry Connolly (D-VA) – since its inception in 2022 for the necessary engagement infrastructure. That includes targeted outreach to individual community leaders and other key influencers in the hopes of creating the kind of collaborative relationships necessary to figure out what each community’s specific needs are.

Other co-PIs on the Mason project include Jim Kinter, a professor in the Climate Dynamics PhD Program and the director of both Mason’s Center for Ocean-Land-Atmosphere Studies within the College of Science and the Virginia Climate Center; Celso Ferreira, an associate professor within Mason’s College of Engineering and Computing and the director of the Flood Hazards Research Lab; Luis Ortiz, an assistant professor in the Department of Atmospheric, Oceanic and Earth Sciences within the College of Science; and Tom Peterson, the CEO of the Center for Climate Strategies. Other entities involved include MN Associates Inc., which will monitor’s the program’s implementation and progress, and the University of Kentucky, which is serving as the project’s mentoring institution. Pairing awardees with mentor institutions that have an established translational research ecosystem is one of the unique features of the ART program.

Current research that can be brought to bear on local community concerns includes, but is not limited to risk and vulnerability assessment, the development and deployment of new adaptive capacities through modeling, simulating, predicting and projecting climate variability and change, including downscaled global observational and modeling data sets, and the development of solutions to close vulnerability gaps by assessing needs for action and designing and evaluating new measures for local implementation.

Other aims include supporting faculty who wish to be involved and the creation of specific academic programming, such as specialized courses on key climate issues, a new climate action minor, and a graduate certificate program, for future workforce development.

“One very troubling aspect of the effects of climate change is that it has the biggest impact on underserved people and communities that are least able to address the issue,” Kinter said. “Mason, being the largest public university in Virginia, owes it to the residents of the commonwealth to understand the risks it faces and create innovative solutions to increase community resilience.”

Virginia bore the brunt of nine climate disasters in 2018 and 2019 alone, resulting in $1.6 billion of negative economic impact, according to the Secretary of Natural and Historic Resources.

Increasing community resilience to the effects of climate change is expected to help mitigate the impact and substantially reduce costs associated with damage from progressive climate change, extreme weather events, and other climate-driven effects, the researchers said.

“We’re really trying to understand what it is that [local communities] need from a scientific, technical, or research point of view through the lens of what is it that a university can provide,” Nichols said. “And once the climate-focused ART programs become well-established, we hope to extend this model to support the translation of research into practice in other sustainability domains as well.”

In This Story

Celso Ferreira

Join the Mason Nation

New Mason Nanofabrication Facility will help drive innovation in the commonwealth

Colleen Rich — Wed, 17 Jan 2024 19:45:46 +0000

New Mason Nanofabrication Facility will help drive innovation in the commonwealth Colleen Rich Wed, 01/17/2024 - 14:45

Over the past decade, nanotechnology has taken the world by storm. From health care to electronics, it has radically transformed countless industries.

Shawn Wagoner, nanofabrication manager, gives a tour of Mason's new Nanofabrication Facility on the Science and Technology Campus. Photo by Evan Cantwell/Office of University Branding

As a result, nanofabrication, the manufacturing of nanoscale structures, is more important than ever, and proper fabrication has requirements, including both sophisticated equipment and a skilled workforce. In response to the rising demand for nanofabrication services, ��AV stands ready to conduct state-of-the-art research and to help train the next generation of innovators with the opening of the new Nanofabrication Facility (NFF) on its Science and Technology Campus.

“The NFF is the only cleanroom facility and resource for partners in Northern Virginia and offers hands-on nanofabrication workforce training in groundbreaking research and emerging research applications that will accelerate growth of high-tech companies,” said Andre Marshall, vice president of research, innovation, and economic impact at Mason. “Mason is committed to providing many opportunities for students to participate in experiential learning, preparing our workforce for the future and readying them to compete on a global scale.”

Mason engineering professor Ethan Ahn sees the new facility as a perfect opportunity to give students the chance to receive hands-on experience in a nanofabrication lab. Ahn is teaching Mason’s first-ever Nanoelectronics Fundamentals course during the Spring 2024 semester, where students will be asked to create electronic devices in the NFF Class 1000 cleanroom.

The Nanofabrication Facility offers hands-on nanofabrication workforce training. Photo by Evan Cantwell/Office of University Branding

“Hands-on experience in this field is invaluable, especially because students can become familiarized with the equipment that they may encounter in their future careers,” said Ahn, an associate professor in the Department of Electrical and Computer Engineering.

Mason also launched the Nano-IMAGINE program with the help of a $3.75 million grant from GO Virginia, a state-funded initiative administered by the Virginia Department of Housing and Community Development. Through Nano-IMAGINE, in addition to offering undergraduate and graduate courses, Mason plans to provide two workforce-readiness opportunities in 2024: Nanocamp and Nano Boot Camp.

Nanocamp will allow area high school students to take part in experiments designed by Mason researchers and industry experts that use the cutting-edge equipment found inside the NFF. Nano Boot Camp is designed for those who are searching for a new career path or who would like to gain entry-level skills in an in-demand field. Similar to Nanocamp, participants will learn and apply principles used to build micro and nano devices.

The Nano-IMAGINE courses and programs complement statewide efforts led by the newly established Virginia Alliance for Semiconductor Technology (VAST). VAST is a network of semiconductor, microelectronics, and nanotechnology industries and Virginia colleges and universities. As a member of this consortium, Mason aims to promote VAST by educating NFF boot camp members about opportunities offered by the alliance, such as certificate programs that can help advance their careers in nanofabrication, an essential part of the semiconductor field.

"By investing in top faculty, new programs and facilities, and partnerships, Mason is connecting learning and market advancement to drive innovation for all across the state," said Marshall. “We are leading regional collaborations across sectors to bring a better tomorrow.

Learn more about the Nanofabrication Facility

Did you know...

The Nanofabrication Facility is located on George Mason’s SciTech Campus in Manassas, Virginia. The campus is situated in Innovation Park, with neighbors ranging from start-ups to large size tech companies.

Learn more about SciTech >

Mason-Led System Supports Crops and Environment

Rebecca Kobayashi — Tue, 07 Nov 2023 19:14:15 +0000

Mason-Led System Supports Crops and Environment Rebecca Kobayashi Tue, 11/07/2023 - 14:14

With support from the National Science Foundation’s Convergence Accelerator, a Mason team is designing a CropSmart Digital Twin—a public-facing decision support system that provides the crop farming industry with real-time data and optimal decision advice. The team’s goal is to help increase U.S. agricultural production by 40 percent while also cutting the country’s environmental footprint in half by 2050.

The CropSmart Digital Twin will measure data from machinery like this center-pivot irrigation system. Photo courtesy of Liping Di

Liping Di, director of Mason’s Center for Spatial Information Science and Systems, leads the multidisciplinary research team building scientific data modeling tools to take the guesswork out of crop management decisions. Di will work with researchers from the University of Nebraska–Lincoln, Kansas State University, Purdue University, University Corporation for Atmospheric Research, and Mississippi State University, as well as end users from the U.S. Department of Agriculture and farms in the Midwest.

Learn more about the CropSmart Digital Twin

Business student’s summer internship is an opportunity to practice sustainability
July 31, 2024
George Mason earns solid gold in sustainability
June 7, 2024
Sustainability MBA elective matches student teams with partner companies
May 20, 2024
Meet the Mason Nation: Kevin Brim
April 26, 2024
Office Supply Swap is a staple of sustainability at Mason
April 19, 2024

Topics

Sweaty palms safeguarding security

Nathan Kahl — Mon, 16 Oct 2023 19:26:40 +0000

Sweaty palms safeguarding security Nathan Kahl Mon, 10/16/2023 - 15:26

Identity protection and, relatedly, the ability to confidently verify your identity when required, are increasingly important in a digital, connected world. The next-generation security solution may be right at your fingertips…but not in the way you might think.

Emanuela Marasco, an assistant professor at the ��AV Information Sciences and Technology Department and Center for Secure Information Systems, is working on an innovative way to verify human identity by using sweat samples collected from fingertips. According to Marasco, your sweat makes you unique. “There is evidence that sweat on the skin of the finger can discriminate between people,” she said. The key is to properly detect sweat metabolites—small molecules such as lipids or amino acids that result from metabolic processes in your body.

Supported by a grant from the National Science Foundation (NSF), her research uses hyperspectral imaging (HSI) to peer into sweat and look at three specific metabolites. HSI, which is widely used for agriculture, geosciences, and molecular biology, among other fields, can find and identify various materials invisible to the human eye and other technical viewing equipment.

Sweat from your fingers—not just your prints—can help verify your identity.

Marasco said, “Traditional approaches for spoofing are now in danger, because they cannot fool HSI.” According to a paper Marasco recently lead and co-authored, HSI creates a representation of an object by capturing the light bouncing off it, which can relate to its chemical make-up. Among the benefits of sweat analysis for identification is that it is rapid and noninvasive. In addition, according to the paper, it avoids the shortcomings of current systems, which are prone to spoofing (one thing disguised as another) and morphing (the alteration of travel-document photographs, for example), and which do not consistently work across different skin tones. The technology to get around traditional systems has come so far that “fake” fingerprints are so accurate they bypass authentication can be created with something as common as a 3D printer and something as simple as wood glue.

This grant was funded under the NSF EAGER program, which funds research in its early stages. According to NSF, EAGER projects fall under a category of “’high risk, high payoff’ in the sense that it involves radically transformative approaches, applies new expertise, or engages novel disciplinary or interdisciplinary perspectives.

Marasco said, “I see a wide range of applications. Regardless of this research into sweat, simply looking into the application of HSI to skin could yield numerous findings. There are transformative aspects to this; many studies can be enabled from this project.”

Practical applications are likely still many years away. But if you’re a nervous flier who gets anxious at the site of TSA checkpoints, just wait—those sweaty hands of yours perhaps won’t be a nuisance someday… in fact, they may end up helping you get quickly to your gate.

Learn More About Cybersecurity

In This Story

Emanuela Marasco

Mason’s Virginia Climate Center delivers vital research knowledge and resources for Mason and the commonwealth

Colleen Rich — Thu, 12 Oct 2023 18:50:56 +0000

Mason’s Virginia Climate Center delivers vital research knowledge and resources for Mason and the commonwealth Colleen Rich Thu, 10/12/2023 - 14:50

The new Virginia Climate Center (VCC) at ��AV is leading research on tackling climate-related challenges, such as energy, vector-borne illnesses, and extreme weather and flooding in Northern Virginia and throughout the commonwealth. Funded through the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration (NOAA) and sponsored by U.S. Representative Gerry Connolly (D-VA), this two-year, congressionally directed community project seeks to increase Virginia’s resiliency to the impacts of climate changes and variability.

Mason researcher Jim Kinter presenting at the Resilient Virginia Conference. Photo by Sophia Whitaker/VCC

“We have high hopes that the Virginia Climate Center will become the go-to resource for communities in the commonwealth to understand their climate risks and find more resilient ways to protect themselves from threats to human health, life, livelihood, and property,” said Jim Kinter, a VCC principal investigator and director of the Center for Ocean-Land-Atmosphere Studies (COLA), a research center within Mason’s College of Science.

“Mason’s VCC has a powerful vision for resilient communities that is catalyzed by the university, advanced through partnerships, and powered by community engagement,” said Andre Marshall, vice president of research, innovation, and economic impact. “This boundary-spanning center is bringing together academic disciplines, municipalities, and the business community to form a new university-based cooperative framework that not only addresses the challenge of resilience, but also establishes a community-engaged model for universities to tackle the grand challenges of our time.”

One of VCC’s current projects is with the City of Alexandria staff to address extreme heat in the region through case studies and data collection of successful adaptation strategies in urban settings, such as cooling centers. Mason experts leading these tasks are Luis Ortiz, Marybeth “MB” Mitcham, Ed Maibach, and Dan Vecellio.

“[This project] will provide my students with the opportunity to explore and contribute to real-time work, as part of exploring public health community assessment and partnership strategies,” said Mitcham, director of Mason’s online master of public health (MPH) program and assistant professor in the Department of Global and Community Health. “Ultimately, our MPH students will help to improve the quality of life of local community members and help promote an awareness of the relationship between climate change and adverse health outcomes.”

The VCC is also working closely with Mason’s College of Engineering and Computing and the Northern Virginia Regional Commission (NVRC) to support the installation of flood sensors and the development of a real-time flood forecasting system for the region. Flooding and extreme weather have devastating impacts on our communities and Virginia’s infrastructure and economy. Studies by Mason researchers predict more intense and stronger storms in our region, stressing our infrastructure and likely increasing the impacts of extreme weather in our area.

P Ruess, a postdoctoral research fellow on the VCC team, is investigating the relationship of road closures and water rescues. “I am excited to work closely with stakeholders in an advisory relationship reliant on direct and intentional stakeholder involvement,” Ruess said.

"My work on the NVRC project holds the potential to greatly benefit our region, the Northern Virginia community, and my own education,” said Zeeshan Khalid, a master’s student in data analytics engineering. “By proactively identifying and addressing road closures during flash floods, we aim to minimize disruption, reduce property losses, and enhance community safety. This project underscores Mason's commitment to contributing positively to the well-being of our community.”

Looking ahead, the VCC will remain in its partnerships with municipalities in Northern Virginia, including the NVRC, City of Fairfax, and Fairfax County, and will continue to work with them to address climate risks and codevelop adaptation solutions.

With the aid of funding from Mason’s Strategic Investment Fund, the VCC team in collaboration with Mason’s Local Climate Action Planning Initiative and the Institute for a Sustainable Earth, is expanding beyond Northern Virginia to aid Virginia’s rural communities in their climate resiliency and, now also, mitigation planning.

Learn about Sustainability at Mason

In this Story

Two Mason professors receive NSF grant to study wearables and inclusive workplaces

Marianne Klinker — Wed, 11 Oct 2023 14:35:55 +0000

Two Mason professors receive NSF grant to study wearables and inclusive workplaces Marianne Klinker Wed, 10/11/2023 - 10:35

Can wearable tech resolve the crisis of underemployment among neurodiverse individuals? A multidisciplinary Mason research team is about to embark on a major study to find out.

Two ��AV professors have been awarded a $1.87 million grant from the National Science Foundation (NSF) to develop wearable technology designed to help neurodiverse individuals succeed in the workforce.

Sarah Wittman

Sarah Wittman, assistant professor of management at the School of Business, and Vivian Genaro Motti, associate professor of information sciences and technology at the College of Engineering and Computing, will carry out a series of laboratory studies as well as a field study seeking to “support job tasks with a personalized wearable design to make the future of work more inclusive and equitable for neurodiverse adults.”

Wittman and Motti’s research began with the recognition that while many neurodiverse people are eager for employment and fully capable of performing well at work, the routines, expectations, and atmosphere of the contemporary workplace do not always accommodate their needs. Business environments can present all sorts of stressors—sensory, social, organizational—that can affect the productivity and mental health of neurodiverse individuals. Therefore, the extremely high rate of unemployment (up to 85%) among neurodiverse adults should be seen as an equity issue, rather than a reflection of ability or fitness to work. Wearables can contribute to resolving these inequities, helping users adjust to difficulties in their environment by, for example, reminding them to take a short break or do breathing exercises at moments of peak stress (indicated by an increase in their heart rates).

Vivian Genaro Motti

The concept behind the grant originated in 2017, with Motti’s contribution to developing WELI, a smartwatch application designed to assist students in Mason LIFE, a four-year program for neurodiverse young adults combining postsecondary coursework and employment opportunities in a supportive environment. The WELI project was funded as part of a three-year grant from the National Institute on Disability, Independent Living, and Rehabilitation Research (NIDILRR).

After WELI showed impressive results in a field study spanning the entire 2017-18 academic year, and following NIDILRR recommendations, the research team expanded the scope of the project beyond the college campus. Motti started to investigate how such technology could be adapted for the workforce. She joined forces with Wittman, a widely published management scholar specializing in work/life transitions.

The pair set out to better understand the pain points neurodiverse individuals face at work. Supported by seed funding from the Institute for Digital Innovation (IDIA) and the work of PhD student Niloofar Kalantari, who scoured Reddit and other online forums where neurodiverse people were posting about their workplace travails. Their data analysis revealed a wide range of challenges, with a high degree of variation correlated to different types of neurodiversity (ADHD, autism spectrum, Down syndrome, etc.). This confirmed their hypothesis that a one-size-fits-all wearable solution is not viable; instead, they began to pursue interventions tailored to individual user needs and specific segments of the neurodiverse population.

The four-year NSF project begins in January 2024. In the research studies planned, the PIs will recruit a large sample of adults with ADHD and those on the autism spectrum, working, for example, as stockers and order-fillers in the retail industry (or whose work might see them doing tasks with similar hand movements). Through a series of laboratory experiments, Motti and Wittman will refine the wearable technology and assess its positive impact upon both task-based performance and user well-being. Finally, they will launch a three-week field study intended to “test real-world efficacy and build guidelines around work times, tasks, and spaces for this technology”.

Beyond making life easier for neurodiverse individuals in the workplace, Motti and Wittman believe that their interventions will generate useful data for fuelling the ongoing push for more inclusive working environments. If successful, their wearable application will conclusively demonstrate the immense value that neurodiverse individuals bring to the labor force, while educating future researchers and employers on how best to foster inclusive work environments that can unlock that value for the benefit of all.

More School of Business Faculty Research

Support the Mason Nation

In This Story

Sarah Wittman

Vivian Genaro Motti

Mason scientists to work with the U.S. Navy to avert ‘internet apocalypse’

Colleen Rich — Tue, 08 Aug 2023 16:12:46 +0000

Mason scientists to work with the U.S. Navy to avert ‘internet apocalypse’ Colleen Rich Tue, 08/08/2023 - 12:12

A team of ��AV scientists has received a federal grant of more than $13 million to work with the Department of the Navy to study and better understand increased solar activity that could potentially cause an “internet apocalypse” disrupting all electronic communications on Earth, including satellite communications.

Peter Becker
Photo by Ron Aira/Office of University Branding

Research from the grant, which will total $13.6 million in expenditures over five years, will be done in collaboration with the Naval Research Laboratory (NRL), and will include state-of-the-art data mining, analysis, and scientific modeling, among other endeavors, led by Mason faculty, students and staff. Under the terms of the contract, Mason provides scientific support for a broad range of astronomy-related activities that are of interest to the U.S. Navy and the nation at large.

“The main focus is on solar activity and the way it can impact systems on Earth,” said principal investigator Peter A. Becker, a professor in the Department of Physics and Astronomy within the College of Science. “This is especially important to the Navy—and more broadly the Department of Defense—because high-energy outbursts from the sun can have a strong negative impact on earthly radio and internet communications. And they can also have a detrimental effect on navigation systems and energy grids on Earth.”

The focus on violent solar activity is the most significant research activity for U.S. citizens as eruptions from the sun’s surface can have devastating consequences 93 million miles away on Earth. This violent activity includes bursts of radiation, high-speed electrons, protons and other highly energetic particles that are launched into space and can disrupt technologies such as the internet that we have come to depend on. Much of this activity can reach Earth in less than a day.

Violent solar storms are expected to become more frequent and more severe over the next 10 years, and they possess the potential to severely interfere with radio transmitters, navigation and GPS, satellite operations and communications, and the electric power grid. Being able to more effectively warn of their occurrences will help better protect the public and our infrastructure.

“The internet was simply not designed to handle this level of communication interference, and, consequently, is considered a very ‘soft’ type of infrastructure,” Becker said. “Hence, the period from 2024 to 2028 is a time when the entire internet could conceivably be knocked out for a period of weeks to months in the event of a really extreme solar flare.”

Such a scenario could create “an unprecedented disaster for modern society, potentially triggering a worldwide recession,” Becker warned, because of the world’s heavy dependence on the internet for information, communications and global commerce.

Becker and his team, which also includes several Mason undergraduate students, will also study black holes and neutron stars. These studies will help scientists understand similar processes occurring in the solar atmosphere and how they can affect life on Earth.

Most of the Mason team’s work will be performed at the NRL in Washington, D.C., although space has also been allocated at ��AV’s Fairfax Campus to accommodate visiting NRL scientists working on joint space science research projects.

Others researchers working on Becker’s team include associate research professors Tyrel Johnson and Iulia Deneva; senior research administrator Jessica Hanna; research scientists Jacob Smith, Carlos Braga, Natsuha Kuroda, Eliana Nossa Gonzalez and Craig Johnston; senior research scientists Megan DeCesar and Keiji Hayashi, postdoctoral research fellows Sherry Chhabra, Micah Weberg, and Shaheda Shaik.

“Mason scientists are working to explore and understand the nature and level of these dangerous threats to our infrastructure posed by strong solar activity,” Becker said, “and how to predict extreme events and mitigate the damage.”

Listen now

Listen to Becker discuss the research with President Washington on an episode of the Access to Excellence podcast.

Delve into physics and astronomy at Mason

Social work students connect with therapy horses, dogs to learn how to help trauma survivors

Shayla Brown — Tue, 13 Jun 2023 18:20:06 +0000

Social work students connect with therapy horses, dogs to learn how to help trauma survivors Shayla Brown Tue, 06/13/2023 - 14:20

“Horses very much discern who you are and how you are based on how your inside and your outside match,” said ��AV professor Vicki Kirsch.

Each semester Kirsch takes students in her advanced Trauma and Recovery course to Project Horse Empowerment Center in Purcellville, Virginia, to learn about the emerging field of equine assisted psychotherapy (EAP).

Vicki Kirsch at Project Horse for her Trauma and Recovery course. Photo by Evan Cantwell/Office of University Branding

As a therapist, Kirsch specializes in working with individuals who have experienced trauma, early childhood abuse, sexual assault, and relationship issues and with transgender individuals through their transitioning process. She has been a fan of horses for most of her life and incorporates the horses to enhance evidence-based interventions with clients for her private practice.

“EAP is just finding its feet,” said Kirsch, an associate professor of social work in Mason’s College of Public Health. “It’s like a baby compared to other [therapy] fields. There are different paths, and some are better than others

Students at Project Horse for Kirsch's Trauma and Recovery course. Photo by Evan Cantwell/ Office of University Branding

She is able to help those who suffered horse-related trauma such a fall or being trampled. “[I worked] mostly with people who wanted to start riding again but were too afraid to,” she said. But EAP can be beneficial for overcoming other types of traumas as well, she added.

Kirsch wants students think outside the box when working with trauma survivors. “We have to engage with the body because trauma lives in the body,” she said.

These interventions can include brushing, petting, and rhythmic breathing with the horses.

“People have used horses for a long time for therapeutic riding, working with autistic kids and people with developmental and physical disabilities. But in the field of psychotherapy, which is what I do, it’s new,” said Kirsch.

Mason student Tara Amor with one of the therapy dogs. Photo provided

“Going to Project Horse and meeting those horses who were also survivors of trauma themselves was very beautiful,” said Minnie Thukral, who graduated from Mason with a master of social work. “It was interesting to see how we could use connecting with animals to help with healing and recovery, and to see where your career can take you.

“The main goal of the course is to be able to recognize childhood injuries or trauma when a person sitting in your office is telling you their personal life stories and it has some form of trauma that they don't know exists,” said Tara Amor, a clinical psychology student who graduated from Mason with a master of social work in May 2023. “As a clinician, [we have to] recognize it and unpack all that, then implement an intervention to help them to heal."

In addition to working with horses, students in the class got to explore other approaches with the campus K9s who visited their classroom during the semester.

“It's all about healing,” said Amor. “You want to help your client continue living with their trauma because that trauma doesn't go away. You heal it; it's part of who you are, but it's not who you are.”