4-VA at Mason

Research using AI to track Amazon rainforest species produces landmark results

Colleen Rich — Mon, 25 Nov 2024 13:47:06 +0000

Research using AI to track Amazon rainforest species produces landmark results Colleen Rich Mon, 11/25/2024 - 08:47

Thanks to the tenacity of a ��AV biology professor, animals in the Amazon have a lot less privacy these days, but that’s good for scientists who to want know what’s going on in the Brazilian rainforests.

David Luther recognizes the importance of playing the long game in research, but even he couldn’t have imagined the hurdles and roadblocks ahead of him following the approval of his 2019 4-VA Collaborative Research Grant proposal, “Species richness resilience to habitat fragmentation and restoration in tropical rainforests.”

His plan was to install recording equipment at 50 sites as part of the Biological Dynamics of Forest Fragments Project (BDFFP) in the Amazon rainforest of Brazil. These audio and video devices were meant to document and measure differences in animal community composition and the rate of animal recovery in secondary forest and forest fragments.

The proposed budget was devoted entirely to purchasing the wide array of materials necessary for the effort — cameras, acoustic recorders, and batteries—along with the international travel needed to bring the project to fruition.

In March 2020, all of Luther’s efforts came to a halt due to the pandemic. Additionally, one of the key members of the planning team, Tom Lovejoy, passed away in December 2021. Lovejoy was recognized as one the world’s leading conservation biologists and often referred to as the “godfather of biodiversity.” With Lovejoy’s passing, Luther lost a mentor and a critical member of the team.

Tens of thousands of animal images, such as this ocelot, have been collected for the project from camera traps. Photo provided

However, Luther stayed the course, revamping his team and rewriting the schedule. Finally, in June 2022, he received the green light to move ahead. Between June and October 2022, 136 cameras and 81 acoustic devices were installed across 50 sites at BDFFP.

Today, to Luther’s great delight, the results have proved far more successful than he could have ever anticipated. Tens of thousands of animal images from camera traps and audio recordings have already been collected.

To analyze the data, Luther built a team of 15 George Mason undergraduate researchers, artificial intelligence (AI) experts, and members of Arbimon, a nonprofit organization that specializes in analyzing acoustic recordings from the tropics to identify animals.

The student volunteers on this project included Alexis Lembke, Amanda Jones, Adriana Em, Madison Cheung, Morgan Ellingsworth, and Grace Carriero. Aline Medeiros, a PhD student in environmental science and policy, helped manage the undergraduate researchers working on the audio files. Medeiros will also use the captured data as the basis of her PhD research.

Another set of students helped identify animals in the camera images and entered that information into a large database. Hibo Hassan, Jordan Seidmeyer, Katie Russell, Carolian Sanabria, Adrian Em, Alix Upchurch, Piper Robinson, Tristan Silva-Montoya, and Estefany Umana spent hours creating this treasure trove of records. Emilia Roberts, a master’s student in environmental science and policy, managed these undergraduate researchers.

Discussing the project, Luther explained that, for the acoustic recordings, they built templates for 250 bird species and trained AI models to automatically detect and classify songs for each.

Channel-billed toucan. Photo provided

“The model performed very well in our evaluations. We have already detected 201 of the 250 species,” said Luther, who teaches in the Biology Department of George Mason’s College of Science. “Thanks to our model, new recordings can be passed through it to automatically detect species calls, facilitating long-term monitoring and efficient analyses moving forward. We are now working with local experts in Manaus, Brazil, to apply the same platform for frogs at our study sites in the Amazon rainforest.”

The biodiversity data is being used to assess how each species responds to variations in forest structure and recovery from forest fragmentation. Luther brought on Konrad Wessels from George Mason’s Geography and Geoinformation Science Department to assist with satellite information from the Global Ecosystem Dynamics Investigation instrument, which uses high-resolution lasers to provide detail in three-dimensional forest structure. These results will build predictive models to study how the forest structure can forecast mammal and bird diversity and individual species occurrence in tropical rainforests.

In an important finding, the team has determined that the three-dimensional complexity of the forest structure, as measured by foliage height diversity, is the biggest predictor of mammal and bird diversity at this research site, and potentially others, in the Amazon rainforest.

The project continues to gain traction. The team has created a website featuring the results of the acoustic portion of the research, which has been very well received. Some of the acoustic training models have been used by teams competing for the X-Prize, a competition designed to encourage technological developments supporting “radical breakthroughs for the benefit of humanity.”

Building on the 4-VA funded study, Luther also received a $200,000 National Science Foundation grant to continue both the camera and acoustic research. Luther and Wessels recently submitted a grant to NASA to expand on the research findings and apply them to the entirety of the Amazon basin.

“Through 4-VA@Mason, this project is up, running, and delivering fantastic information that will help scientists worldwide better design monitoring schemes for biodiversity in remote tropical forests, as well as those interested the relationship between habitat structure and degradation and species resilience to disturbance,” said Luther.

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George Mason team identifies technology to enhance artificial photosynthesis

Colleen Rich — Tue, 17 Sep 2024 18:12:52 +0000

George Mason team identifies technology to enhance artificial photosynthesis Colleen Rich Tue, 09/17/2024 - 14:12

When a 4-VA Collaborative Research Grant results in the production of a novel concept for technology solutions to support energy and climate issues, while also sharing resources and data between higher education institutions in Virginia and providing faculty and student research opportunities, it is a win for all involved.

Yun Yu. Photo provided

This was achieved following 4-VA’s approval of a proposal by ��AV’s Yun Yu, an assistant professor in the Chemistry and Biochemistry Department, for a grant titled “Nanoscale Visualization of Electrocatalytic Carbon Dioxide Reduction Activity at Cu Nanocatalysts.”

Yu’s goal was to investigate options in catalytic electrode materials to improve and enhance electrocatalysis, a process essential for harnessing sustainable energy sources for artificial photosynthesis. While nanostructures are currently recognized as the most successful catalyst for many chemical reactions, there is more to understand about tailoring their crystalline planes to improve activity and selectivity.

Yu wanted to gain deeper insights into various nanocatalysts used in carbon removal technologies. The conventional approach to conducting this study often involves measuring the entire catalyst, composed of numerous small particles with varying sizes and shapes. However, critical information, such as the impact of heterogeneities on performance, is often lost in such ensemble measurements.

Yu saw the potential for leveraging the nanoscale scanning electrochemical microscopy at George Mason to obtain detailed surface reactivity maps of nanocatalysts. However, to do so, Yu needed to acquire shape-controlled nanostructures, including copper nanowires, copper nanocubes, and nickel–iron layered nanosheets. He did so through a partnership with Sen Zhang, associate professor of chemistry at the University of Virginia.

Graduate student Dan Tran operating the scanning electrochemical microscope. Photo provided

Yu’s team—graduate student Dan Tran and undergraduate students Solyip Kim, Melissa Nguyen, and Mackenzie Dickinson—played a key role in the project, receiving funding and real-world research experience. Together, they identified furfural reduction, an important reaction for sustainable biofuel generation, and they noted a distinct contrast in activity between copper and graphite support.

“These preliminary experiments have demonstrated the viability of our scanning electrochemical technique in spatially resolving catalytic activity across nanoscopic structures,” said Yu. They further expanded the application to the study of nickel–iron catalysts.

“Our data suggested that adding trace amount of cerium oxide to the catalysts significantly enhances water oxidation activity. We would not have these insights without this powerful electroanalytical technique,” said Yu.

The initial results have provided Yu with a springboard to develop external grant proposals to systematically study the role of cerium oxide and quantify the effects of its loading on the apparent catalytic activity of the developed catalysts.

“This 4-VA opportunity allowed us to create a partnership with UVA, create a team to implement further investigation via George Mason’s nanoscale scanning electrochemical microscopy, and now apply for further funding to move this project forward,” Yu said.

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4-VA supports childhood working memory research collaboration

Colleen Rich — Thu, 08 Aug 2024 13:06:22 +0000

4-VA supports childhood working memory research collaboration Colleen Rich Thu, 08/08/2024 - 09:06

As an undergraduate, Sabine Doebel became fascinated by children’s thinking and how it changes with age. Now, as an assistant professor in the Department of Psychology at ��AV, she spends much of her time in the Developing Minds Lab designing studies to understand how young children learn to think.

Photo provided

Although these executive function skills are vital to children’s success in school and beyond, much remains unknown about their development. Particularly important for academic success is working memory—the capacity to maintain and manipulate information in mind, such as words, numbers, and other symbols. Working memory is often measured using tests including the Backward Digit Span, in which children repeat increasingly long sequences of digits in backwards order.

“I have always been interested in how experience may shape working memory skills,” said Doebel. She was particularly curious about how early learning experiences at home— specifically in the domains of literacy and numeracy—could foster growth in working memory span.

With the support of a 4-VA award, Doebel had the opportunity to share this new project idea with her colleague and mentor Angeline Lillard, a widely respected developmental psychologist and researcher in the Department of Psychology at the University of Virginia (UVA).

“Our collaboration would not have taken off the way it did if it hadn’t been for Angeline, because she was the one who sent me an email about 4-VA,” said Doebel. “She said, ‘Have you heard of 4-VA? We should consider this option.’”

The core purpose of 4-VA is to improve efficiencies in higher education and research and promote collaborations among the Virginia public universities. So Doebel’s project, How Does Experience Support Working Memory Development?, was a perfect fit.

Doebel’s lab recruited and tested more than 100 children on four different variations of the backward span tasks. Parents also completed a detailed survey reporting frequency and variety in various home learning practices. At UVA, Lillard leveraged her own participant pool and school connections to recruit an additional sample of conventionally schooled and Montessori-educated children.

Doctoral student Nicole Stucke working with a student in the lab. Photo provided

Doebel enlisted George Mason students Jordan Hassani, BA Psychology ’23, and Nicole Stucke, PhD Psychology ’24, to collect the data. Hassani created the survey, tested the children, and coded the data. Stucke, who has functioned as the Developing Minds Lab manager, helped with testing. Other team members, including George Mason undergraduate Scarlett Bird-Guerra, BS Psychology ’23, were involved in community-based recruitment efforts.

UVA undergraduate Maksud Juraev and graduate student Abigail Kissinger led the UVA data collection efforts.

The team noted that the results were both as predicted and surprising. As expected, they found that children show larger backward spans for items that are relatively familiar—for example, performance on trials that involved the digits 1, 2, 3 was better than on trials involving 7, 8, 9.

However, while Doebel expected that children who engaged in more numeracy practices at home might show better performance on a backward span task involving digits, support was not found for this hypothesis. Instead, it was observed that children’s backward digit span was related to home literacy practices, and that this was true even after accounting for other home learning practices and age.

Doebel presented the findings at meetings of the American Psychological Association and at the Society for Research on Child Development. She and Lillard are also preparing manuscripts for publication in academic journals in the field.

Next up for the team is to dive deeper into Lillard’s connections in Charlottesville with Montessori schools to test whether children who are Montessori-educated show larger backward digit spans than children who are educated in conventional schools, as expected given the emphasis Montessori schools place on literacy and numeracy.

Doebel said the 4-VA support not only helped the project be successful but made a difference for the student researchers as well. “As a result of this funding, my students have progressed in their career trajectories—Jordan is now at the University of Maryland as a research coordinator in a National Institutes of Health-funded lab, and he’s hoping to gain admittance to a Ph.D. program in clinical psychology. He got that opportunity in part because he participated in this project where he engaged real research experience.”

The original project has also led to a further study that will investigate the role of language in working memory by exploring how bilingual children with varying degrees of exposure to numerical language perform on the backward digit span task. This project is led by Victoria Rabii, a PhD student in George Mason’s Applied Developmental Psychology Program. Funded by a Presidential Scholarship, Rabii is being mentored by Doebel and psychology professor Adam Winsler.

The goal of this project is to better understand how young children’s working memory performance may be affected by their proficiency with relative linguistic concepts. “Previously, when children scored low on the task, it was pretty common for this to be interpreted as indicating low working memory ability,” said Doebel. “But now things are changing a bit, and we are asking whether children may show better performance if they are more fluent with the specific content that is integral to the task.”

Personally and professionally, Doebel is grateful for the collaboration with Lillard. “Angeline has been a major mentor for me. We have published together previously, and we are always thinking about new project ideas that could lead to external funding. This likely never would have happened if not for 4-VA,” said Doebel.

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Seventeen George Mason faculty awarded 4-VA grants

Colleen Rich — Tue, 30 Jul 2024 19:35:18 +0000

Seventeen George Mason faculty awarded 4-VA grants Colleen Rich Tue, 07/30/2024 - 15:35

Through 4-VA@Mason, ��AV faculty members have embarked on new pilot research projects in collaboration with higher education institutions throughout Virginia.

The 4-VA Collaborative Research Grants, first launched in the 2013-14 academic year, are designed to forge relationships in Virginia higher education to leverage the strengths of each school, decrease working in silos, and launch novel research projects that can provide a springboard for future external funding.

Other schools in the 4-VA system are the College of William and Mary, James Madison University, Old Dominion University (ODU), University of Virginia (UVA), Virginia Commonwealth University (VCU), Virginia Military Institute, and Virginia Tech (VT). Christopher Newport University is also participating in Collaborative Research Grants.

During the 2024-25 year, nine of the Collaborative Research Grants are being led at George Mason and 11 faculty members will serve as co-principal investigators (co-PIs) for research spearheaded at partner institutions.

“Each year, we are more and more impressed with the breadth and depth of the proposals,” said Janette Kenner Muir, vice provost, academic affairs, and campus coordinator of 4-VA at Mason, adding that this year’s 25 proposals were especially strong.

The 4-VA@Mason 2024-25 Collaborative Research Grant awardees, proposal title, and partner schools (in parentheses) are the following:

Rosalina Christova, College of Science, Department of Environmental Science and Policy and Potomac Environmental Research and Education Center, “Integrative Characterization of the Anatoxin-a-Producing Benthic Cyanobacterial Genus Microcoleus in the Shenandoah River” (UVA/Wise)
Arie Croitoru, College of Science, Department of Computational and Data Sciences and Center for Social Complexity, “Quantum-Inspired Modeling for Understanding Social Complexity” (ODU)
Nadine Kabbani, College of Science, School of Systems Biology, “Proteomic profiling of molecular changes associated with chemotherapy induced neuropathy” (VCU)
Myeong Lee, College of Engineering and Computing, Department of Information Sciences and Technology, “Understanding Multidimensional Measures of Social Capital: Impacts of Ethnic Heterogeneity, Social Classes, and Historical Legacies of Urban Policy” (VCU)
Rayanne Luke, College of Science, Department of Mathematical Sciences, “Data-Driven Modeling of the Time-Dependent Immune Response to Infection and Vaccination” (UVA)
Amanda Madden, College of Humanities and Social Sciences, Department of History and Art History, “Historical Mapathons: Team-Based GIS Training and Transformation of Seventeenth Century Maps” (VT)
Sang Nam, College of Visual and Performing Arts, Computer Game Design Program, “Developing A Multimodal LLM AI Agent for the XR, Extended Reality Platform for Personalized and Highly Immersive Trauma Training” (UVA)
Xiaokuan Zhang, College of Engineering and Computing, Department of Computer Science, “Uncovering Secrets from Virtual Reality Headsets via Electromagnetic Side Channels” (VT)
Xijin (Emma) Zhang, College of Engineering and Computing, Sid and Reva Dewberry Department of Civil, Environmental, and Infrastructure Engineering, “Multifunctional Fungi-Based Biosurfactants for Durable Concrete Structures” (UVA)

The following George Mason faculty received funding as co-PIs for the 2024-25 academic year collaborating with other 4-VA institutions:

Shaghayegh Bagheri, College of Engineering and Computing, Department of Mechanical Engineering, “MOMENTUM: Assessing the Merits of Personalized Feedback with Generative AI for Foundational Engineering Mechanics Courses” (VT)
Michael S. Bloom, College of Public Health, Department of Global and Community Health, “A new green space exposure index utilizing AI methods and an eye-tracking device” (VT)
Harrison Bray and Anton Lukyanenko, College of Science, Department of Mathematical Sciences, “Collaborative workshops in topology” (UVA)
Pei Dong, College of Engineering and Computing, Department of Mechanical Engineering, “Printing of Ultrathin Conductive Films on Liquid for 3D Wearable Electronic” (UVA)
Jessica Otis, College of Humanities and Social Sciences, Department of History and Art History, and Heidi Lawrence, Department of English, “Human Dimensions of Infectious Diseases” (VT)
Jingyuan Yang, Costello College of Business, “Building Machine Learning Resilience During Disasters” (UVA)

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George Mason team creates augmented reality campus tour for transfer students

Shayla Brown — Thu, 18 Jul 2024 18:03:10 +0000

George Mason team creates augmented reality campus tour for transfer students Shayla Brown Thu, 07/18/2024 - 14:03

A team from ��AV is using augmented reality (AR) to create a smartphone app that will provide first-generation ADVANCE students with a virtual tour of the Fairfax Campus as they prepare to transfer from Northern Virginia Community College (NOVA).

ADVANCE is a collaborative effort between George Mason and Virginia’s community colleges to create a seamless pathway for students’ transfer to a four-year institution.

Kelly Schrum. Photo provided.

The AR project is co-directed by Kelly Schrum, a professor in George Mason’s Higher Education Program in the College of Humanities and Social Sciences, and Graziella Pagliarulo McCarron, an associate professor in the School of Integrative Studies.

The app, created using ARway, will provide students with interactive GPS tracking and indoor visual positioning through a geolocation feature, directing students to their location as they travel from point A to point B.

“One of the things this tool does really well is, if you say, ‘I’d like to find the gender-neutral bathroom,’ or ‘I would like to take the elevator,’ or ‘I would like to find disability services,’ you can select it from the directory, and it’ll basically hold your hand and guide you the whole way there,” said Schrum.

The team is focusing on the four floors in Student Union Building (SUB) I, which houses on-campus student support services including the Mason Student Services Center, Student Health Services, Student Success Coaching, and many more. Each floor gets a separate AR map, Pagliarulo McCarron said. After they map SUB I, Pagliarulo McCarron said they will start work on Fenwick Library and then the Johnson Center.

The app is funded by grants from George Mason’s Office of the Provost and 4-VA@Mason, which receives funding from the state to build collaborations across institutions as well as create new technologies that promote first-generation student transfer pathways to higher education.

Graziella Pagliarulo McCarron. Photo provided.

Representatives from the First-Gen+ Center and undergrad, graduate, and PhD students are researching the common challenges transfer students face, including the need to find community, to incorporate those aspects into the app.

“Kelly and I talked a lot about possible tangible resources that would help create a stronger connection to George Mason for our students,” said Janette Muir, vice provost for academic affairs.

The team conducting the technology and digital humanities-based research includes many who are first in their family to go to college.

“Throughout this process, we learned that students felt disconnected and disoriented when they didn’t know how the campus was laid out,” said Muir, who is also director of the 4-VA@Mason program. “With the work that this team is doing, we could decrease that anxiety and help students access the services that are available to them.”

ADVANCE students currently attending NOVA are testing the app and providing feedback to the team.

In addition to student testers, ADVANCE has provided the team with aggregate data of qualitative and quantitative feedback received directly from students through an Ask an ADVANCE Student Ambassador forum on the program’s Canvas course. This information helps the program identify what students are most focused on throughout through transfer journey and time in ADVANCE.

“My hope with providing that additional data is to help narrow down what should be covered in the tours and what could be helpful to incorporate into the app,” said Jason Dodge, the executive director of community college partnerships at George Mason.

Mariya Khan. Photo provided.

“The AR campus tour and ADVANCE both highlight that transfer is not the responsibility of a single office, but that it takes a collective of folks across the university in order to pull something like that off,” said Dodge.

Schrum said several students from the graduate course HE 703 Higher Education in the Digital Age are working on the project. Team instructional designer Mariya Khan gave an in-person interactive presentation on AR and gamification to the class.

“Kelly saw how the AR I used in my presentation could be infused into what she envisioned for this project,” said Khan, who works in the Stearns Center for Teaching and Learning.

“I’m a first-generation American, so I understand why projects like this are important,” Khan added. “It would be super helpful to students who want to feel more engaged and like they’re part of something.”

Veronica Visser. Photo provided.

Veronica Visser, a master’s student in higher education and leadership, has been a part of the project since its inception.

“As a first-gen international student, sometimes it can feel like you just go to campus, go to your lecture, and then you go back home,” said Visser, who is from Paraguay. “But with resources like the AR app, you learn that there are people available to help you with your resume, to help you with time management, getting your Mason [ID] card, or other resources that will make you a better student and person.”

The team will conduct a second round of user testing on the app this summer.

“Although we are focusing on first-gen transfer students for now, the project has a lot of potential to expand to other underrepresented minorities, and we’re excited to explore that,” said Schrum.

Take a look at the app in action

Currently this augmented reality experience is only mapped for Student Union Building I. The Johnson Center and Fenwick Library are both on the list to receive a similar AR map.

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4-VA@Mason awards funding for twelve promising investigations

Pam Shepherd — Thu, 28 Sep 2023 16:35:28 +0000

4-VA@Mason awards funding for twelve promising investigations Pam Shepherd Thu, 09/28/2023 - 12:35

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4-VA@Mason, part of a statewide collective of higher education institutions, recently announced the Collaborative Research Awards for the 2023-2024 academic year with 12 projects spearheaded by Mason faculty and eight with Mason faculty acting as co-PIs.

In addition to Mason, the 4-VA collective includes the College of William and Mary, James Madison University (JMU), Old Dominion University (ODU), University of Virginia (UVA), Virginia Commonwealth University (VCU), Virginia Military Institute (VMI), and Virginia Tech (VT).

“These 4-VA@Mason Collaborative Research Grants are the core of what our state program is all about—providing seed funding to encourage faculty from our eight partner schools to launch novel research efforts and build critical relationships among the institutions,” said Janette Kenner Muir, vice provost of academic affairs and campus coordinator of 4-VA@Mason.

The 4-VA@Mason 2023-24 Collaborative Research Grant winners, with partner schools in parentheses, include:

Akerlof, Karen (College of Science) – Bridging Science and Policy in the States: A Study of Emerging Mechanisms to Train Scientists and Engineers (VT)
Enfield, Jacob (College of Visual and Performing Arts) – MySQL Murder Mystery (VMI)
Furst, Kirin Emlet (College of Engineering and Computing) – The role of the air-water interface in breakthrough of PFAS and phthalate esters during wastewater treatment (VT)
Jones, R Christian (College of Science) – Using Taxonomic, Pigment and Molecular Analysis to Characterize Algal Blooms in the Shenandoah River (ODU)
Kang, Pilgyu (College of Engineering and Computing) – Machine learning assisted laser manufacturing of alloy nanoparticle graphene hybrid materials for high performance hydrogen sensing (UVA)
LaFrance, Michelle (College of Humanities and Social Sciences) – The Virginia Community and Public Writing Collaborative (JMU, VCU, VT, UVA)
Lawrence, Heidi (College of Humanities and Social Sciences) – A Rhetorical Approach to Challenges in Blood Donation (VT)
Raffegeau, Tiphanie (College of Education and Human Development) – Using Virtual Reality to Study Cognitive and Affective Risk Factors for Falls in Older Adults (ODU)
Straus, David (College of Science) – The Role of Diabatic Heating in Determining Atlantic Storm Paths (UVA)
Van Aken, Benoit (College of Science) – Protection of RNA by Association with Macromolecules Implications for Wastewater Based Epidemiology (VT)
Yu, Yun (College of Science) – Nanoscale Visualization of Electrocatalytic Carbon Dioxide Reduction Activity at Cu Nanocatalysts (UVA)
Zhu, Ziwei (College of Engineering and Computing) – Towards Consolidated and Dynamic Debiasing for Online Search and Recommendation (VT)

The following Mason faculty received funding as Co-PIs collaborating with other 4-VA institutions in parentheses:

Chowdhury, Ahsan (College of Science) – The Commonwealth Proofs Project Collaborative: Promoting Students' Understanding of Logical Implications and their Transformations (VT)
Dromgold-Sermen, Michelle (College of Humanities and Social Sciences) – New American Resources: Partnerships and Initiatives at Virginia Higher Education Institutions to Strengthen Virginia's Migration Support (VT)
Jing, Hao (College of Science) – Acoustics-enabled Noncontact Manipulation, Patterning, and Assembly of Complex-shaped Micro/nanoparticles for Advance Manufacturing (VT)
LaToza, Thomas (College of Engineering and Computing) – Visualizing Code Changes to Understand Students’ Mental Models in Programming Education at Scale (VT)
Stone, Victoria (College of Education and Human Development) – Increasing Mental Health Services in K-12 Settings by Helping Provisionally Licensed School Counselors Meet the Requirements for Full Licensure as Professional School Counselors in Virginia (JMU)
Stone, Victoria (College of Education and Human Development) – Supporting K-12 Students after Psychiatric Hospitalizations: Piloting Mixed Reality Simulation Training for School Mental Health Professionals (UVA)
Van Aken, Benoit (College of Science) – Hyperspectral imaging for the real-time detection of microplastic particles in seafoods (VT)
Zhu, Ziwei (College of Engineering and Computing) – Break the Dilemmas between Model Performance and Fairness: A Holistic Solution for Fairness Learning on Graphs (VT)

“We are looking forward to the new discoveries we will find with these 4-VA collaborative projects,” Muir said. “Our faculty, students, and the Commonwealth of Virginia will benefit from these partnerships as the schools approach the work from their own perspectives and strengths, building solid partnerships for future initiatives.”

For more information, visit 4va.gmu.edu or www.facebook.com/4VAMason.

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Mason and UVA collaborate to create energy-efficient desalination technique

Colleen Rich — Tue, 04 Apr 2023 14:36:27 +0000

Mason and UVA collaborate to create energy-efficient desalination technique Colleen Rich Tue, 04/04/2023 - 10:36

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Pei Dong

With 97% of the world’s water held by oceans, the effort to develop effective saltwater desalination is a high priority amongst the world’s scientists. Capacitive deionization (CDI), where ions and chemicals are removed from water by applying a low electrical charge, is the most prevalent process. However, there is much more to understand about the kinetics of the process, which could improve the salt absorption capacity of CDI.

Mason researcher Pei Dong in her lab. Photo by Ron Aira/Creative Services

It was this challenge that caught the interest of Pei Dong, an assistant professor in the Department of Mechanical Engineering at ��AV’s College of Engineering and Computing. She recognized that tackling this topic would be substantially boosted by incorporating research underway in the lab of Baoxing Xu of University of Virginia’s Mechanical and Aerospace Engineering Department.

Their project, “A study on the ultrahigh salt adsorption capacity of an energy-efficiency water desalination technology,” was supported by a 4-VA@Mason Collaborative Research Grant with the goal of designing next-generation electrode materials to advance the energy-efficient CDI technology.

Xu’s group investigates multiscale/multiphysics modeling and simulations of solid-liquid interactions, especially systems in response to external stimuli such as temperature, electrical, and mechanical fields. Together, Dong’s group and Xu’s group could investigate the adsorption process to further identify, design, and synthesize more effective carbon materials for use in the CDI process.

Fast forward through the research—complete with a pandemic and the resulting lab closures—Dong and her team report that they have indeed synthesized different carbon materials that show a much higher salt absorption capacity. Dong anticipates that this technique could dramatically lower desalination costs and contribute to the sustainable development goals in Virginia, the United States, and beyond.

Along with this successful research outcome, the project also produced several other beneficial consequences, especially a new collaboration among Mason and UVA faculty and students. Dong also noted the journey provided a rich educational experience for students—with a combination of experimental and computational skills allowing them to contribute to future engineering innovation in this emerging field.

From left, students Rui He, Crystal Bowers and Xiaozhou Huang working on the project in Pei Dong's lab. Photo provided

That experience was especially true for PhD candidate Rui He. He oversaw the project in Dong’s lab and administered the tests, including those for surface area, water contact angle, electrical property, and water desalination. He also prepared the wood-converted carbon and the potassium hydroxide activation.

“I learned a lot about teamwork,” He said. “I needed to teach the undergraduates how to run the lab experiments and data analysis as a team, and make sure every step is what we wanted.”

In addition, the team worked together to print a 3D CDI cell and assembled the experimental setup, installing the wood-converted carbon into the cell.

“Sometimes we didn’t get the results we expected, and we needed to find out where things went wrong and fix the problem,” He said. “For example, the 3D-printed CDI cell was a challenge at the beginning because it can’t prevent the leakage of water. We tried a lot of different designs, and finally got one to work.”

Several of the other Mason students involved in the research were undergraduate Crystal Bowers and PhD candidate Xiaozhou Huang.

Thanks to the project’s success, the research has received wide recognition. Their work “Binder-Free Wood Converted Carbon for Enhanced Water Desalination Performance” has been published in the journal Advanced Functional Materials.

He won the Excellent Student Presentation Award in the 242nd Electrochemical Society Meeting for both his oral presentation and poster about the project. This work has also been presented at Virginia Clean Energy and Catalysis Club 2022 Summit (poster) and the International Mechanical Engineering Congress and Exposition 2022 (oral presentation).

4-VA is a partnership among eight Virginia universities, created to foster collaborations that leverage the strengths of each university and improve efficiencies in education across the commonwealth. Thanks to 4-VA, unprecedented alliances between schools, departments, faculty, and students generate significant, innovative solutions to educational and real-world challenges.