Earth and Environmental Sciences
Many consumer sunscreens contain potentially harmful chemicals to freshwater environments such as endocrine disruptors and carcinogens. Exposure to UV-filters has, over time, been shown to a…
Earth and Environmental Sciences
Eutrophication poses serious threats to coastal ecosystems globally, highlighting the urgent need for innovative and sustainable wastewater treatment solutions under a changing climate. This…
Earth and Environmental Sciences
Microplastics are tiny pieces of plastic that can end up in our water, making their way into rivers, lakes, and even the ocean. These small particles are a big problem because they dont brea…
Earth and Environmental Sciences
Second Award
Coral reefs are one of Earth's most valuable ecosystems, but they are in decline, fueling a surge of restoration activity across the global tropics. Yet, despite significant scientific advan…
Earth and Environmental Sciences
Global Microplastic Pollution, an “Environmental Ticking Time Bomb”, is a significant and ongoing threat to the environment, world's water-quality, and human-health. Humans now ingest >5 gra…
Earth and Environmental Sciences
Columnar jointing is a well-known feature of frozen magma flows. World-famous examples include the UNESCO world heritage site, the Giant's Causeway, UK. Columnar jointing can be divided into…
Earth and Environmental Sciences
While climate change's environmental impacts are well recognized, its humanitarian impacts depend on complex interactions between climate and population factors. This study simulated land-us…
Earth and Environmental Sciences
CO2 emissions are a critical global concern, particularly in urban and industrialized regions. Effective tracking of CO2 plumes is essential for understanding climate impacts and managing ai…
Earth and Environmental Sciences
Climate changes that include ocean acidification and global warming are serious problems in the ecosystem, affecting marine phytoplankton, including Nannochloropsis oceanica. In the effort t…
Earth and Environmental Sciences
Climate change comes in many forms, sometimes from unexpected sources. Manure management facilities are some of the most overlooked, yet consequential facilitators of climate change, contrib…
Earth and Environmental Sciences
Fourth Award
Schistocerca gregaria (desert locust) is the world's most destructive migratory pest and a serious threat to food security. Existing locust-control tools use real-time field data to monitor…
Earth and Environmental Sciences
Coral reefs stand as the ocean's last line of defense, a living barrier vital to the marine ecosystem, supporting approximately 25% of its biodiversity, and providing additional benefits to…
Earth and Environmental Sciences
The large amounts of CO2 generated by human activities results in an increase in ocean acidity on a global scale (Hill, 2018). The ability to determine long-term open ocean acidification tre…
Earth & Environment: Air/ Water
Honorable_mention Award
Earth and Environmental Sciences
Melatonin made by insects and plants regulates growth and development. Ecdysteroids like 20-hydroxyecdysone (20E) promote maturation, molting and butterfly emergence through oxidative stress…
Earth and Environmental Sciences
Second Award
Mycorrhizal fungi establish underground networks that form symbiotic relationships with almost all plant species and facilitate crucial ecological processes, but habitat degradation is their…
Earth and Environmental Sciences
Third Award
Coastal erosion costs around $500 million per year due to damages to essential infrastructure (NOAA, 2025). Scientists have explored nature-based solutions to coastal erosion, specifically t…
Earth and Environmental Sciences
This study describes a novel species of snail in the genus Japonia (subfamily Cyclophoridae, family Cyclophoridae) discovered in Hong Kong. This species is distinguished by unique long, spoo…
Earth and Environmental Sciences
Fourth Award
Lake-effect precipitation, which significantly impacts regions downwind of the Great Lakes, poses unique forecasting challenges due to its dependence on localized processes and intricate int…
Earth and Environmental Sciences
Heavy metal contamination in water poses a significant threat to human health and the environment. Effective detection of heavy metals is crucial for the prompt removal of contamination sour…
Earth and Environmental Sciences
First Award
In 2024, over 10,000 tons of oil were spilled into the ocean, damaging the environment and costing billions of dollars in mitigation efforts. This project is a continuation of previous resea…
Earth and Environmental Sciences (inferred)
Urban air pollution, particularly fine particulate matter (PM2.5), poses a significant public health risk globally. Current methods of assessing air quality lack comprehensive integration of…
Earth and Environmental Sciences
The researchers conducted experiments using Pestalotiopsis microspora and Pleurotus pulmonarius creating a non-toxic biodegradable process for decomposing plastic. P. microspora is a fungus…
Earth and Environmental Sciences (inferred)
This study investigated the predictability of microplastic exposure in Daphnia magna through a machine learning-based approach based on gene expression levels. The research's methodology inv…
Earth and Environmental Sciences (inferred)
Increasing carbon emissions is resulting in global warming, melting of polar ice, and slowing of ocean currents, putting sharks at risk. Sharks are a keystone species that serve as an indica…
Earth and Environmental Sciences
Second Award
The spotted lanternfly (SLF), Lycorma delicatula, is an invasive planthopper species that feeds on a wide variety of plant hosts, causing an estimated $3 billion in damages in the United Sta…
Earth and Environmental Sciences
Second Award
Caffeine, a prevalent compound in human wastewater, has emerged as a reliable anthropogenic biomarker for detecting septic tank contamination in aquatic systems due to its minimal natural oc…
Earth and Environmental Sciences (inferred)
Due to their unpredictable nature and large area that they cover, much energy has been put into developing the knowledge of karst landscapes and the vulnerable aquifer systems they contain.…
Earth and Environmental Sciences
Microplastics, degraded from plastic products, have become a pervasive pollutant that severely impacts marine ecosystems and public health. This issue is especially critical in Hawaii, where…
Earth and Environmental Sciences (inferred)
Rationale: Environmental pollution from industrial emissions can have a large effect on precipitation quality. In exploring this further, I wanted to answer the question about whether precip…