To understand urban air pollution, scientists must determine the distance and length of time it takes for pollutants to travel from their source until they are reduced to negligible concentrations. Atmospheric Sciences professor Dr. Sarah Brooks is addressing this issue with a team of graduate students from her course, “Lab Methods in Atmospheric and Environmental Sciences.” Although most urban air pollution studies take place in larger cities, Brooks believes that a study on Texas A&M’s campus will help isolate these sources of pollution, allowing the movement of the molecules and particles to be more easily tracked.

Dr. Kate Miller, dean of the College of Geosciences, has named Dr. Jack Baldauf executive associate dean and associate dean for research, effective Nov. 1.

Shaima Nasiri, a Texas A&M geoscientist, has received a NASA award given to promising young researchers to further their studies in Earth's systems. Nasiri will focus on mid-level clouds, a formation sandwiched between its better-known counterparts. "Every school child learns about billowy cumulus and high, thin cirrus clouds, but middle clouds are often ignored. "If you see a cloud that looks like a space ship, it's probably a type of midlevel cloud called lenticular," says Nasiri, an assistant professor in the Department of Atmospheric Sciences.

Chemical oceanographer Tom Bianchi says cold weather factors complicate chemical analyses.

Two faculty members in the Department of Geology and Geophysics are part of an organizing team that proposes to further investigate the ancient record of Earth’ s processes to better understand its evolving transformation and future implications.