2025 RPI Founders Award of Excellence
Grad students Meri Herrero, Samantha (Sam) Pryor, and Michael Hudgins are among those chosen as recipients of RPI’s Founders Award of Excellence, the highest honor given at the annual Honors Convocation ceremony in October. The Founders Award of Excellence honors students who embody the qualities of creativity, discovery, and leadership, and the values of pride and responsibility at RPI.
2025 Graduate Student Research Excellence Award
Justin Park received an honorary mention for RPI Office of Graduate Education's Graduate Student Research Excellence Award. This distinction celebrates the outstanding research accomplishments and scholarly promise demonstrated in Justin's work and includes work by Justin and Prof. Morgan Schaller featured in a review paper in the prestigious scientific journal Nature: https://www.nature.com/articles/s43247-025-02799-9 (Fig. 3)
October 2025 Travel Grant Awards
Grad student Maddy Miller was awarded a $1,000 travel grant for the AGU Fall Meeting in New Orleans, Louisiana, to be held December 15-19.
Grad student Julia Hubbard was awarded a $500 travel grant by the Deep Submergence Science Committee to participate in an early career workshop ahead of the AGU Fall Meeting.
A Day in the Life of the Hudson River and Harbor
Prof. Sarah Cadieux and EES undergraduate students Hannah Miller and Wally Tonks participated in “Day in the Life of the Hudson River and Harbor" on October 15. On this day over 2,000 students collect scientific data to create "day-in-the-life" snapshots of the river at dozens of locations and share their data so they can understand how their piece of the river fits into the larger Hudson estuary ecosystem. Prof. Cadieux and the EES students assisted 3rd and 4th graders from the Robert C. Parker School in identifying and holding fish, and then taught a curriculum unit on microplastics.
Prof. Sasha Wagner, aboard the Alvin research submersible, sends a bit of “explosive” news from the East Pacific Rise:
In our history of the understanding of plate tectonics as a unifying theory for how the earth functions, there has never been a direct observation of volcanism along the mid-ocean rise. This is as close as we’ve come and is a huge deal!
Univ of Delaware's press release: https://www.udel.edu/udaily/2025/may/rare-tica-deep-ocean-volcanic-eruption/
Students in Prof. Morgan Schaller's Oceanography class were able to interview Prof. Wagner on ship live from the classroom during her two recent research cruises, all in real time. This has been a great opportunity for the students to be engaged in the research and think critically about it.
Top-Cited Article:
Prof. Frank Spear's work entitled "Pressure-temperature evolution of the basement and cover sequences on los, Greece: Evidence for subduction of the Hercynian basement" has been recognized as a Top Cited Article in Journal of Metamorphic Geology.
Papers Published:
Gull, M., Cruz, H.A., Krishnamurthy, R and Pasek, M. A. Phosphorylation of nucleosides by P-N bond species generated from prebiotic reduced phosphorus sources. Commun Chem 8, 187 (2025). https://doi.org/10.1038/s42004-025-01577-0
Semprich, J., Filiberto, J., Weller, M. et al. Metamorphism of Venus as driver of crustal thickness and recycling. Nat Commun 16, 2905 (2025). https://doi.org/10.1038/s41467-025-58324-1
Collins, A., Hubbard, J., Wagner, S. (in press) Hydrologic management convolutes expected spatiotemporal patterns of dissolved organic matter in the Hudson River. Journal of Geophysical Research: Biogeosciences
Holt, A.D., Barton, R., Wagner, S., McKenna, A.M., Fellman, J., Hood, E., Battin, T.I., Hannes, P., Vanishing Glaciers Field Team, Spencer, R.G.M. (in press) Widespread black carbon deposition of varied origin exported from glaciers. Global Biogeochemical Cycles
Park, J. G. and Schaller, M. F. (2025). "Constraints on Earth’s atmospheric evolution from a gas-aqueous partition of fluid inclusion volatiles." Gondwana Research 139: 204-215. doi.org/10.1016/j.gr.2024.12.003 https://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S1342937X24003423
Presentation Award:
Grad student Alex Collins received the Outstanding Student Presentation Award for his presentation entitled "Dams and reservoirs alter the transport and storage of organic matter within the Upper Hudson Watershed" at the AGU Annual Meeting held last December. This honor is awarded for only the most exceptional presentations during AGU24 and Alex received $100 as designated by his section, Biogeosciences.
2025 Grant Awards:
Prof. Sarah Cadieux was recently awarded a NYS Water Resource Institute grant, “Upper Hudson River Microplastics Watch.”
Prof. Matt Pasek and a research colleague in the Czech Republic were recently awarded funding from the Human Frontiers of Science Program for three years.
2025 Appointment:
Prof. Morgan Schaller was appointed to a three-year term on the Awards Committee of the European Association of Geochemistry.
