Spotlight Faculty Fellow

Trip report: investigating the biological impact of hurricanes in the Gulf of Mexico

Gabe Allen — Mon, 04 May 2026 17:48:48 +0000

Trip report: investigating the biological impact of hurricanes in the Gulf of Mexico Gabe Allen Mon, 05/04/2026 - 11:48

Gabe Allen

In the spring of 2021, Shaily Rahman embarked from Cocodrie, Louisiana aboard the US Research Vessel Pelican bound for study sites near the Mississippi River Delta in the Gulf of Mexico. Her goal was a one-off trip to collect sediment samples over 2 days at sea. But just two weeks after her return, Hurricane Ida roared into the gulf with such force that it briefly reversed the flow of the Mississippi River.

The storm devastated the Louisiana coastline. For Rahman and her students, it also created a scientific opening. Her sampling effort offered a pre-storm baseline that — if combined with subsequent data — could provide insight into how extreme weather affects the Gulf’s nutrient cycles.

Shaily Rahman takes a much-needed moment of respite aboard the RV Pelican, a boat in the US Academic Research Fleet. (Courtesy)

Rahman quickly secured funding through the National Science Foundation to return to the gulf. Since then, she has returned to the delta seven more times. This week, she is back again from another 10-day cruise aboard the Pelican with samples that will keep her lab busy for months.

Rahman’s focus is silicon, the second most abundant element in the Earth’s crust and an essential nutrient for life. Rivers like the Mississippi transport silicon into the ocean, where much of it is incorporated into the skeletons of single-celled plankton called diatoms. When the diatoms die, they sink to the ocean floor.

While the amount of silicon and other nutrients entering the gulf via the Mississippi River is well-understood, Rahman’s research aims to discern what nutrients are released by the seabed.

“How much of that nutrient flux is being recycled into the water column from the seabed and then available to algae?” Rahman posed.

Extreme weather, like Hurricane Ida, further complicates this question — and makes it more interesting. Heavy storms churn up the seabed and suspend sediment in the water. Rahman and her collaborators aim to discern if this disturbance may release a sudden pulse of nutrients before resettling.

“It’s already a hard question to answer, and when you add in hurricanes and extreme weather — that makes it even harder,” she said.

Crew members pose for a group photo aboard the RV Pelican in April, 2026. (Courtesy)

These processes aren’t just theoretical, they have real-world tangible impacts. Diatoms, which rely on silicon, form the basis of the gulf’s marine food web. That food web, in turn, supports commercial fishing and tourism industries that contribute billions of dollars to regional economies each year. Diatoms are also responsible for more than 15% of Earth’s oxygen production

The right balance of silicon, and other nutrients like nitrogen and phosphorus, can support a thriving marine ecosystem with plentiful fish. Yet, the wrong balance can lead to a proliferation of harmful algae that strip the gulf of oxygen leading to massive fish kills — a scenario that played out off the Texas Gulf Coast in 2023.

Rahman’s research questions are among many others aboard the Pelican. One researcher, for instance, is investigating the overlapping effects of the silicon cycle and the carbon cycle — research that could have major implications for future predictions of greenhouse gas warming.

Rahman will also return to Boulder with a cooler full of preserved sediment samples for use in various graduate student research efforts. Collectively, these inquiries will help to demystify how chemicals move through the sediment, water, and air of the Gulf of Mexico. The results could help regional managers predict and mitigate negative outcomes.

“Developing a baseline is good for predictive models,” Rahman said. “Are the fish going to die, or is your food web going to be more productive?”

If you have questions about this story, or would like to reach out to INSTAAR for further comment, you can contact Senior Communications Specialist Gabe Allen at gabriel.allen@colorado.edu.

INSTAAR fellow Shaily Rahman has just returned from her eighth research cruise in the Mississippi River Delta region of the Gulf of Mexico. Sediment samples from the trip will provide insight into the effects of extreme weather on marine food webs.

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Q&A: 39 days at sea, hunting for clues in seawater’s biological detritus

Gabe Allen — Mon, 27 Apr 2026 14:45:00 +0000

Q&A: 39 days at sea, hunting for clues in seawater’s biological detritus Gabe Allen Mon, 04/27/2026 - 08:45

Gabe Allen

Ten months may seem like an excessive amount of time to prepare for a cruise, but it’s not for a scientist.

Julio Sepúlveda and Edgart Flores got notice that there was a last-minute opening aboard the German Research Vessel Sonne this past December. This presented an opportunity to carry out an ambitious research project that had been indefinitely postponed since the COVID-19 pandemic, but it only left them 10 months to prepare before the ship departed from Antofagasta, Chile in October.

“We had to get ready in a relatively short time, but we managed to do it, in large part because of the efforts by the chief scientists and collaborators in Germany and Chile,” Sepúlveda said.

The cruise, on the whole, was organized around investigations of the extremely arid Atacama Desert and the ocean waters that abut it. The Atacama is the driest nonpolar desert in the world, while the nearby ocean is home to a unique ecosystem that flourishes despite extremely low levels of dissolved oxygen.

Sepúlveda and Flores’ mission was at sea. They came to collect biological detritus from vast quantities of seawater in search of a deeper understanding of the ecosystem at a molecular level.

This week, INSTAAR sat down with Sepúlveda to debrief about the cruise, the research, and what comes next.

Click for caption info

One of the projects you were working on during the cruise focused on microbial communities in low-oxygen zones. Can you give us the context?

Yes, so one of the areas we visited, off the coast of northern Chile, right next to the Atacama desert, is characterized by ocean upwelling — water from below is brought up to the surface by local wind and currents. Because of this upwelling, phytoplankton are highly abundant on the surface. When that biomass sinks, it's degraded by microbes, which consume a lot of oxygen. This creates an oxygen-deficient zone. Some people call them dead zones — though that phrase is more often in reference to anthropogenically driven impacts in coastal areas. What we have here occurs naturally in the open ocean.

The problem is that these areas are expanding and becoming more intense because of warming in the ocean. There have been a few studies showing this, and they have also predicted further expansion with global warming. Low oxygen is a big stressor for marine life. So if these areas are becoming larger, that means that the habitat of certain organisms is shrinking.

But these areas are also home to some very unique microbial communities. Unlike other life forms, these organisms don’t rely on oxygen to drive their metabolisms. Instead, they gain energy by breaking down nitrogen-containing compounds into inert nitrogen gas and water. This process removes nitrogen from the ecosystem. So, these microbial communities are very important on a global scale, because they can basically control how much oxygen and nitrogen is available in the ocean.

Julio Sepúlveda logs data at a work station aboard the Sonne. (Courtesy)

What kind of data did you collect on these microbial communities and what questions are you investigating?

We're trying to understand how these communities can adapt to multiple environmental stressors, including ocean warming, ocean acidification, and deoxygenation. How do we do this? We study the fats, or lipids, found in the cell membranes of these organisms. Why? Because organisms are able to change the chemistry of their cell membranes in order to adapt to environmental factors.

Imagine a stick of butter in a cool room, versus a bottle of olive oil. The butter is solid, because it is a saturated fat, while the olive oil is liquid, because it is an unsaturated fat. Organisms that live in warmer waters produce more butter-like fats to keep their cell membranes sturdy, while organisms that live in colder environments produce more olive oil-like fats, to keep their cell membranes flexible. If, all of the sudden, you put an organism that lives in warm waters in the Arctic, it will freeze to death unless it can adjust the ratio of fats it is producing — and the same vice versa.

So, what we do is collect large volumes of sea water at different depths using instruments known as in situ pumps. That allows us to capture a large swath of suspended particles coming from organisms in the ocean. Then we concentrate this material using large filters, freeze it, and bring it to the lab. In the lab, we can study the chemical composition of the entire microbial community at a particular water depth.

This approach is called environmental lipidomics. Basically, we’re able to see all of the fats produced in a given ecosystem. It allows us to do chemical fingerprinting, where we link certain fats back to the organisms that produce them. We also try to figure out which of these chemical signatures are unique to which systems and which signatures represent adaptations to environmental stressors.

Another part of the work we did was to filter smaller volumes of sea water to analyze DNA, which basically allows us to get a better sense of who's there, and look at the genetic potential of certain organisms to produce certain lipids. Finally, we also filtered samples for RNA, which allows us to see which genes are actually being expressed.

So, now we know which lipids are present, which organisms are present, and which genes they are expressing. This allows us to look at how the entire system is adapting to change. Is the makeup of species in the community shifting, or are the existing species genetically equipped to adapt to these changes, for instance? The integration of these genomics techniques with lipidomics is called meta-omics.

Why are these important questions?

If the chemistry of these organisms changes, that influences the quality of the organic matter consumed by all of the organisms in the marine trophic web. If you, for instance, reduce the number of unsaturated fats, that will have huge implications for animals. Animals cannot produce omega-3 and omega-6 fatty acids, we have to get them from eating primary producers like plants and phytoplankton, or from animals that feed on them like fish. So if the composition of phytoplankton changes, that has implications for zooplankton and then fish and eventually all the way up to us. It impacts the nutritional value at the very base of the food web.

This can also have big impacts on fish physiology — fish will struggle if they don't have the right proportion of good fatty acids. It could impact reproduction and potentially even lead to the collapse of some fisheries around the world. Now, this is speculation beyond the current research, obviously, but these are things that we care about, and that's where we study how these ecosystems are changing.

The scientific crew of Expedition SO315 poses aboard the Sonne. (Courtesy)

What’s next?

One of the things that I would love to do in the near future is to team up with some biogeochemical modelers or ecological modelers or climate modelers, people we have in-house, like [INSTAAR director Nicole Lovenduski]. Modelers may be able to put all of this data that we’re parsing into more complex numerical models or statistical analyses that allow us to get a much more quantitative idea of what drives change in these communities —what are the lipids telling us?

The long-term objective is to use some of these chemical signatures as indicators of the status of marine ecosystems. If we can infer which organisms are present, how they are adapting, and which adaptations might occur in response to certain environmental stressors, we might be able to see when and how an ecosystem is experiencing environmental pressure, just from analyzing a water sample.

We may also be able to use these tools to power predictive models of future ecological and chemical changes. It could help us go from models of things like temperature and dissolved oxygen to the future conditions of trophic webs, ocean chemistry, and fisheries. This is really thinking a lot further in time, but I guess those are the kinds of things that get me and others in my group excited about the work we do. We're trying to make stronger connections between what we find and what's really critical for us as humanity to understand.

Lastly, we plan to apply the information gathered from the water column to study changes in microbial processes associated with the expansion of oxygen-deficient zones during glacial-interglacial cycles. Stay tuned.

If you have questions about this story, or would like to reach out to INSTAAR for further comment, you can contact Senior Communications Specialist Gabe Allen at gabriel.allen@colorado.edu.

Julio Sepúlveda and Edgart Flores spent more than a month aboard a German Research Cruise off the coast of Chile last fall. Now, they hope to unlock a new method for inferring ecological health from water samples.

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What does it take to make a hit podcast about science?

Gabe Allen — Thu, 12 Mar 2026 12:00:00 +0000

What does it take to make a hit podcast about science? Gabe Allen Thu, 03/12/2026 - 06:00

Gabe Allen

Scott Taylor posts a note to an idea board as he and Zach Karl plan the first 12 episodes of “Okay, But… Birds.” (courtesy photo)

Scott Taylor has his hands full at CU Boulder. He is an associate professor with research and teaching responsibilities, and the director of the Mountain Research Station. Yet, he recently added another job title to the list: podcast host.

Visit the Okay, But... Birds site

Taylor’s podcast, “Okay, But… Birds,” tackles a wide range of avian topics, ranging from the status of bird flu in 2026 to the rising popularity of birding. He mostly interviews fellow academics, but has a knack for keeping conversations compelling without diving too far into the scientific weeds. And, he isn’t afraid to bring on ornithophiles from other fields. One recent episode featured Pulitzer Prize-Winning popular science author Ed Yong.

Taylor’s goal? To spark scientific curiosity in bird-curious listeners.

“A lot of people are interested in birding, which is great,” Taylor said. “Less people understand the science behind these amazing creatures.”

“Okay, But… Birds” is already making waves. In just a few short months, the podcast has published 14 episodes and amassed thousands of followers on social media. Just before its debut, Taylor was invited onto NPR’s 1A to talk about birds and answer listener questions.

This week, INSTAAR sat down with Taylor to pull back the curtain on “Okay, But… Birds.”

The show is so polished. Your written intros are punchy and immediate, the sound design, set design and video are crisp and attractive. Who is working on this aside from yourself?

My partner, Zach Karl, is the producer and editor. He’s a business consultant, and he’s also an RnB artist — he’s been doing sound design and production for years. It’s been amazing to have him thinking through design and filming and editing. The podcast felt like a really cool way to take my love of talking to the public about science and birds and combine that with my partner's love of production and media.

Take us through the show format. How is it structured?

We start with a sizzle reel — something memorable from the episode. Then there’s a monologue at the beginning, usually a storytelling monologue where I relate the topic back to a personal anecdote. Then the main segment is an interview with someone who is either an expert in the science of birds, or someone for whom birds really matter — we call it “talk birdy to me.” Then we have a segment called “that’s BS,” which stands for “bird stuff,” where we basically debunk a myth — like if you touch a baby bird it won’t be rejected by its parents. We end with a fact, for the listeners that want to come away with a conversation piece. The episodes are typically 30 minutes — not too long.

Who do you have on? Is there a vetting process?

At the beginning we came up with 12 topics that we thought would be really interesting to our audience. We started by just asking, who do we already know, but thinking carefully about career stage and life experience. So we’ve had a lot of people on who I have a direct connection to and some where the connection is less direct. For instance, there’s Linda Macaulay, who is the namesake of the world's largest and oldest scientific archive of wildlife recordings. We were really excited to have her on the show, and the episode turned out great because we could pull from a vast catalogue of her field recordings.

As we progress past the initial list, we’re considering a lot of things like topics our listeners are suggesting, and representation. Recently we filmed with Doug Tallamy, a renowned entomologist who is widely known as a thought leader in yard naturalization and who founded Homegrown National Park. That episode is great and we’re excited for it to air.

You are such a skilled storyteller. How did you develop that aptitude?

I was a really shy kid. I always really loved nature, and I spent a lot of time walking around in the woods where I grew up in Ontario. But, I haven’t always been comfortable with public speaking. The year after I finished high school, I got a job as a naturalist at McGregor Point Provincial Park. It was everything from leading wildlife walks to dressing up as a turtle and singing campfire songs. That’s when I really started to get into the idea that you can be animated and show people how much you care about these things. I did that job for five years, while I was in school studying science in a serious way for the first time. Finding ways to talk about science that were really inspiring was a part of my job, and it really served me well.

Scott Taylor kneels by a newly-constructed backdrop for “Okay, But… Birds.” (courtesy photo)

The paint dries on the backdrop for “Okay, But… Birds” in Scott Taylor and Zach Karl’s garage. (courtesy photo)

For people new to the show, what is a good episode to start with?

People should start with the question that seems most interesting to them! The podcast is called Okay… But…” because each episode is centered around a big bird question. The first episode, “Okay, but is bird monogamy just PR?” breaks a lot of myths and our recent episode “Okay, but why is a bird’s world more colorful?” is a really fun and approachable topic. I think all of the episodes have something for everyone. Science is a journey, and we take people along and try to keep it really understandable.

What is a moment from an interview that stands out to you?

Linda Macaulay told some crazy stories. She was recording bird calls in West Africa with a former British spy who had used bird watching as his cover. One day, they went back to the hotel for lunch and saw all of these people with machine guns in the woods outside. Later, they were having dinner at the hotel and two tables over was Charles Taylor, the Liberian rebel warlord. Then, they saw some American guys in suits drop a metal briefcase with him — probably CIA operatives.

It’s also just fun to see where people’s excitement about their work comes from. Everyone has a different reason for loving birds, and often it comes from personal experiences.

Even though I’ve spent my career studying birds, there’s so much I still don’t know. For instance, I didn’t realize that avian influenza is the biggest outbreak in wildlife ever. I learn something new each episode.

What advice would you give to another academic who wants to start a podcast about their field?

We built a really solid pitch deck — basically a presentation that covers the show’s concept, mission, and target audience. We didn’t actually end up pitching it to any networks, but it was a really useful way to really think carefully about personas, audiences and branding. It’s my partner’s job to do that sort of thing. It's really important, and Zach is really amazing at it.

I’m a good storyteller, but that alone is not enough to do this successfully. We’re really lucky that, within our partnership, we have all of the skills we need to do this well. There’s little things, like we have a tech kit that we send out to interviewees. At the end of the day, it’s really just two guys in a garage, but together we have really complimentary experience that makes the show what it is.

What’s next?

We have 24 episodes already planned out for season one and two. Right now we’re focused on producing those and getting them out there. We also want to engage with our followers more, perhaps by bringing in listener questions or commentary to the show.

One thing we would like to do in the future is have a featured slot on the podcast as an award for a graduate student speaking at a conference. I want to find ways to use the show to encourage scientists to engage with a wider audience and encourage people to engage with science.

If you have questions about this story, or would like to reach out to INSTAAR for further comment, you can contact Senior Communications Specialist Gabe Allen at gabriel.allen@colorado.edu.

At the end of last year, Scott Taylor launched a new podcast called “Okay, But… Birds.” The ornithology-focused podcast has already attracted thousands of followers and the attention of a national radio program.

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'Hiding in plain sight': Scientists reflect on years studying life in Antarctic desert (CU Boulder Today)

David J Lubinski — Wed, 11 Feb 2026 23:48:47 +0000

'Hiding in plain sight': Scientists reflect on years studying life in Antarctic desert (CU Boulder Today) David J Lubinski Wed, 02/11/2026 - 16:48

Researchers at the McMurdo Dry Valleys Long-Term Ecological Research Program have spent more than three decades studying ecosystems in one of the world’s most hostile environments. Diane McKnight and Mike Gooseff discuss the importance of the research, its challenges, and its rewards.

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Research highlight: Dr. Keith Musselman and the EcoTram (MRS News)

Gabe Allen — Wed, 14 Jan 2026 16:53:42 +0000

Research highlight: Dr. Keith Musselman and the EcoTram (MRS News) Gabe Allen Wed, 01/14/2026 - 09:53

INSTAAR fellow Keith Musselman and collaborators have constructed an "EcoTram" that continuously measures hydrological and ecological variables across a 400-foot transect high in the Indian Peaks. The system provides a wealth of data for investigations into shifting mountain systems.

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Embracing excellence: CU Boulder honors postdocs and mentors during National Postdoc Appreciation Week (Postdoctoral Affairs)

David J Lubinski — Mon, 22 Sep 2025 17:55:06 +0000

Embracing excellence: CU Boulder honors postdocs and mentors during National Postdoc Appreciation Week (Postdoctoral Affairs) David J Lubinski Mon, 09/22/2025 - 11:55

Among a select group to receive awards were two INSTAARs: Nathalie Vriend was selected as a CU Boulder Outstanding Postdoc Mentor of the Year and Edgart Flores won an honorable mention as an Outstanding Postdoc. Congratulations to both of them!

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INSTAAR welcomes two new faculty fellows

Gabe Allen — Tue, 26 Aug 2025 21:31:58 +0000

INSTAAR welcomes two new faculty fellows Gabe Allen Tue, 08/26/2025 - 15:31

Gabe Allen

INSTAAR has hired two new faculty fellows, Laura Sunberg and Zhi Li. Both Sunberg and Li will join the department of civil, environmental and architectural engineering as assistant professors in addition to conducting research at INSTAAR.

Though Sunberg is new to her position, she is not new to INSTAAR. For the past two years, she has studied how microplastics circulate through the ocean during an NSF-funded postdoctoral position at the institute. Starting last year, she also served as the postdoc representative on the INSTAAR directorate, the institute’s governing body. As a faculty fellow, she will now rejoin the directorate as a voting member.

Sunberg will join a small, but growing cohort of INSTAAR researchers with expertise in environmental fluid mechanics. Institute leadership hope that her appointment will spark new collaborations and expand the institute’s focus on emerging environmental hazards.

“Dr. Sunberg’s novel laboratory and numerical modeling studies of microplastic and firebrand transport will expand INSTAAR’s research portfolio into new areas of growing environmental concern,” INSTAAR director Nicole Lovenduski said.

Zhi Li comes to INSTAAR after wrapping up a postdoctoral position at the Stanford Doerr School of Sustainability. He is an expert in surface water modeling, with a particular focus on refining flood prediction methods. At INSTAAR, he also plans to establish a “collaboratory” aimed at understanding the overlapping impacts of climate change and flooding on agriculture, infrastructure and public health.

This summer, Li was quoted in multiple stories covering flash flooding across the U.S., including this New York Times article. Li will join a growing number of INSTAAR members studying climate-related extremes and hazards, an emerging focus area for the institute.

“Dr. Li will elevate INSTAAR’s research on climate-related extremes by bringing additional expertise on hydrology and flood impacts,” Lovenduski said. “His numerical modeling research will complement the CSDMS program, and his community efforts will enhance INSTAAR’s public engagement.”

Laura Sunberg, an expert in marine microplastic transport, and Zhi Li, an expert in flood modeling, are INSTAAR’s latest faculty members. Both researchers are also beginning professorships in the department of civil, environmental and architectural engineering.

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Report paints grim picture of how nuclear war could impact oceans (CU Boulder Today)

Gabe Allen — Wed, 30 Jul 2025 15:48:40 +0000

Report paints grim picture of how nuclear war could impact oceans (CU Boulder Today) Gabe Allen Wed, 07/30/2025 - 09:48

In a Q&A, INSTAAR director Nicole Lovenduski talks about her contributions to a report on the environmental impacts of a hypothetical nuclear war. Lovenduski was tasked with modeling impacts in the world's oceans, which could be global and long-lasting.

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Rainy spring may be bad news for fire season. Here’s what you can do about it (CU Boulder Today)

Gabe Allen — Tue, 17 Jun 2025 19:13:19 +0000

Rainy spring may be bad news for fire season. Here’s what you can do about it (CU Boulder Today) Gabe Allen Tue, 06/17/2025 - 13:13

Grassland fires are becoming more frequent and more dangerous across the country. Ecologist Katharine Suding has spent her career understanding the ecosystems that produce them. She shares insights in a Q&A.

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A brief history of Katharine Suding's groundbreaking career in restoration ecology (The Franklin Institute)

Gabe Allen — Mon, 05 May 2025 20:25:36 +0000

A brief history of Katharine Suding's groundbreaking career in restoration ecology (The Franklin Institute) Gabe Allen Mon, 05/05/2025 - 14:25

The Franklin Institute recently gave INSTAAR senior faculty fellow Katharine Suding the Bower Award for achievement in Science citing her transformative contributions to the field of restoration ecology. This mini-documentary tells her story.

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Spotlight Faculty Fellow

Trip report: investigating the biological impact of hurricanes in the Gulf of Mexico

Related Articles

Q&A: 39 days at sea, hunting for clues in seawater’s biological detritus

One of the projects you were working on during the cruise focused on microbial communities in low-oxygen zones. Can you give us the context?

What kind of data did you collect on these microbial communities and what questions are you investigating?

Why are these important questions?

What’s next?

Related Articles

What does it take to make a hit podcast about science?

The show is so polished. Your written intros are punchy and immediate, the sound design, set design and video are crisp and attractive. Who is working on this aside from yourself?

Take us through the show format. How is it structured?

Who do you have on? Is there a vetting process?

You are such a skilled storyteller. How did you develop that aptitude?

For people new to the show, what is a good episode to start with?

What is a moment from an interview that stands out to you?

What advice would you give to another academic who wants to start a podcast about their field?

What’s next?

Related Articles

'Hiding in plain sight': Scientists reflect on years studying life in Antarctic desert (CU Boulder Today)

Related Articles

Research highlight: Dr. Keith Musselman and the EcoTram (MRS News)

Off

Embracing excellence: CU Boulder honors postdocs and mentors during National Postdoc Appreciation Week (Postdoctoral Affairs)

Related Articles

INSTAAR welcomes two new faculty fellows

Off

Report paints grim picture of how nuclear war could impact oceans (CU Boulder Today)

Related Articles

Rainy spring may be bad news for fire season. Here’s what you can do about it (CU Boulder Today)

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A brief history of Katharine Suding's groundbreaking career in restoration ecology (The Franklin Institute)

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