In the air people breathe, the water on the Earth, the stars in the sky and more, atoms are the building blocks that make up the universe. Understanding the structure of the atomic nucleus is crucial for research with implications for astrophysics and in applications such as medical imaging and data storage.

A new study conducted by Department of Physics researchers using the John D. Fox Superconducting Linear Accelerator Laboratory at Florida State University examined titanium-50 nuclei and showed that a long‑standing explanation for where magnetism in atomic nuclei comes from does not fully work for titanium‑50. The research, which was published in Physical Review Letters, suggests that scientists may need to rethink how they explain nuclear magnetism.

“What current models propose is that magnetic strength is largely generated by spin-flip excitations, that means when flipping proton or neutron spins from up to down between so-called spin-orbit partner orbitals,” said Associate Professor Mark Spieker, a co-author on the multi-institution study. “For the first time, we showed that this type of spin-flip cannot be the only mechanism that generates nuclear magnetism.”

How it works

Current nuclear models treat protons and neutrons as individual particles that can occupy fixed energy levels. A spin-flip occurs when these particles change the orientation of their spin as they jump between levels, generating magnetic strength in the process. For many years, scientists believed that this spin-flip mechanism was mainly responsible for magnetic strengths, or signals, in atomic nuclei. Advanced computer modeling also predicted this behavior.

The FSU experiments showed something unexpected: nuclear excited states that clearly showed this neutron spin-flip structure were not the ones producing the strongest magnetic signals. In other words, having more of this neutron “spin‑flip” structure did not automatically mean a stronger magnetic effect.

What they did

The researchers conducted a neutron-transfer experiment at the John D. Fox Superconducting Linear Accelerator Laboratory, using the facility’s Tandem Van de Graaff Accelerator to direct a deuteron — a nucleus made of a proton and a neutron — beam at a thin foil of titanium-49. During the reaction, the neutron from the beam was transferred to titanium-49, producing titanium-50 and leaving a residual proton.

Scientists used the Super-Enge Split-Pole Spectrograph at the Fox Lab to measure the different angles at which the proton was emitted in the reaction, allowing them to analyze how the neutron was transferred to titanium-49.

“You could say that the deuteron beam hits the titanium-49, transfers a neutron, and in this process kicks it up a set of stairs. Depending on the nucleus, that set of stairs looks very different,” Spieker said. “With the spectrograph, we can measure how high the different steps are. How high we get up the set of stairs depends on the excitation energy that we give to the nucleus.”

They combined their results with previously published electron- and proton-scattering data and with data from new photon-scattering experiments conducted at collaborating universities. By combining all these approaches, they were able to closely examine how neutrons flip their spin and how much those flips contribute to the nucleus’s overall magnetic behavior.

The researchers saw that the magnetic signal observed in their experiments was not of the same strength as models predicted — a sign that something else must be contributing to the magnetic signals they measured for titanium-50.

“Without combining all these data sets, the story cannot be stitched together cleanly,” said Bryan Kelly, a graduate student at FSU and study co-author. “Seeing the other magnetic excitations, that the other probes are sensitive to, allowed us to conclude that the spin-flip mechanism between spin-orbit partners is not the sole factor of magnetic strength generation.”

Why it matters and future directions

The study’s results challenge long-standing assumptions about the magnetic behavior of nuclei. Improving scientific understanding of the structure of atomic nuclei will refine current models used across nuclear physics and astrophysics and will help to link these with models used in high-energy physics. Such combined efforts between different fields of physics lead to a better understanding of the building blocks of ordinary matter that shape our universe.

“Developing a better understanding of the universe is exciting and fascinating on its own, and as we learn more, we can possibly apply these new insights to all sorts of new ideas,” Spieker said. “All ordinary matter is made of atomic nuclei, so the more we understand these ‘building blocks’ of nature, the more possibilities we have for what we can use them for to benefit society and drive progress.”

In future studies, the researchers plan to examine what accounts for the unexplained magnetism in titanium-50.

“This research showed that we cannot rely on magnetic strength measurements alone to understand excited states of nuclei,” Kelly said. “Magnetic strength is spread out across several nuclear states and understanding why will require further investigations of the nucleus.”

Acknowledgements

Researchers from Florida State University, the Technical University of Darmstadt in Germany and the Triangle Universities Nuclear Laboratory in North Carolina at Duke University contributed to this study.

This research was supported by the U.S. National Science Foundation, the U.S. Department of Energy Office of Science, the German Research Foundation, the Institute of Atomic Physics in Romania, the Romanian Ministry of Research and the Romanian Government.

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A Florida State University physicist has been named to a newly formed committee that will oversee and advise all future scientific ventures for the U.S. Department of Energy’s Office of Science.

Mayly Sanchez, the Wyatt-Green Chair of Physics in FSU’s Department of Physics, is one of 20 expert scientists selected for the Office of Science Advisory Committee, or SCAC, that will provide advice to DOE on complex scientific and technical issues as well as guide future directions of all of DOE’s research programs.

“I’m so excited for the opportunity to shape how we do science and help determine the best directions for DOE’s research,” said Sanchez, a world leader in the study of neutrinos, mysterious subatomic particles that have little mass, no charge, and played a large role in how our universe came to be. “We’re living in a very exciting moment in which we have many new technologies that are developing incredibly fast, and there’s a real opportunity for the scientific community to adopt these tools and make significant progress in all areas of science.”

SCAC was established in 2026. The committee includes scientists from a range of fields and combines expertise from academia and university research, national laboratories and industry science. Other SCAC members hail from such institutions as the Cleveland Clinic; the Lawrence Livermore National Laboratory in Livermore, California; Google DeepMind and more.

“Dr. Sanchez is an extraordinary scientist who will provide invaluable insight to DOE as it faces the next generation of complex scientific and technological questions,” said FSU President Richard McCullough. “This recognition is a testament to her outstanding leadership and dedication to advancing scientific research. We’re proud to have her represent FSU at the national level.”

Sanchez currently leads research in multiple neutrino experiments, including the Deep Underground Neutrino Experiment, or DUNE, a large international collaboration among over 1,400 scientists that uses giant underground neutrino detectors at DOE’s Fermilab National Accelerator Laboratory near Chicago, Illinois, and the Sanford Underground Research Facility in South Dakota. She also helps lead the  NOvA (NuMI Off-axis νe Appearance) experiment in its investigation of neutrinos through precise measurements of their oscillation properties at Fermilab.

“Being named to SCAC is a significant honor that reflects a career defined by excellence and impact,” said Vice President for Research Stacey S. Patterson. “Professor Sanchez has consistently pushed the boundaries of what is possible in the lab; now, she will bring that same rigorous, forward-thinking approach to the DOE. Her work on this committee will undoubtedly influence the future of scientific discovery and energy security for years to come.”

Previously, Sanchez served on the Particle Physics Project Prioritization Panel, which recommended plans and directions for research in particle physics to DOE, and on the High Energy Physics Advisory Panel, which advised DOE’s Office of Science on high-energy particle physics research until 2025.

“This committee is unique not only because it crosses interdisciplinary boundaries but also because scientists in academia, industry, and government work in very different ways,” said Sanchez, who works with FSU’s High-Energy Physics group. “Having the space to discuss how we can better enable collaboration among these domains can make a huge difference in the world and in how we conduct science, especially if we make certain technologies more accessible. I’m an incredible optimist in terms of what technology and science can do for society, and I’m looking forward to sharing that energy with the committee.”

SCAC’s responsibilities include establishing research and facilities priorities, determining program balance among disciplines, and identifying opportunities for inter-laboratory collaboration, program integration and industrial participation.

“I’m very pleased with Mayly’s selection to serve on SCAC,” said College of Arts and Sciences Dean Sam Huckaba. “The appointment is not only prestigious and reflective of her stature, but it’s also important — it means that FSU will be well-represented during discussions of current scientific priorities and future directions at DOE.”

Sanchez has earned numerous accolades for her research, including an American Physical Society Fellowship in 2020. In 2013, she was named among Latin America’s top 10 women scientists by the BBC, and she’s also received two prestigious National Science Foundation awards for her work with neutrinos — the Presidential Early Career Award for Scientists and Engineers in 2012 and the Early Career Development Award in 2011. Sanchez received her doctorate in 2003 from Tufts University in Boston, Massachusetts.

Following her graduation, Sanchez conducted postdoctoral research at Harvard University and simultaneously joined the Main Injector Neutrino Oscillation Search team at Fermilab. She then worked as a staff scientist at Argonne National Laboratory in Lemont, Illinois, before taking a faculty position at Iowa State University in 2009. Sanchez joined FSU’s faculty in 2022.

To learn more about Sanchez’s work and research conducted in the Department of Physics, visit physics.fsu.edu.

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The research could help develop methods for reducing intense noise that threatens aircraft and ground crews

Researchers from the FAMU-FSU College of Engineering and the Florida Center for Advanced Aero-Propulsion, or FCAAP, are helping to solve a safety challenge in military aviation: the extreme noise generated by supersonic jets during takeoff and landing.

The research, published in the Journal of Fluid Mechanics, demonstrates a new model for understanding how supersonic jets of air collide with the ground or other structures to create a resonant feedback loop that produces extreme noise that can reach dangerous volume levels.

The team examined jets like those found in a type of aircraft known as Short Takeoff and Vertical Landing jets, or STOVL. The ability to operate without a traditional runway gives these aircraft, such as the F-35B Lightning II, critical tactical advantages.

But as they descend toward the ground, their exhaust plumes interact with landing surfaces and generate intense noise, often exceeding 140 decibels, posing serious dangers to both aircraft structure and nearby personnel.

“Only a tiny fraction of the jet’s energy is transformed into sound, but this small fraction has a major impact,” said Farrukh S. Alvi, professor in the Department of Mechanical and Aerospace Engineering and former founding director of the Institute for Strategic Partnerships, Innovation, Research, and Education, or InSPIRE, and founding director of FCAAP. “The intense noise produced by jet engines can cause structural damage to the aircraft and damage the hearing of personnel on the ground. We are trying to understand the physics behind these supersonic jets and the noise they produce so that we can develop tools that can reduce their impacts. In fact, we have already had some success in developing techniques that can reduce jet noise.”

Why it matters

When the high-speed air coming from jet engines mixes with the ambient air, it creates large-scale disturbances that hit the ground, producing strong sound waves that propagate back toward the jet engine. This establishes a repeating, back‑and‑forth interaction and creates resonance, an example of a feedback loop, causing loud and repeating noise. For aircraft, these resonant vibrations accelerate structural fatigue and can generate hazardous low-pressure zones that can pull the aircraft toward the ground.

For crewmembers on the ground, sustained exposure to sound levels over 140 decibels can cause permanent hearing damage, even when wearing protective equipment. At peak intensities, extreme acoustic pressure can even cause organ damage.

An animation showing an aircraft using supersonic jets for a vertical landing. As it descends toward the ground, exhaust plumes interact with landing surfaces to generate intense noise, often exceeding 140 decibels, posing serious dangers to both aircraft structure and nearby personnel. (Courtesy of Myungjun Song)

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Florida State University’s Information Technology Services (ITS) is hosting the 2026 ITS RISE Together Showcase from 1 to 4:30 p.m. on Tuesday, April 7. This event is designed to promote collaboration, highlight groundbreaking projects and drive technological innovation across the university.  

Open to all members of the FSU community, this free half-day technology conference offers opportunities to connect, exchange ideas and spotlight emerging technological innovations.  

“The RISE Together Showcase represents the very best of Florida State University,” said Jonathan Fozard, associate vice president and chief information officer. “It brings together research, instruction, innovation, security and student success in one unified experience. This event demonstrates how technology is not simply supporting the university’s mission but actively accelerating it.” 

This year’s showcase features three 50-minute session blocks. Attendees will have the opportunity to engage with thought leaders, participate in live demonstrations and discover how technology is shaping the future of FSU. 

Highlighted themes and sessions for 2026 include: 

• Research & Innovation: We empower researchers and educators with cutting-edge technologies that accelerate discovery and elevate teaching, ensuring our academic community continues to rise toward new horizons of knowledge. 

• Innovation & Modernization: By embracing emerging tools, modern platforms, and forward-thinking solutions, we are building a digital ecosystem that is agile, future-ready and boldly innovative. 

• Security & Compliance: We champion a culture of unwavering digital security, privacy and system resilience, fortifying our infrastructure with proactive safeguards so the university can operate with confidence in our digital environments. 

• Engagement & Student Success: Through seamless experiences, real-time insights and innovative digital pathways, we rise together to empower every learner and enhance engagement across the student journey. 

“RISE Together is more than a theme — it is a call to action,” Fozard said. “The showcase reflects how FSU is aligning strategy, talent and technology to drive measurable impact across research, instruction and operations. When we rise together, innovation becomes transformation.” 

While session selections are not binding, your input and RSVP are vital for estimating room capacities. On the day of the event, you are welcome to attend different sessions, space permitting. 

To learn more and register for the event, visit its.fsu.edu/rise-together-showcase.  

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Maize serves as a vital model species for advancing our understanding of plant biology, yet many mysteries remain about the intricate processes governing how DNA works and organizes itself in the genome.

A team of FSU researchers together with colleagues at North Carolina State University has made a breakthrough in understanding how DNA replicates in maize, uncovering the existence of two distinct subcompartments in the nucleus that hold genetic material. This discovery not only advances the fundamental knowledge of plant genomics but may have broad implications for gene regulation and crop improvement.

“We’re beginning to uncover chromatin’s organization in plants,” said Hank Bass, senior author of the study. “We had suspected that these subcompartments might exist, but this was the first real proof we had of their existence.”

The paper was published in the journal Plant Cell.

“Being part of this project and making a contribution to investigate the blueprint genome organization with respect to replication has been one of the most exciting and rewarding experiences of my scientific journey,” said Hafiza Sara Akram, the paper’s lead author and Bass’ former graduate student.

Foundations of DNA Replication and Chromatin Structure

DNA replication is a critical process that ensures every cell receives an exact copy of genetic material during cell division. The genome, organized within the nucleus, consists of DNA wrapped around proteins to form chromatin. Chromatin exists in two main forms: euchromatin, which is generally more accessible and transcriptionally active, and heterochromatin, which is more condensed and typically less active. The timing of DNA replication varies across these regions, with euchromatin usually replicating earlier than heterochromatin.

Understanding how chromatin structure influences the order and regulation of DNA replication is critical for unraveling how genes are controlled and how cells maintain their identity.

To investigate DNA replication in maize, researchers combined cutting-edge genomics techniques with advanced 3D microscopy. High-throughput sequencing allowed the team to map replication events across the entire genome, while three-dimensional imaging visualized the physical organization of chromatin within the nucleus. This integrative approach provided unprecedented resolution in linking DNA sequence features with nuclear architecture and replication behavior.

Key Findings: Two Distinct Euchromatin Subcompartments

The study revealed that maize euchromatin is not a uniform compartment as previously thought. Instead, it is divided into two subcompartments, each exhibiting distinct replication timing and spatial organization. One subcompartment replicates early and is associated with highly active genes, while the other replicates later and shows unique structural features. This organizational complexity suggests a new layer of regulation in plant genomes.

The identification of euchromatin subcompartments with specialized replication timing provides important clues about how gene expression is controlled.

“Our findings indicate that the spatial and temporal regulation of DNA replication is tightly coupled to gene activity,” Bass said. “This could mean that manipulating replication timing may one day offer new ways to enhance crop traits or resilience.”

This research was funded by the National Science Foundation.

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Students at Florida State University fused human creativity with modern technology during a recent 24-hour Create-a-thon. The design sprint, hosted by FSU’s Innovation Hub, challenged participants to celebrate Tallahassee’s community spirit by building interactive experiences that cultivate a lasting sense of belonging and connection.

The event served as a feature of the 2026 Festival of the Creative Arts (FCA), an initiative led by the FSU Office of Research that highlights the voices and talents of students and faculty across the university.

“Events like this Create-a-thon provide our students with a space where creativity is the primary driver of discovery,” said Ken Baldauf, founding director of the Innovation Hub. “When we bring together dancers, engineers, musicians, writers and scientists, we aren’t just making art, we are developing a universal language for problem solving that leverages the latest technologies.”

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Before rain begins to fall, scientists and engineers can predict where a storm might cause flooding thanks to advanced modeling and digital simulations that help guide billion-dollar decisions involving infrastructure design, emergency response, land-use planning, insurance, agriculture, water quality and public safety.

But as new models have evolved, they have diverged into narrow applications or found use beyond their intended scope. The result is a missed opportunity to integrate different methods and improve predictions for flood modeling across domains.

New research featuring the FAMU-FSU College of Engineering and Florida State University’s Resilient Infrastructure and Disaster Response Center examined several types of flood models to highlight their strengths and weaknesses and to propose a way forward to integrate development of different models. The research was published in Reviews of Geophysics.

The research supports critical decisions that protect the homes, livelihoods, emergency response, insurance markets and more.

“As scientists and engineers pushed forward innovation in flood modeling, their work has diverged into a variety of methods, each with their own strengths and weaknesses,” said Assistant Professor Ebrahim Ahmadisharaf, a co-author on the multi-institution study. “But integrating the improvements of various models is where we can really make the most impact across applications.”

How it works

Flood models are crucial to land use planning, emergency management actions and engineering design. Models can be classified into four types: physics‐based, data‐driven, observational and experimental, and conceptual.

Although all models approximate and simplify the reality of floods and are subject to uncertainty, some trade reliability for efficiency in their computations. Newer models are inclined towards simplified, data-driven methods rather than computational, physics-based approaches because they are easier to implement.

Data-driven models are useful for exploring complex patterns of data and comparing the relationship between flooding and other variables, but these models have limitations when it comes to operational forecasting, design purposes, regulatory hazard analyses and predicting events beyond the conditions represented in their training data because of weak or absent physical constraints. Their generalizability beyond the data they are trained for is also limited.

“These patterns have inherent limitations,” Ahmadisharaf said. “As new methods have developed in isolation from older paradigms, their improvements are siloed within their domains. That limits our ability to better prevent flood events.”

Future directions

The researchers suggest four key directives for future research and development: hybrid frameworks, enhanced physical representation, integration of data-based methods and bridging science and practice.

“We have high-performance computing resources, which could overcome barriers for flood inundation modeling, but there is a trend of using simplified models that don’t take advantage of these new advancements,” Ahmadisharaf said.

Rather than spending resources on overcoming the limitations of simplified methods of flood models, researchers recommended that future developments should emphasize promoting the integration of different methods.

“People use simplified methods because they are faster and easier to implement. With data-driven models, however, there is a greater risk when there are data limitations, because these models are fully dependent on the data. Computational methods understand the physics, but they take longer to run,” Ahmadisharaf said. “Integrating these different models would lead to improvements for both methods.”

Why it matters

Refining flood modeling systems is crucial to not overextending them beyond their actual capabilities. These systems support critical decision making, so they need to be accurate and reliable.

“Flood modeling supports decisions for damage reduction, infrastructure design and more,” Ahmadisharaf said. “We aim to make scientists rethink the direction that flood modeling is going, and not use simplified, data-driven methods as a replacement for computational models. We need to use these models to support each other, so that we can better predict flooding events and protect our infrastructure and communities.”

Researchers from Bristol University, University of Alabama, University of Central Florida, Purdue University, University of California, Irvine, U.S. Army Engineer Research Development Center, the University of Tokyo, US-based company Halff and UK-based company Fathom contributed to this study.

Ahmadisharaf’s research was supported by the National Science Foundation and the Gulf Research Program of the National Academies of Sciences, Engineering, and Medicine.

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Alzheimer’s disease affects millions of people around the world. To study this condition, researchers must peer inside the distinctive environment of the human brain.

For scientists to get the most accurate picture of the proteins that drive this disease, they must extract them without altering their environment.

In a study published in Protein Science, researchers at the FAMU-FSU College of Engineering demonstrated a new method for studying Alzheimer’s disease that keeps disease-causing proteins intact in a near-native environment, helping scientists get a more accurate picture of how they function.

“Alzheimer’s disease is devastating,” said Professor Ayyalusamy Ramamoorthy, a co-author of the study. “More people are living longer, and that means more people are going to be living with Alzheimer’s disease, so we need to find a cure for it and other aging-related amyloid diseases, like Parkinson’s and Type 2 diabetes. Attempts to develop drugs for Alzheimer’s disease have failed, so we started to work on the C99 protein, which is the origin for everything.”

What they did

Researchers developed a method to extract a key protein involved in the progression of Alzheimer’s disease called C99.

Previously, C99 was difficult to study, as samples had to be removed from cells and prepared for analysis using detergents. The harsh, soap-like chemicals break down lipids, or fats, that surround C99 in the brain and influence how it behaves. Without lipids, C99’s behavior changes, and scientists were unable to study how it acts in its natural environment in the brain.

By using a non-detergent-based polymer to capture C99, the natural environment of the brain cells where the protein is found was preserved, providing researchers with a new way to study it.

“We have been developing these synthetic polymers that can extract proteins present in the cell membrane directly without using detergents,” Ramamoorthy said. “This work was about using synthetically prepared polymers in my lab to isolate a precursor protein along with the lipids present in the cell membrane and reconstituting them together in the form of disc-shaped particles called nanodiscs for a deeper medical investigation.”

How it works

C99 is a byproduct of the amyloid precursor protein, or APP, which is found in the brain.

When enzymes known as secretases cut APP, they produce fragments of C99 called Aβ isomers. The accumulation of Aβ and lipids causes plaque buildup, which is responsible for memory loss in Alzheimer’s patients by killing neuronal cells.

In this study, researchers isolated the C99 protein from a bacterial cell membrane then extracted it along with lipids surrounding C99 using their newly designed polymer. After extraction, researchers conducted further tests to confirm that the protein’s shape and lipids were still intact and preserved exactly as they are in cells.

Why it matters

This study represents a revolutionary advancement in Alzheimer’s research by keeping a key disease-causing protein intact for more accurate study.

“This work provides a toolkit for studying Alzheimer’s disease at the molecular level and it lets scientists observe C99 in its ‘natural habitat,’ which is something that had not been possible in more than 30 years of research,” Ramamoorthy said. “It creates a biomedically relevant and more accurate method for preparing proteins used in therapeutic discovery and Alzheimer’s disease modeling.”

The research could improve outcomes for pharmaceutical development, medical diagnostic and imaging tools or biotechnology manufacturing. The new method provides a foundation for further research that could one day lead to a cure.

“Drug development has so far not been able to solve the problems posed by Alzheimer’s disease,” Ramamoorthy said. “Our hope is that this new method will give researchers a clearer picture of how the C99 protein works and contributes to this disease, so that we can develop ways to stop its progression. Ultimately, we can find a cure.”

Researchers from the University of Michigan contributed to this study. This research was supported by the National Institutes of Health.

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FSU Health brings together researchers, educators and clinical partners under one umbrella to transform health and health care in Florida. To learn more, visit fsuhealth.fsu.edu.

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Florida State University researcher Paul Bupe is developing an interactive intersection safety system, a project for which he must analyze thousands of satellite images, fisheye camera photos and maps — more than 1.7 million unique objects each with its own metadata. 

To handle all that data, he uses Amazon Web Services, or AWS. 

Bupe earned seed funding for AWS through an internal FSU program last year and accessed the tools through a partnership with FSU Information Technology Services. 

 On Tuesday, he shared his experiences at the FSU-AWS Researcher Showcase and Awards, a celebration of research excellence and an opportunity for the FSU community to learn more about the high-powered research tools available through the partnership. 

 “Without AWS, we wouldn’t have been able to make this research happen,” said Bupe, who works with FAMU-FSU College of Engineering Associate Professor Moses Olugbenga on PREDISS, a Predictive Intersection Safety System project. 

Bupe and Olugbenga used Amazon’s cloud computing tools for data storage, object detection, autolabeling and other tasks. Their goal is to improve safety at intersections by predicting collisions between vehicles and pedestrians with enough time to allow for interventions to stop a crash. 

Through the partnership, they were able to access more computing power on their schedule to train their own models to handle millions of objects. 

“In AI and machine learning, data is the most valuable thing,” Bupe said. “This gave us the capabilities that truly allowed for innovation.” 

Other researchers from the Department of Industrial and Manufacturing Engineering and the Department of Computer Science who have used AWS in their work shared their experiences with fellow researchers at the event. 

“Our goal as a technology provider and an industry partner is to help accelerate researchers’ work at a low cost,” said AWS Senior Leader Michael Curry. “As one of our presenters said, ‘I don’t need this to be a six-month project. I want it to be a six-day or six-week project.’ They’re trying to accelerate that time to science, and that is what this technology is helping to accomplish.” 

Setting the stage for innovation

The showcase opened with remarks from FSU leadership, emphasizing the growing role of cloud computing in accelerating research and the university’s commitment to expanding access to advanced computational resources.  

“This partnership is a powerful example of how Florida State is delivering on the strategic vision of President McCullough by investing in the technology infrastructure that drives cutting-edge research,” said Associate Vice President & Chief Information Officer Jonathan A. Fozard. “Removing traditional compute barriers and broadening access to secure cloud and AI tools allows our researchers and scholars to move faster, design transformative research and secure the large-scale grants that empower long-term impact.” 

The FSU Office of Research and FSU Information Technology Services recognized 11 researchers from across campus as 2026 FSU/AWS Research Acceleration Fund Awardees for their exceptional creativity, impact and technical excellence in leveraging AWS cloud computing to advance scientific discovery. Winners came from departments across campus: social work; computer science; educational psychology and learning systems; geography; urban and regional planning; scientific computing; health, nutrition and food science; civil and environmental engineering; and communication science and disorders. Each received up to $20,000 in AWS credits. 

“Modern research is increasingly data-intensive. Whether we are talking about quantum materials, generative AI or predictive safety systems, the lab is no longer just a physical space — it is a digital one,” said Vice President for Research Stacey Patterson. 

Cloud computing tools help researchers turn those piles of information into impactful discoveries. 

“This partnership demonstrates the art of the possible,” Patterson said. “Our goal is simple but ambitious: we want to provide FSU researchers with a world-class environment that accelerates discovery.”

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A Florida State University particle physicist has been awarded a fellowship to support his research into the Higgs boson, a fundamental building block of our universe, and dark matter.

Kohsaku Tobioka, an associate professor in the Department of Physics, is the first FSU faculty member to receive an Invitational Fellowship for Research in Japan from the Japan Society for the Promotion of Science, or JSPS. The fellowship will support his research in Japan from April to July.

“We’re looking to learn more about the origins of the universe, and conducting research across institutions and nations is essential to do so,” Tobioka said. “We need international collaboration to make real progress; it can’t be done with just one laboratory or nation.”

JSPS strengthens international research networks and fosters the next generation of scientists who pursue the creation of new avenues of knowledge in all areas of science. The specific fellowship Tobioka earned invites physics researchers with exceptional records of achievement to collaborate with colleagues at the Yukawa Institute for Theoretical Physics at Kyoto University in Japan, a world-renowned institute for theoretical physics research.

“In the four months of my fellowship, I hope to begin two projects and continue working with Kyoto University researchers after returning to FSU,” Tobioka said.

In collaboration with Ryuichiro Kitano, a professor at the Yukawa Institute for Theoretical Physics, Tobioka will focus on two research avenues: the presence of dark matter — an invisible, mysterious substance that makes up most of the mass in the observable universe — as well as properties of the Higgs boson, a fundamental particle that interacts with other particles, which receive their mass through interactions with the Higgs field.

For 60 years, the existence of the Higgs boson was considered the final missing piece of the Standard Model of particle physics, a theory classifying all known elementary particles. In 2012, it was produced for the first time and confirmed by the European Organization for Nuclear Research, or CERN, near Geneva. Several FSU researchers were among hundreds of scientists who served significant roles in search of the particle.

Tobioka’s work will investigate how the Higgs boson interacts with itself, helping scientists understand how the universe began.

The collaborative research will use a future muon collider to experiment with higher amounts of energy than CERN’s Large Hadron Collider, or LHC, which facilitates research of subatomic particles by firing two high-speed protons at each other and observing what is produced in the collision.

In a 2024 publication, Tobioka and his former student, physics doctoral alumna Shemeran Mahmud, presented novel techniques to observe the Higgs boson self-interaction, and these new techniques can be achieved with a muon collider, which is much smaller than the LHC. Instead of firing protons, these colliders use muons — subatomic particles similar to electrons but about 200 times heavier, yielding a higher energy.

“Using protons, like in the LHC, requires a very big tunnel and can be an infrastructure challenge,” Tobioka said. “A muon collider is a smaller, completely new technology. We all want to know where we came from and how the universe came to be, and this essential science has the potential for unpredictable breakthroughs.”

Another direction of Tobioka’s research will focus on dark matter, which makes up about 27 percent of the known universe. While dark matter is invisible, scientists can understand it by observing the way it affects the environment around it through forces such as gravity. Tobioka plans to use superconducting qubits, which are cutting-edge quantum computing materials, to detect dark matter waves and develop theoretical foundations connecting dark matter and superconductivity.

“Some people call dark matter ‘the mother of galaxies’ because it hosts stars and galaxies,” Tobioka said. “Because our solar system is constantly moving through the galaxy’s dark matter, we may experience a ‘dark matter wind’ which lets us measure that dark matter. Discovering and fully understanding dark matter is a global competition right now.”

Tobioka earned his doctorate from the Kavli Institute for the Physics and Mathematics of the Universe at the University of Tokyo’s Kashiwa campus in 2014 and received a Research Fellowship for Young Scientists from JSPS that same year. He completed postdoctoral research at the High Energy Accelerator Research Organization in Japan and held a joint appointment with Tel Aviv University and the Weizmann Institute of Science in Israel. He conducted research at Stony Brook University in New York before joining FSU’s faculty in 2018.

In addition to his research, Tobioka also regularly participates in FSU’s Saturday Morning Physics program to promote scientific engagement and outreach for children and the broader community.

“Professor Tobioka has brought brilliance and energy to both our physics department and the department’s high-energy physics group,” said Paul Cottle, Department of Physics chair. “He’s an intellectual risk-taker who is constantly challenging boundaries.”

To learn more about Tobioka’s work and other research conducted in FSU’s Department of Physics, visit physics.fsu.edu.

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Florida State University’s Resilient Infrastructure and Disaster Response (RIDER) Center recently convened farmers, researchers and emergency management leaders from across the Southeast to examine how disasters disrupt food production and what communities can do to strengthen resilience.

The summit, “Rooted in Resilience: Farmers and Researchers Respond to Disasters and Disruptions,” focused on food production, food system resilience and emergency management.

The event brought together local and regional leaders from Northwest Florida along with farmers and researchers from the Southeast and Appalachian regions.

“This summit reflects something Florida State University believes deeply: that the most important work we do happens at the intersection of research and real lives,” said Provost James Clark. “At FSU, resilience is a priority across disciplines, including engineering, the social sciences, public policy, and environmental and biological sciences. It’s central to our work with communities who live with risk every day.”

This summit connected farmers and food practitioners with researchers focused on disaster resilience. The event was sponsored by the National Science Foundation and co-hosted by the RIDER Center and the Department of Civil and Environmental Engineering in the FAMU-FSU College of Engineering.

“Building resilience in our food ecosystems has many challenges,” said Eren Ozguven, director of the RIDER Center and a professor in the FAMU-FSU College of Engineering. “With this inaugural event, RIDER takes the lead to focus on adapting to the challenges posed by natural disasters and other disruptions in the food ecosystems of the Southeast region.”

Regional food resilience

The summit started with presentations and panels examining ways to build resilience into food production. Presentations focused on themes such as incorporating lessons from urban food production in 4-H programming, mutual aid and experiences in the aftermath of disasters, information from Assistant Professor Jeffrey Farner on the impact of floods and microplastics on food production, farmer-researcher collaborations and more.

Florentina Rodriguez visited the summit from Agraria Farm in Yellow Springs, Ohio, where she is the programs director and administration manager for the 138-acre research and education farm.

She appreciates events like the summit as an opportunity for farmers and researchers to learn from each other and think about how they can collaborate. Her farm has partnered with Central State University in Wilberforce, Ohio for farmer-to-farmer skill sharing programs. Rodriguez and her colleagues use knowledge developed by researchers, apply it on their own farm, and teach what they have learned to fellow farmers and gardeners.

“We were finding that information wasn’t being readily adopted by farmers or gardeners when the folks who were coming in and doing the education were just institutional partners,” she said. “We said ‘Hey, if you want this to really take off, you have to partner with farmer peer educators because they’re the ones who can say ‘I learned this at Central State and I have been practicing it on my farm and I know that it works.’ When it’s a farmer teaching a farmer, that trust just really accelerates the adoption rate.”

Information sharing among peers helps farmers adapt broad-based guidance to the best practices that will work for their particular site.

“We found that people often try to make efforts on a national scale or global scale, and that’s difficult when you start big and try to distill it down, because so much adaptation has to happen,” Rodriguez said. “When you put different communities together to figure out what is a resilient strategy for each of them, you have resilient communities linked together, and then the whole region is resilient.” 

Emergency management

The summit’s second day examined lessons from emergency management and environmental research.

Panelists Brian Bradshaw from the Tallahassee Fire Department, Department of Geography Professor Mark W. Horner, Christian Levings of the Apalachee Regional Planning Council, and Ozguven discussed how disasters obstruct distribution of food and other resources and how researchers and emergency management professionals can work together to minimize disruptions.

A key part of responding to disasters is knowing a community’s needs, transportation network, chokepoints and other key information before disruptions change the map. Projects such as vulnerability assessments allow emergency management planners to understand the needs of an entire region and respond appropriately to natural disasters that don’t follow county borders, Levings said.

Add the dynamic changes brought on by disasters, and responding to disruptions becomes a multi-dimensional, multi-temporal problem, Horner said.

When managers and planners are faced with a need to reconcile all those variables, that’s where research can make a big impact.

“Our students love to work on data that can help connect research and practice in resilience,” Ozguven said.

Another panel featured Associate Professor Youneng Tang, researcher Xiuming Sun, Assistant Professor Ebrahim Ahmadisharaf and Institute for Water and Health post-doctoral researcher Whitley Stewart. It focused on how disasters such as hurricanes and heavy rainfall affect farming, water quality, and human health.

Collaboration is key for finding effective methods for dealing with the problems posed by these disasters, Ahmadisharaf said.

“The nonacademic piece is really important,” he said. “We need to know more about localized issues, such as what farmers are seeing or fish kills, to get a clearer picture. It is through collaboration with communities that we can extend our research impact.”

Working with the community is a way to supplement data collection, Stewart said. Volunteer citizen-scientists can provide on-ground information quickly after disasters.

“Not everyone can get to the field or work with field-based science, so efforts like those can help tremendously,” she said.

Visit the RIDER Center website for more information about how research at RIDER helps build communities in Florida and around the country that remain resilient against natural disasters.

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Florida State University Libraries will transition to TIND Digital Archive as its new digital library platform after an extensive procurement review process.  

The move marks a significant upgrade for the FSU Digital Library, which provides faculty, students and the research community access to more than 125,000 cultural heritage items. 

The migration to TIND is designed to provide a more intuitive user environment while enhancing the discoverability of the university’s rapidly expanding digital collections. By leveraging TIND’s advanced management tools, FSU Libraries is prepared to better support long-term growth and streamline the digital experience for all users. 

“The FSU Digital Library is a research gateway to the unique collections stewarded by FSU and its partners,” said Katie McCormick, associate dean of Special Collections & Archives. “With the selection of TIND as our new platform, we’re excited to more seamlessly connect students, faculty and community members to these incredible collections.” 

Managed by the University Libraries’ Special Collections & Archives (SCA), the FSU Digital Library houses materials ranging from cuneiform tablets and handwritten manuscripts to current university publications. The repository includes contributions from internal partners like the Warren D. Allen Music Library and the John and Mable Ringling Museum of Art Archives, as well as community partners such as the First Baptist Church of Tallahassee and the Havana (Florida) History and Heritage Society. 

The decision to partner with TIND follows a rigorous evaluation of the university’s current and future digital collections needs. The new platform offers specialized tools that allow for better organization and branding of specific collections. 

“During our review process, we were very impressed with TIND as an option for our cultural heritage materials in our repository,” said Krystal Thomas, director of Digital Archives for SCA. “It provides an excellent, user-friendly experience to access our materials, along with object-level and collection-specific tools that we and our partners see as opportunities to better organize, manage, and brand our collections for end users.” 

University Libraries will share updates regarding the migration process and the official launch date for the new platform in the coming months to the FSU Libraries Blog webpage. 

For more information about FSU Libraries, visit lib.fsu.edu. 

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