This summer, Florida State University will welcome scholars from India’s top research institutions to Tallahassee through a new initiative designed to spark international collaboration, accelerate innovation and expand FSU’s global research partnerships. 

The inaugural Visiting Scholars Partnership Program (VSPP) is designed to strengthen high-impact, research-and innovation-centered partnerships with leading universities around the world. The pilot program, which takes place July 5-31, will bring scholars from four highly ranked international institutions to FSU’s Tallahassee campus for exploratory research collaborations.  

During their stay, each visiting scholar will be paired with FSU faculty aligned with their expertise and desire to build international partnerships. Visiting scholars will explore FSU’s world-class facilities, meet administrators across multiple departments and engage in rich, one-on-one collaboration with their faculty peers several times each week. 

Housed in the Office of the Provost, the initiative receives strategic oversight from the Office for Strategic Initiatives and Innovation and is implemented by the Learning Systems Institute (LSI), which conducts research and develops evidence-based interventions to improve individual and organizational performance. 

“Florida State University believes some of the most meaningful breakthroughs happen when scholars from different backgrounds and perspectives come together to exchange ideas,” said Jim Clark, provost and executive vice president for Academic Affairs. “The Visiting Scholars Partnership Program creates opportunities for collaboration that strengthen research, expand global partnerships and enrich the academic experience for our entire university community.” 

“The Visiting Scholars Partnership Program creates opportunities for collaboration that strengthen research, expand global partnerships and enrich the academic experience for our entire university community.”

— Jim Clark, FSU provost and executive vice president for Academic Affairs 

The initiative was spearheaded by Farrukh Alvi, senior associate provost for Strategic Initiatives and Innovation and the Don Fuqua Eminent Scholar and Professor of Mechanical and Aerospace Engineering at the FAMU–FSU College of Engineering.

“The program is designed to create opportunities for researchers to explore new ideas, identify complementary strengths and develop partnerships around shared areas of interest,” Alvi said. “We hope these collaborations will lead to impactful, lasting research relationships and new opportunities for innovation across disciplines.” 

The VSPP will provide a structured, immersive experience that supports collaborative research, innovation exchange and the development of long-term institutional partnerships. Collaborations will span fields including aerospace engineering, biomedical engineering, quantum optics, entrepreneurship and advanced materials research. 

“At Florida State University, we recognize that research and higher education are increasingly global in nature,” said Steve McDowell, assistant provost for International Initiatives. “The Visiting Scholars Partnership Program reflects FSU’s continued investment in international engagement and global research partnerships to serve the people of Florida.” 

“The Visiting Scholars Partnership Program reflects FSU’s continued investment in international engagement and global research partnerships to serve the people of Florida.”

— Steve McDowell, FSU assistant provost for International Initiatives

Vilma Fuentes, director of FSU’s Ukraine Task Force and a visiting associate in research at LSI, will serve as inaugural program director of the VSPP.  

“This program provides an exciting opportunity to connect scholars from some of the best universities in the world with faculty and departments across our great university,” Fuentes said. “We anticipate these exchanges will lead to new research partnerships, expanded academic engagement and future opportunities that benefit both FSU and our international partners.” 

India is home to some of the world’s fastest-growing research and technology institutions, making the partnerships especially valuable for future global collaboration. Participating partner institutions include the Indian Institute of Technology Madras (IIT Madras), Indian Institute of Technology Kanpur (IIT Kanpur), Indian Institute of Technology Delhi (IIT Delhi), and the Indian Institute of Science (IISc).  

The partner institutions rank among the world’s leading universities for engineering, science and technology research in the QS World University Rankings. The QS World University Rankings is one of the most comprehensive assessments of its kind, offering an independent comparison of top universities worldwide based on academic excellence, employability, research impact and internationalization. 

“At LSI, we believe innovation happens when people with different expertise and perspectives come together to solve complex challenges,” said Rabieh Razzouk, director of LSI. “The Visiting Scholars Partnership Program creates an environment where those collaborations can grow, benefiting not only our institutions, but also the broader communities and systems our work is intended to serve.” 

Summer 2026 VSPP pairings include:  

• Wei Guo, Professor, Mechanical and Aerospace Engineering, FAMU–FSU College of Engineering, with Bhaskar Kanseri, Associate Professor, Quantum Optics Physics, IIT Delhi
• Bill Lickson, Professor, Jim Moran College of Entrepreneurship, and Pradeep Bhide, Professor, FSU College of Medicine, with Amit Mehndiratta, Professor, Biomedical Engineering, IIT Delhi  
• Farrukh Alvi, Professor, Mechanical and Aerospace Engineering, FAMU–FSU College of Engineering, with Tufan Kumar Guha, Assistant Professor, Aerospace Engineering, IIT Kanpur, and Debopam Das, Professor, Aerospace Engineering, IIT Kanpur  
• Unnikrishnan Nair, Associate Professor, Mechanical and Aerospace Engineering, FAMU–FSU College of Engineering, with Rajesh Ranjan, Associate Professor, Aerospace Engineering, IIT Kanpur  
• Rajan Kumar, Professor, Mechanical and Aerospace Engineering, FAMU–FSU College of Engineering, with Mohammed Ibrahim Sugarno, Associate Professor, Aerospace Engineering, IIT Kanpur  
• William Oates, Professor, Mechanical and Aerospace Engineering, FAMU–FSU College of Engineering, with Nidish Narayanaa Balaji, Assistant Professor, Aerospace Engineering, IIT Madras  
• Tristan Driscoll, Assistant Professor, Chemical and Biomedical Engineering, FAMU–FSU College of Engineering, with Namrata Gundiah, Professor, Mechanical Engineering, IISc  
• Zhiyong (Richard) Liang, Professor, Industrial and Manufacturing Engineering, FAMU–FSU College of Engineering; Tarik Dickens, Professor and Interim Associate Chair, Materials Science and Engineering Department, FAMU-FSU College of Engineering; and Raghav Gnanasambandam, Assistant Professor, FAMU-FSU College of Engineering, with Prosenjit Das, Assistant Professor, Materials Engineering, IISc

Cultural activities will also be arranged to give participants a deeper understanding of American culture, society and the surrounding environment. In celebration of the 250th anniversary of the United States, activities will include locations listed on the America250FL Road Trip Map. 

In addition to advancing scientific understanding and knowledge exchange, these partnerships are expected to lead to joint research proposals, co-authored publications, shared data, complementary use of resources and new interdisciplinary initiatives. Organizers hope the program will serve as a foundation for sustained international collaboration and future faculty and student exchange opportunities at scale. 

Visit the Visiting Scholars Partnership Program website to learn more about VSPP. For more information about LSI, visit lsi.fsu.edu. To learn more about FSU’s global footprint, visit global.fsu.edu.

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Florida State University researchers have identified key differences in the root causes of long-term sea-surface temperature changes across the Atlantic and Pacific oceans, a finding that could help guide future research on ocean variability.

Research by Assistant Professor of meteorology Michael Diamond and FSU meteorology graduate alumnus Anthony Freveletti found that long-term temperature changes in the Pacific Oceans are driven primarily by internal ocean variability, while those in the Atlantic are largely the result of human emissions.

The study, conducted with Assistant Professor Robert Jnglin Wills from the ETH Zürich Institute for Atmospheric and Climate Science, was published this spring in Geophysical Research Letters.

“We know that important sources of natural variability in Earth’s climate system exist, and our ability to distinguish between these natural and human-forced sources of temperature variability is key to projecting future temperatures and their related impacts on society,” Diamond said.

Historical temperature swings in the Atlantic Ocean have long been considered one of those natural sources of variability in Earth’s climate.

Long-term shifts between increasing and decreasing Atlantic sea-surface temperatures were typically thought to be driven by the Atlantic Meridional Overturning Circulation, or AMOC, a system of currents in the Atlantic Ocean that’s part of the network of natural ocean currents moving water around the world.

“Our findings contradict this theory, as we found that long-term changes in the Atlantic are more directly related to anthropogenic — human produced — causes such as greenhouse gases and aerosols,” Freveletti said.

While most variability in global oceanic sea-surface temperatures were often thought to be driven by natural causes, the team’s findings suggest that only the oscillations in the Pacific are primarily driven by natural climate processes.

Most people, for example, are familiar with El Niño and La Niña, two opposing climate patterns in the tropical Pacific that occur every two to seven years on average. The Pacific Decadal Oscillation, which Freveletti and Diamond studied, is a similar climate pattern that fluctuates over much longer periods, typically every 20 to 30 years.

Using the programming language Python for data analysis, the team applied a new statistical method called rotated low-frequency component analysis, or RLFCA, to climate model datasets from 1920 through 2025. RLFCA is an adaptation of a low-frequency component analysis method previously developed by Wills that identifies and extracts patterns of temperature change based on how quickly they evolve over time.

“Since human emissions build up in the atmosphere over many years, the temperature changes they cause develop gradually over time,” Freveletti said. “In contrast, natural fluctuations driven by factors such as ocean currents, wind patterns and air pressure occur more rapidly. Our analysis effectively separates these forced and unforced changes within those data trends by identifying which patterns are fast-evolving and which are slow-evolving.”

Freveletti expanded upon this method by adding a “rotational” step that reorganizes identified patterns with known external influences, calculated by climate models, helping distinguish the causes of temperature variability.

The team found that what looked like natural variability in the Atlantic Ocean was actually an overlap between air pollution and aerosols shading and cooling the sea surface and greenhouse gas emissions warming the entire globe.

“Our results show a complex interplay of air pollution and greenhouse gas emissions is responsible for historical temperature patterns in the Atlantic Ocean that led to various weather phenomena, such as a spike in hurricane frequency since 1990,” Diamond said. “We should not expect to return to an inactive hurricane era by chance alone; the future of human emissions will be the most important driver of Atlantic temperatures going forward.”

While natural climate patterns like El Niño and La Niña can affect weather, ecosystems and economies through variability in rainfall, temperature and storm activity, their effects are temporary. Greenhouse gas emissions, by contrast, accumulate over time and have longer-lasting impacts. The researchers said their findings could help inform infrastructure planning along the Atlantic coast, including measures to reduce risks to  coastal communities.

Visit the Department of Earth, Ocean, and Atmospheric Science website to learn more about FSU research.

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A collaborative, interdisciplinary team with researchers from Florida State University’s College of Social Sciences and Public Policy has received an $840,000 grant from NASA’s Health and Air Quality Applied Sciences Team.

The project will advance urban heat island mapping and work with local governments to accelerate the development of extreme heat action plans.

The project is led by FSU Professor of Geography and Public Health Chris Uejio in collaboration with Leiqiu Hu at the University of Alabama at Huntsville and Xiaojiang Li at the University of Pennsylvania.

“Extreme heat contributes to the deaths of more Americans than any other weather hazard,” Uejio said. “Partnering with the Southeast Sustainability Directors Network, we will generate cutting edge heat and health information for eight local governments.”

NASA’s Health and Air Quality Applied Sciences Team (HAQAST) uses satellite data to address the challenges related to public health and air quality. The team also helps NASA and other federal partners respond to emerging issues such as wildland fires.

Uejio’s project, “Scaling Earth Observations to Co-Produce Heat Knowledge and Adaptations,” will deepen scientific understanding of how cities trap and intensify heat, while helping local governments develop stronger plans for responding to extreme heat events.

The team will study how extreme heat varies across communities and identify factors that drive those patterns. Researchers will create hyperlocal maps of heat exposure at 1-meter scaling using satellite data and environmental measurements. They will also examine whether local heat-mitigation strategies align with community vulnerabilities and health outcomes.

In practice, this means identifying where extreme heat is most severe, understanding what causes those hot spots, mapping conditions at the street and neighborhood level using satellite data and evaluating whether local efforts are reducing heat-related risks for vulnerable residents.

“It is a joy to work with brilliant scientists across the nation on timely topics to make Americans healthier,” Uejio said.

To learn more about the Health and Air Quality Applied Sciences Team, visit the HAQAST website. To learn more about FSU’s Department of Geography, visit the department’s website.

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Florida State University physicists are part of a team that has discovered unusual superconducting states in parts of graphene, with the potential to drive unexpected quantum technologies.

Assistant Professor of Physics Cyprian Lewandowski and postdoctoral researcher Phong Võ Tiến are part of an international collaboration that has uncovered new aspects of superconductivity and topology in rhombohedral graphene, a system comprising just a few layers of carbon atoms stacked like the treads of a staircase shape known as chiral stacking. The work was published in Nature Physics.

“The rhombohedral graphene system seems to capture many of the intriguing electronic phenomena that scientists have seen previously in other atomically thin systems, but they were previously not as ideal for technical applications due to the intrinsic complexity of the devices or replicability issues,” Lewandowski said. “In physics, once we identify a generic phenomenon, we try to distill it to its essential form to understand the underlying mechanism. This rhombohedral system allows us to do that. We’ve identified the natural occurrence of this effect and can build upon and optimize it to achieve properties only before seen in more complicated systems.”

Atomically thin flakes of rhombohedral graphene can be isolated from naturally occurring graphite crystals. In this structure, at a low energy, electrons are localized almost exclusively onto specific atoms on the top and bottom surfaces. By contrast, very little charge resides in the bulk of the material.

Congregating a large density of electrons onto the outer surfaces leads to interesting emergent quantum properties, as charges are forced to collectively “make choices” about how they reside on the surfaces while simultaneously repelling each other. The team found that superconductivity emerges directly from this dual-surface configuration, where electron and hole carriers on opposite surfaces conspire to form a superconducting state.

Collaborating on impactful science

FSU was joined in the collaboration by experimentalist teams led by co-principal investigators Matthew Yankowitz, associate professor of physics at the University of Washington in Seattle, and Joshua Folk, professor of physics at the University of British Columbia in Vancouver, Canada. Together, the team combined material and structure assembly expertise required to build highly sensitive and optimized electronic devices, measurement expertise to probe ultra-sensitive superconducting states that emerged from them, and theoretical expertise to turn experimental data into a coherent understanding of superconductivity in this novel platform.

“An added complexity of this system is that negative and positive charges coexist,” Yankowitz said.  “On one surface, the charges are electrons and therefore negatively charged. On the other surface, they behave like particles called holes, which are effectively positive. This work is advancing our fundamental understanding of the interplay of strongly correlated and topological phases, which could be an avenue toward the development of future quantum technologies.”

In addition to superconductivity, the team observed a quantum anomalous Hall effect — a topological state in which an electrical current flows without resistance along the edges of the material.

“Cyprian is applying his brilliant theoretical insights to cutting-edge problems in the science of quantum materials,” said Mike Shatruk, director of the FSU Initiative in Quantum Science and Engineering. “If the two phenomena of superconducting behavior and topological states can eventually be made to co-exist, theory predicts appearance of so-called Majorana zero modes, which are candidate building blocks for fault-tolerant quantum computing; they’re inherently protected from local noise and decoherence that destroy quantum information.”

Next-generation quantum devices

One of the team’s guiding goals is to eventually translate the research into the realm of quantum engineering for the development of next-generation devices and detectors. Another significant aspect of the system is that there are two electronic layers of charges separated vertically, a geometry that previously had to be manually constructed. Discovering such material states that occur naturally can lead to exciting new avenues in fundamental physics and potential technological applications.

“In the 20th century, scientists gained a lot of our modern understanding of condensed-matter physics and phase transitions by working with helium, and I would argue that rhombohedral graphene may be serving the same purpose here in teaching us about unique crystalline phases of matter,” said Lewandowski, who utilizes the FSU Research Computing Center and the National Science Foundation-funded, FSU-headquartered National High Magnetic Field Laboratory in his work.

This research was supported by funding from the U.S. Army Research Office, the U.S. Department of Energy, NSF and FSU. Other contributors include scientists from the National Institute for Materials Science in Tsukuba, Ibaraki, Japan.

Visit the FSU Department of Physics website to learn more about Lewandowski’s work and research. For more details on quantum science and engineering at FSU, visit the FSU Quantum Initiative website.

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Florida State University research published today in Science Advances demonstrates a new framework for predicting the motion of kilometer-scale underwater waves that complicate satellite readings of the ocean.

By accurately modeling these subsurface waves, scientists can remove their interference from NASA’s Surface Water and Ocean Topography, or SWOT, satellite, improving the satellite’s signal and allowing for observations of the Earth’s ocean circulation that are about 60 percent more accurate.

“SWOT is giving us the clearest view we have ever had of the ocean’s fine-scale circulation, the small eddies and currents that govern how much heat and carbon the ocean draws down from the atmosphere,” said study lead author Yadidya Badarvada, a researcher at FSU’s Center for Ocean-Atmospheric Prediction Studies who completed the work at FSU and while a postdoctoral researcher at the University of Michigan. “But those measurements have been partially obscured by internal tides, which mimic the very features we are trying to observe. What this work shows is that the interference we assumed was too chaotic to fix is actually predictable, once you have a model that accurately tracks the evolving ocean state.”

How it works

The SWOT satellite orbits Earth more than 500 miles above the planet’s surface.

Jointly operated by NASA and the French space agency CNES, this satellite observes the surface of the ocean, rivers and lakes to provide high-resolution data used by meteorologists, oceanographers, hydrologists and other scientists. SWOT imaging helps answer questions about the path of rivers, the aftermath of tsunamis and other water features on the planet’s surface.

But finding the ground truth on the planet from the sky can be difficult. Complicating SWOT’s readings over the ocean are internal tides traveling beneath the ocean surface, whose signals overlap with the very features scientists are trying to observe.

Known as internal tides, these underwater waves have historically been the major challenge for measuring sea surface height. These “non-phase-locked” internal tides did not appear to have a predictable pattern, and researchers thought their interference was too chaotic to be corrected using standard statistical or sensing tools.

What they did

To solve this problem, the researchers developed a new framework based on the Hybrid Coordinate Ocean Model, or HYCOM, a three-dimensional depiction of the ocean state at fine resolution in real time. This existing, operational U.S. Navy ocean forecast system is the result of decades of development from researchers across institutions, including FSU’s Center for Ocean-Atmospheric Prediction Studies.

HYCOM works by continuously combining a physics-based simulation of the ocean with a real-time stream of observational data, a technique called data assimilation. Every day, the model takes in measurements from orbiting satellites that track sea surface height and temperature, robotic floats that drift through the ocean interior measuring temperature and salinity at depth, moored buoys and ship-based instruments. The model uses all of this incoming information to constantly correct its simulation, keeping it as close to the true state of the ocean as possible.

Because HYCOM explicitly simulates the forces that drive tides, including their interaction with seafloor ridges and seamounts, the internal tide field emerges directly from the model’s own ocean physics rather than being estimated separately.

By separating HYCOM’s internal tide predictions into predictable and chaotic components, the team could identify and remove both from SWOT’s measurements. Because SWOT data were never fed into HYCOM, the comparison was a genuine independent test. The result was a 59 percent improvement over the best correction method currently applied to the satellite.

Why it matters

The improved model could help SWOT provide a more accurate picture of the ocean’s surface and currents, which are crucial to our understanding of how the ocean functions. Without accurately observing them from space, scientists cannot track the ocean’s capacity to buffer rising temperatures or verify the models used to project future warming. The work has applications in forecasting, navigation, infrastructure planning and more.

“We can’t deploy buoys across the entire globe to take measurements,” Badarvada said. “The information from SWOT fills a huge gap in our understanding of the physics and dynamics that govern the ocean and how it transports heat and nutrients on a massive scale. We used a model the Navy built to navigate the ocean and ended up giving NASA’s most advanced ocean satellite significantly clearer eyes. That kind of unexpected overlap between defense science and Earth observation is exactly what this project has been about.”

Researchers from the University of Michigan, Oregon State University, Naval Research Laboratory, University of Southern Mississippi, and the French company CLS Group were co-authors on this study. This research was supported by the Office of Naval Research, NASA and the French space agency CNES.

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Yinghe Qi, a postdoctoral researcher in the Department of Mechanical & Aerospace Engineering at the FAMU-FSU College of Engineering and the National High Magnetic Field Laboratory (MagLab), has received the Gustav and Ingrid Klipping Award, one of cryogenic engineering’s top international honors for early-career researchers.

The International Cryogenic Engineering Committee presents the Gustav and Ingrid Klipping Award to a young researcher for outstanding work in cryogenic engineering. The award honors the Klippings’ contributions to the field and their commitment to involving the next generation of researchers. It is presented during the International Cryogenic Engineering Conference, held every two years and candidates must be 35 years of age or younger at the start of the conference.

Qi will receive the award at the 30th International Cryogenic Engineering Conference and International Cryogenic Materials Conference, scheduled for June 22–26 in Daejeon, South Korea.

“It is a privilege to be recognized by the cryogenic engineering community with this award,” Qi said. “I am incredibly thankful for the chance to work with Dr. Guo and our group at the MagLab. This environment has given me the support to tackle complex challenges in cryogenics, from dark matter detection to beamline vacuum break analysis and I am grateful for the opportunity to contribute to such impactful research.”

Advancing dark matter detection and accelerator safety

Qi was nominated by Professor Wei Guo of the FAMU-FSU College of Engineering, who cited her “broad knowledge, rigorous analytical ability and exceptional experimental and computational skills.” Her work spans several major research fronts, most notably the design of a cryogenic platform for the TESSERACT Collaboration’s dark matter search and new safety models for particle accelerator beamlines.

TESSERACT, which stands for Transition-Edge Sensors with Sub-EV Resolution And Cryogenic Targets, searches for low-mass dark matter roughly a hundred to a thousand times lighter than a standard WIMP (weakly interacting massive particle). Florida State University researchers, including members of Guo’s lab, are part of the collaboration and much of the effort in designing the specialized cryostat used in these searches was led by Guo’s team at the MagLab.

“This is a highly competitive international honor that recognizes exceptional early-career contributions to cryogenic engineering and applied low-temperature science,” Guo said. “Dr. Qi’s work has made a strong impact in cryogenic heat transfer and safety-relevant cryogenic-system modeling.”

The impact of cryogenic engineering research

Qi’s research has produced results published in leading peer-reviewed journals and carries practical value for laboratories around the world. Her work on sudden vacuum-break events in cryogenic accelerator systems, known as beamline vacuum break analysis, addresses safety challenges for facilities such as particle accelerators that rely on liquid-helium-cooled beamlines.

Guo’s broader research program at the college and MagLab spans quantum fluids and solids, cryogenic platforms and quantum sensing and devices. Qi has been a central contributor within that group for more than two years. Beyond her research contributions, she has also been recognized as a dedicated mentor within the lab.

Guo offered his “strongest recommendation” for the award, citing Qi’s scientific maturity and breadth of expertise across multiple subfields of cryogenic engineering.

FSU Quantum Initiative

Guo is co-director of the FSU Quantum Initiative and leads the Cryogenics Lab at the National High Magnetic Field Laboratory, where his research focuses on cryogenics, with applications in quantum fluid dynamics, liquid-helium-based dark matter detection, cryogenic accelerator physics, quantum-fluid-based qubits and liquid hydrogen aviation.

The Klipping Award places Qi among a small group of early-career researchers recognized internationally for pushing the boundaries of low-temperature science. Her selection reflects both the depth of her individual contributions and the strength of the research environment at the FAMU-FSU College of Engineering and the MagLab.

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A Florida State University faculty member has been recognized for his continued service to a national professional organization focused on the study of polymers, substances found in everything from plastics to spiderwebs.

Justin Kennemur, a professor in the Department of Chemistry and Biochemistry, has been awarded the 2026 Distinguished Service Award from the American Chemical Society’s Division of Polymer Chemistry, or POLY, for his service to the division, including his elected role as secretary from January 2023 to December 2025. He is the first faculty member from FSU to receive the award.

“I feel incredibly humbled to have earned this award,” Kennemur said. “It takes a village for POLY to operate at the level it does. I’d be remiss if I didn’t share this award with all of the active people in POLY who contribute to its mission, vision and goals.”

POLY is the premier professional organization promoting polymer science and its value to society. The organization supports thousands of members advancing the broader field and practitioners as they meet the global challenges of today and tomorrow by connecting them to peers through conferences, workshops and educational opportunities to share their research and progress the field of polymer chemistry. The Distinguished Service Award recognizes a member of the organization whose service and professional accomplishments have made a significant and lasting impact on POLY.

“This organization serves as a melting pot by which students, industry scientists, government workers, and academics in the field of polymer science can collaborate, learn and create a network of like-minded professionals to encourage the growth of polymer research,” Kennemur said. “We work toward a common vision of promoting polymer science and its values to society.”

Polymers are found in a range of man-made and natural materials from rubbers and textiles to tree bark and tentacles. They’re composed of macromolecules, large molecules made up of repeating structures of basic chemical building blocks known as monomers. Kennemur’s research focuses on constructing complex chemical compounds using polymeric materials, such as those found in plastics and elastomers, to develop innovative materials for clean energy technologies like fuel cells and sustainable alternatives to conventional plastics.

“Both synthetic and natural polymers are everywhere, and we can see their impact within every facet of industry,” Kennemur said. “Construction, transportation, outer space exploration, not to mention skin, hair, feathers, wood: any material that isn’t a mineral or a metal is likely a polymer. Even your DNA is a polymer.”

The Kennemur Research Group takes inspiration from organic chemistry concepts in the natural world, like complex polymers found naturally in starch or collagen, to develop synthetic techniques that advance polymer chemistry, especially in the development of sustainable plastics that can be reused and recycled more effectively. Kennemur previously created eco-friendly plastics from pine sap, a more renewable material than the crude oil typically used to manufacture synthetic plastic. He intends to synthesize novel polymers to build even more sustainable materials, further minimizing the impact of single-use plastics.

“Make no mistake — plastics have revolutionized society in many positive ways, but we have become too complacent in using them once and throwing them out without a clear path toward their reuse,” Kennemur said. “We need more sustainable solutions so we can go back to appreciating plastics for the fantastic materials they are with less environmental pollution and potential health impacts.”

Kennemur received his doctorate in chemistry from North Carolina State University in 2010 before completing postdoctoral polymer research at the University of Minnesota, Twin Cities. He joined FSU’s faculty in the Department of Chemistry and Biochemistry in 2014, and he remains a member of the American Chemical Society with specific involvement in its Division of Polymeric Materials: Science and Engineering as well as POLY.

“Dr. Kennemur is a star and an emerging leader in polymer chemistry who has made a name for himself through his innovative research,” said Wei Yang, chair of the Department of Chemistry and Biochemistry and a professor of biochemistry. “He’s also an outstanding teacher of organic chemistry and a great graduate mentor.”

Since joining FSU’s faculty, Kennemur has earned the William R. Jones Outstanding Mentor Award from the Florida Education Fund and the FSU Developing Scholar Award, and his research has been funded by institutions such as the U.S. Department of Energy, the National Science Foundation, and the ACS Petroleum Research Fund. In May, he was elected an associate member of the Academy of Science, Engineering and Medicine of Florida.

Visit the Department of Chemistry and Biochemistry website to learn more about Kennemur’s work and research.

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A team of researchers from Florida State University and the National High Magnetic Field Laboratory is looking to nature to find microbes that can be used to create new antibiotics to treat the growing threat of drug-resistant bacteria.

Infection from so-called “super bugs” is a leading cause of death globally. Drug resistant bacteria contribute to nearly five million deaths every year, according to the World Health Organization. As more pathogens develop resistance, that number is expected to jump nearly 70% in the next 25 years.

The team of FSU and MagLab researchers will screen soil microbes from around the world to hunt for sources of new antibacterial drugs. The Novo Nordisk Foundation is funding the project as part of an international drug discovery initiative.

“People have been searching for new antibiotics for many years, but it is becoming increasingly difficult to discover novel compounds. Our goal is to revolutionize the drug discovery pipeline,” said Xiangpeng Li, an assistant professor in the FSU Department of Chemistry and Biochemistry. “If we don’t do anything, antibiotic resistance will be a huge problem for the human race.”

Buried treasure: Potential medical marvels in the soil

Molecules made by microbes have long been used to treat bacterial infections. The first antibiotic, penicillin, was developed from mold nearly 100 years ago. Common antibiotics like streptomycin are produced by bacteria.

The researchers will test soil samples supplied by Rob Spencer, a biogeochemist and professor in the Department of Earth, Ocean, and Atmospheric Science. He studies the carbon cycle, and particularly the rapidly changing environments of the Arctic and tropics.

“It’s common to think about soils as just dirt, but they are essential for our nutrient, carbon and water cycles, and microbes in soils hold huge potential for discovery of new drugs,” Spencer said.

His samples from extreme environments like the polar regions hold particular promise because they have not been extensively examined.

“Those samples might contain very novel microbes,” Li said. “They have been frozen for maybe tens to hundreds of thousands of years. We are more likely to find new things.”

How it works

To find sources for potential new antibacterial drugs, the team has the ambitious goal of screening a billion microbes.

Li specializes in droplet microfluidics, manipulating tiny drops of fluid about the width of a human hair through troughs etched on a silicone disc to rapidly conduct chemical screening. His microfluidics system will quickly process tens of thousands of droplets at a time.

“Typically, when we search for new compounds from nature, it’s a rather arduous process working with individually isolated microbes, but with the speed of microfluidics and the analytical power of the Ion Cyclotron Resonance Facility, we can sample all of the microbes from a variety of environments all at once. It’s a very exciting collaboration,” said Edward Kalkreuter, an assistant professor in the Department of Chemistry and Biochemistry.

Inside the droplets, soil microbial cells will be combined with a common antibiotic-resistant bacterium called Klebsiella pneumoniae and a fluorescent color-coded tag to allow for rapid sorting.

Then the MagLab’s Ion Cyclotron Resonance Facility, or ICR, will identify bioactive molecules from the soil microbes.

“You might have a soil sample and it kills the Klebsiella, but you don’t know what those molecules are. So that’s where we come in,” said ICR Director Kicki Håkansson.

The lab’s powerful ICR mass spectrometers will analyze the droplets that show antimicrobial activity to determine which molecules are responsible for the antibacterial properties. The precision analysis will also be crucial for making sure the discovery is indeed new.

“We’re looking for signals that have not been discovered before. We don’t want to rediscover penicillin,” Li said. “To do that, we annotate the molecular composition of each signal and compare it against databases of known compounds.”

Taking on that data analysis challenge will be the team’s fifth member, Ryan Rodgers, a researcher at the ICR.

International collaboration

The researchers will also share data and ideas with 21 other research groups around the world as part of an international drug discovery consortium with additional funding provided by the Gates Foundation and the Wellcome Trust. This coordinated investment and collaborative effort will accelerate the search for new medications that are crucial to addressing this growing crisis.

“This new approach allows us to look very thoroughly at compounds that haven’t been looked at,” Håkansson said. “And if we find something, this could be transformative, which is what’s really exciting.”

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 Florida State University chemists have synthesized new molecules derived from bacteria found in a Pacific Ocean sea sponge, a breakthrough for the future of drug development, particularly for rare forms of cancer.

“Around 50 percent of approved drugs are either natural products or derivatives of natural products,” said Zackary Firestone, a fourth-year doctoral student in FSU’s Department of Chemistry and Biochemistry, and the study’s lead author. “Synthetic access to these molecules is important because it allows for easier procurement for biological testing as well as the making of new derivatives.”

The research team is the first to successfully synthesize two new marine natural products: tetradehydrohalicyclamine B and epi-tetradehydrohalicyclamine B. Both were isolated from bacteria that lives in symbiosis with Acanthostrongylophora ingens, a Pacific-dwelling sea sponge.

Sea sponges and their cohabitant bacteria are an important source of biologically active molecules. The chemists who realize these natural marine products’ potential through chemical synthesis play a foundational role in evaluating their merit as new medicinal leads for various diseases. The findings were published earlier this year in the Journal of the American Chemical Society, ACS’ flagship scholarly journal.

How it works

Discovered in 2018, tetradehydrohalicyclamine B can inhibit proteasomes, large, barrel-shaped protein complexes that perform waste-management activities within cells by disposing of damaged proteins.

Some rare cancers, like multiple myeloma and mantle cell lymphoma, produce an abundance of toxic proteins, meaning the cancer’s survival and spread rates are heavily dependent on the cancer cell’s ability to dispose of this additional waste. Proteasome inhibitors are an important form of cancer therapy: They enable a buildup of toxic proteins, which places cancer cells under so much stress that they die off, slowing or stopping the spread in its tracks.

Epi-tetradehydrohalicyclamine B, discovered in 2019, hasn’t yet been the subject of published biological study. However, due to its unique structure, the molecule has attracted considerable attention among organic synthetic chemists for its pharmaceutical potential.

Both molecules are derived from bacteria growing in Acanthostrongylophora ingens, a sea sponge primarily found off the coast of Indonesia. As the source for a variety of bioactive molecules, the sponge is in high global demand by researchers. These samples are individually collected by trained scuba divers and often frozen immediately to prevent chemical degradation before shipment. Laboratory synthesis of key molecules within the sponge will expand research activity without limits instilled by natural sea sponge populations.

“These complex molecules have shown promise in medicinal applications, but gathering large quantities of them is difficult and expensive,” Firestone said. “We make these molecules from materials you can buy from suppliers, giving researchers easier access to the molecules as well as the ability to modify them to improve their properties.”

Why it matters

Whether as a drug molecule or a natural product, the precise molecular geometry is critical for interacting with the target protein. The first syntheses of tetradehydrohalicyclamine B and epi-tetradehydrohalicyclamine B resulted in two mirror image geometries, only one of which was biologically active. Firestone is now the first to synthesize these molecules with only the desired geometry, which will allow researchers to better evaluate how these substances’ structures interact with endogenous human targets like the proteasome.

“I really enjoy the problem-solving aspect of making molecules,” Firestone said. “In some ways, it feels like a puzzle where you’re trying to use a plethora of available reactions to build a complex molecule in the most efficient way possible.”

A legacy of molecular synthesis

Firestone’s work is part of a broader research program in the Smith Laboratory, an organic synthesis research lab led by Associate Professor of Chemistry and Biochemistry Joel M. Smith.

The lab explores new ways of synthesizing complex molecules, laying the scientific foundation for the creation of novel small-molecule drugs. While the Smith Laboratory centers its efforts on neurological disorders such as migraines, severe depression, and Parkinson’s disease, Firestone’s research is poised to have eventual applications in cancer treatment.

“Zack is a tenacious synthetic chemist,” Smith said. “In addition to intellect, he’s extraordinarily resilient and disciplined when it comes to doing great science. This makes him exceedingly adept at tackling difficult synthetic problems with a thoughtful and diligent approach, setting him up for a very successful future, both at FSU and beyond.”

FSU’s Department of Chemistry and Biochemistry has a legacy of molecular synthesis and drug development. The late chemist and FSU Professor Robert Holton synthesized the groundbreaking cancer drug Taxol, bypassing the limitations involved in extracting the cancer-inhibiting agent paclitaxel from the bark of the Pacific Yew tree, and allowing for more than a million patients to benefit from the medication.

For more information about Firestone’s work and research in the Department of Chemistry and Biochemistry, visit chem.fsu.edu.

FSU researchers Thiago A. Grigolo and Filipe G. Pernichelle were coauthors of this study. This research was supported by the National Institutes of Health and by the National Science Foundation.

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Each year, massive mats of pelagic sargassum drift across the Atlantic Ocean and wash ashore along coastlines from West Africa to the Florida Gulf. What begins at sea as a floating habitat for marine life quickly becomes a serious problem once it reaches land, smothering beaches, disrupting ecosystems and generating the familiar smell of rotten eggs as it decays.

As the scale of the sargassum blooms continues to grow, researchers at Florida State University are working on a different question: How to transform this mounting environmental challenge into a sustainable opportunity. A team of scientists at FSU, collaborating with colleagues at Florida Atlantic University (FAU) and Florida International University (FIU), has demonstrated that pelagic sargassum can be converted into a potential high-quality, functional food ingredient through targeted extraction and purification. Their findings were recently published in the journal Food Hydrocolloids.

Their work comes at a crucial moment: In 2026, pelagic sargassum quantities are expected to reach unprecedented levels. Marine scientists estimate that this year’s bloom is on track to be the largest ever recorded, potentially surpassing last year’s peak of about 37.5 million metric tons (MMT). As of February 2026, more than 13 MMT of sargassum were already drifting toward Florida and the Caribbean, forming earlier than usual due to warming ocean temperatures and strong trade winds. Cleanup comes at a steep price: In Miami-Dade County alone, sargassum removal has previously cost an estimated $35 million per year.

Rather than focusing on removing sargassum and discarding it, the researchers investigated how to recover sodium alginate, a naturally occurring compound widely used in foods for thickening, gelling and stabilizing products such as salad dressings, desserts and plant-based alternatives.

“Right now, most washed ashore sargassum is treated as waste,” said Qinchun Rao, corresponding author of the study and professor in FSU’s Department of Health, Nutrition, and Food Sciences. “We wanted to explore whether this abundant biomass could be responsibly transformed into something useful.”

“One of the most encouraging findings was that the recovered alginate retained useful functional properties,” added Aravind Kumar Bingi, first author of the study and a doctoral candidate in Rao’s lab. “That suggests this biomass may have value beyond cleanup and disposal.”

Addressing safety and functionality

Pelagic sargassum is not suitable for direct human consumption due to its high salt content, fibrous structure and potential accumulation of heavy metals. However, the FSU-led team found that selective extraction and purification can isolate alginate while removing much of the unwanted material.

Crucially, the study showed that alginate derived from pelagic sargassum retains strong functional performance, comparable to that of commercially available alginates already used in food systems. Advanced analytical techniques confirmed that the alginate’s chemical backbone remains intact, meaning functional differences are driven by physical structure rather than chemical alteration.

Looking ahead

The research team emphasizes that more work is needed before large-scale adoption, including performance testing in real food systems and continued monitoring of batch-to-batch safety. Still, the findings represent a critical step toward changing how pelagic sargassum is viewed — from an expensive nuisance to a renewable resource with real-world applications.

“Our long-term goal is to help turn an environmental burden into a safe, sustainable and value-added resource,” Rao said. “If pelagic sargassum can be responsibly processed into functional ingredients, it could create new opportunities for food innovation while also supporting more sustainable approaches to managing coastal biomass.”

With forecasts pointing to yet another record-breaking sargassum season, such solutions are becoming increasingly urgent.

This research was supported by the U.S. Department of Agriculture’s National Institute of Food and Agriculture.

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The model combines real-time and historical data to predict outbreaks and protect public health

Every summer, beach closures disrupt families, harm local businesses and raise public health alarms. Most of the time, the warning comes after it is already too late.

A new artificial intelligence framework developed at the FAMU-FSU College of Engineering aims to change that by alerting water managers to E. coli contamination risk before anyone falls sick.

Researchers led by Assistant Professor Nasrin Alamdari developed an AI-powered predictive modeling framework that uses environmental and hydrometeorological data to provide early warnings of Escherichia coli (E. coli) contamination in recreational waterways, giving communities a window to act before health risks emerge.

Their model, which was published in Water Research, identified unsafe conditions with approximately 85% accuracy, demonstrating its potential to offer earlier warnings before levels reach unsafe thresholds.

“Beach closures often occur because we detect contamination after water conditions have already become unsafe,” said Alamdari, a researcher in the Department of Civil and Environmental Engineering and the Resilient Infrastructure and Disaster Response (RIDER) Center. “Our goal is to move from a reactive approach to a predictive one, leveraging continuous environmental data, including rainfall, river flow, turbidity, temperature and upstream conditions, to estimate E. coli levels in near real time and up to a day in advance.”

How it works

Traditional water quality monitoring relies on manual sampling followed by laboratory analysis, a process that takes 18 to 24 hours to yield results. By the time a beach or river is closed, swimmers may have already been exposed to dangerous levels of contamination.

The framework developed by researchers uses current and historical environmental data to estimate contamination risk without waiting for lab results. Inputs include upstream hydrologic conditions, streamflow rates, rainfall totals, turbidity readings and water temperature. By combining these variables, the model can flag elevated E. coli risk with 24 hours advance warning.

A 2023 sewage spill that occurred after a malfunction at the Big Creek Water Reclamation Facility illustrates exactly the kind of scenario the model is built to address.

“The 2023 Big Creek sewage spill is an example of how a sudden treatment failure can rapidly contaminate downstream recreational waters,” said Ali Salou Moumouni, a graduate researcher on the project. “Our predictive models use current and past environmental and hydrometeorological data to estimate contamination risk before lab results arrive. By factoring in upstream hydrologic conditions, our model provides earlier warnings and more targeted monitoring, improving preparedness during sudden contamination events.”

Why it matters: Human health impacts and economic costs

E. coli contamination in recreational waterways can infect people swimming there, causing gastrointestinal distress, nausea or fatigue. Vulnerable populations, such as the very young or old, are at greater risk.

The consequences of delayed contamination alerts extend beyond public health. When closures happen unexpectedly, hotels, outfitters and water recreation businesses lose revenue with little warning. Municipalities absorb higher costs from emergency public notifications and increased health incident response.

“Delays expose the public to greater health risks and increase medical expenses from waterborne illness,” Alamdari said. “Local economies that depend on recreation and tourism suffer revenue losses when visitors cancel trips or avoid affected areas, while municipalities incur higher operational costs for water testing and emergency response. Repeated advisories can also erode public trust, leading to longer-term declines in visitation and further economic loss.”

Proactive alerts, by contrast, give businesses and government agencies advance notice, reduce unnecessary closures and help communities protect both public health and economic stability. By shifting from reactive to predictive monitoring, communities can better protect public health while reducing unnecessary closures and improving economic resilience.

Risk factors

The study also documents how land use changes intensify contamination. Between 2007 and 2023, urbanization in the study area increased impervious cover from 24% to 28%, altering runoff pathways, leading to more polluted runoff and higher and more variable E. coli levels in streams.

As precipitation patterns grow less predictable, even moderate rainfall events carry elevated contamination risk in urbanized watersheds. The model accounts for rainfall history, streamflow and watershed wetness indicators to improve prediction during those in-between conditions that traditional models often miss.

“Our findings show that every development decision influences water quality and public health, highlighting the need for green infrastructure,” said Imtiaz Syed Usama, a graduate researcher on the team.

Storms compound the problem. E. coli levels can spike within hours of heavy rainfall, but traditional lab testing is too slow to catch those surges before people enter the water.

“Our model flips the script: by combining rainfall, streamflow, turbidity and other hydrometeorological data, it helps predict E. coli risk in near real time and up to a day ahead, including during extreme weather,” said Nasr Azadani Mitra, a graduate researcher at RIDER. “Communities without routine lab testing can still issue early warnings and protect public health.”

This research was supported by grants from Florida State University.

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FAMU-FSU College of Engineering researchers contribute to landmark study demonstrating ultra-low noise levels in innovative qubit platform

Florida State University and FAMU-FSU College of Engineering faculty members Wei Guo and Xianjing Zhou are part of a multi-institution research team whose latest findings advance one of the most promising platforms in quantum computing.

A new qubit, the fundamental building block of quantum information processing, invented at the U.S. Department of Energy’s Argonne National Laboratory exhibits noise levels thousands of times lower than those of most traditional qubits. The study was published in Nature Electronics.

Noise refers to disturbances in the environment that diminish a qubit’s performance. The platform is built by trapping single electrons on the surface of frozen neon gas, and the recent findings position it as a strong contender in the field of high-performance quantum technologies.

The new study was jointly led by Argonne and the University of Notre Dame. Faculty at Florida State University, the University of Chicago, Harvard University and Northeastern University collaborated on the research.

“One of the biggest obstacles in quantum computing is finding a material environment that is quiet enough for qubits to survive, yet practical enough for building larger systems,” said Guo, a professor in the Department of Mechanical Engineering at the FAMU-FSU College of Engineering and researcher at the National High Magnetic Field Laboratory. “This study shows that solid neon offers a very compelling combination of cleanliness, stability and resilience. That is exactly the kind of foundation we need if we want quantum hardware to become more robust and scalable.”

Quantum computing: Potentially transformative, but challenged by noise

Today’s computers and smartphones run on bits, which are tiny switches that can be either 0 or 1. Quantum computers use a special kind of bit known as qubits that can be 0 and 1 at the same time. What’s more, the state of one qubit can instantly affect another qubit’s state, even if they are on opposite sides of the planet.

The remarkable properties of qubits can endow quantum computers with exponentially greater computational power than that of classical computers. This opens the door to solving challenging problems like inventing disease-curing drugs, advancing materials design, enabling secure communication and optimizing complex supply chains.

Yet quantum computers are still an emerging technology. Qubits are extremely sensitive to noise — tiny disturbances in the environment such as electromagnetic fields, heat and particle vibrations. As a result, qubits tend to have short coherence times, meaning they can only retain information for a fraction of a second.

Most of today’s chip-based qubits are made of semiconducting or superconducting materials. But these qubits are often challenged by noise from material defects, embedded charges and fabrication variability. The electron-on-neon qubit has the potential to address these limitations.

Solid neon is less noisy

In 2022, Argonne scientists at the Center for Nanoscale Materials (CNM), a DOE Office of Science user facility, invented a fundamentally new type of qubit made by freezing neon gas into a solid and spraying electrons from a light bulb filament onto the solid. A special electrode traps a single electron just above the neon’s surface. The electron serves as the qubit, with the electron’s motion in space representing the qubit’s 0 and 1 states.

In this platform, electrons reside in a vacuum just above the neon surface rather than deep inside a conventional solid, which means they are naturally less exposed to the defects and fluctuating environments that often limit qubit performance in other solid-state platforms. Earlier studies had already shown that electrons on solid neon could function as qubits and achieve remarkably strong coherence under highly protected conditions. This new work takes an important next step by showing that the platform remains quiet and functional under less ideal conditions more relevant to future quantum hardware.

Testing for resilience

The study evaluated the platform’s quietness with a systematic noise characterization. Rather than testing the device only under its most protected operating condition, the team examined how the qubit behaved away from the charge-insensitive “sweet spot” and at elevated temperatures, where environmental disturbances become more consequential, allowing researchers to probe the practical resilience of the platform under realistic operating conditions.

The study team found that the noise in the neon qubit platform is 10 to 10,000 times lower than that in most semiconducting qubits and rivals the lowest semiconductor noise records. The researchers also found that the qubits can maintain coherence times above 1 microsecond at temperatures up to 400 millikelvins, a noteworthy result because quantum devices generally become more vulnerable to decoherence as temperature rises.

“Our work shows that solid neon is not only an exceptionally clean host for trapped-electron qubits, but also a surprisingly robust one,” said Xianjing Zhou, assistant professor in the Department of Mechanical Engineering at the FAMU-FSU College of Engineering and a corresponding author of the paper. “That is exciting because reducing noise and relaxing temperature constraints are both essential for pushing quantum devices beyond carefully protected laboratory demonstrations toward more realistic technologies.”

That temperature robustness could prove especially valuable for scaling. Quantum processors typically operate at extremely low temperatures, where cooling power is limited and system engineering becomes increasingly difficult. A qubit platform that remains coherent at higher temperatures could ease one of the major bottlenecks in building larger and more practical quantum systems.

“By carefully characterizing the noise seen by the qubit, we can begin to understand why this platform performs so well and where further improvements can be made,” said Xu Han, scientist at Argonne National Laboratory and co-corresponding author of the study. “That insight is important as we work toward more advanced trapped-electron quantum devices.”

A growing quantum hub in Tallahassee

Guo’s and Zhou’s contributions to this research reflect a broader and growing investment in quantum science taking shape at FSU.

Florida State University’s Quantum Initiative aims to advance quantum science and engineering and accelerate the development of technologies that could reshape computing, communication, sensing and understanding of the physical world. The FAMU-FSU College of Engineering, in partnership with Florida A&M University, is establishing the Center for Quantum Science and Engineering.

Together, these institutional investments are helping build a strong regional ecosystem for quantum research and education, creating opportunities for students to engage in cutting-edge research, deepen their technical expertise and prepare for careers in the rapidly growing quantum workforce.

The study’s authors included Xu Han and Yizhong Huang at Argonne, and Xinhao Li, who was at Argonne when this research was conducted; Yutian Wen and Dafei Jin at the University of Notre Dame; Christopher S. Wang and Brennan Dizdar at the University of Chicago; Wei Guo and Xianjing Zhou at FSU and the FAMU-FSU College of Engineering; and Xufeng Zhang at Northeastern University.

The research was supported by DOE’s Office of Basic Energy Sciences, Argonne’s Laboratory Directed Research and Development program, Julian Schwinger Foundation for Physics Research, Air Force Office of Scientific Research, National Science Foundation, Gordon and Betty Moore Foundation, Office of Naval Research Young Investigator Program, and the France and Chicago Collaborating in the Sciences program. Guo’s research was additionally supported by an NSF grant through Florida A&M University and the National High Magnetic Field Laboratory and by the Gordon and Betty Moore Foundation Grant through Florida State University.

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