Professor Chuanmin Hu, of the University of South Florida College of Marine Science’s Optical Oceanography Laboratory, has been elected a Fellow of The Oceanography Society (TOS), one of the Society’s highest honors, recognizing outstanding and sustained contributions to the field of oceanography through scientific excellence, leadership, service, and commitment to education and public engagement. Dr. Hu will be recognized at The Oceanography Society Honors Breakfast, February 24, 2026, during the Ocean Sciences Meeting in Glasgow, Scotland.

Columbia researchers Sebastian Will and Nanfang Yu combine optical tweezers with metasurfaces to trap over 1,000 atoms—with the potential to capture hundreds of thousands more. 

Researchers led by Rice University’s Guido Pagano used a specialized quantum device to simulate a vibrating molecule and track how energy moves within it. The work, published Dec. 5 in Nature Communications, could improve understanding of basic mechanisms behind phenomena such as photosynthesis and solar energy conversion.

A study published in Nature Physics Jan. 14, co-led by Rice University’s Qimiao Si, brings together quantum criticality, where electrons fluctuate between different phases, and electronic topology, which describes a form of quantum organization based on the wave behavior of electrons. The researchers found that strong interactions among electrons can produce topological behavior, paving the way for new technologies that could use this quantum state in real-world applications.

More efficient and sustainable energy conversion technologies, among other applications, hinge on lowering the amount of energy needed to trigger specific reactions on the surface of electrodes. Called electrocatalysis, the process conserves energy by transferring electrons and speeding up the reaction time, but the molecules involved typically cannot shuttle other particles or directly activate components of the system. Now, a team led by researchers at YOKOHAMA National University and the University of Tokyo have designed a new class of mediators that more actively and precisely control electrocatalysis reactions.

Harvard researchers have found that silica, long thought to lack the right properties for optical metasurfaces, can sometimes outperform standard high-index materials like titanium dioxide.

Stewart McCorkle Faculty Fellow Brett G. Compton coauthored a comprehensive review on the physics of direct-ink writing (DIW), a highly versatile type of 3D printing, which was published on January 5th in Volume 58 of the journal Annual Review of Fluid Mechanics.  

Engineers at the University of Pennsylvania have discovered that foams — from soap suds to food emulsions — are not static, as long assumed, but instead continuously reorganize themselves in ways that mathematically resemble how modern AI systems learn.