The Regents’ Medal for Excellence in Research is awarded by the University of �鶹��ý Board of Regents in recognition of scholarly contributions that expand the boundaries of knowledge and enrich the lives of students and the community.

Sloan Coats

Sloan Coats is an assistant professor in the Department of Earth Sciences and an affiliate of the International Pacific Research Center at the UH ����ԴDz� School of Ocean and Earth Science and Technology. Coats joined UH ����ԴDz� in November 2019, after holding postdoctoral and positions at the University of Colorado, Boulder, and the National Center for Atmospheric Research, as well as faculty roles at the Woods Hole Oceanographic Institution.

His research combines advanced statistical techniques, climate models and both observed and paleoclimatic data to investigate climate variability and change across timescales. A key aspect of Coats’s work is its interdisciplinary nature, reflected in his contributions to diverse fields such as glaciology and seismology.

In addition to his research, Coats is a passionate advocate for the broader research community at UH. He co-directs the NSF-funded Earth Sciences on Volcanic Islands Research Experiences for Undergraduates program, which provides undergraduate students with hands-on research experience in Earth sciences.

Matthieu Dubarry

Matthieu Dubarry is an associate researcher at the �鶹��ý Natural Energy Institute (HNEI) in the UH ����ԴDz� School of Ocean and Earth Science and Technology. With more than 20 years of experience in renewable energy, he specializes in lithium-ion battery research.

He joined HNEI in 2005 as a postdoctoral fellow, analyzing the usage data from a fleet of electric vehicles. He was appointed to the faculty in 2010, where he has focused on battery testing, modeling and simulation.

Since 2014, Dubarry has led his own research group, supported by funding from federal agencies and industry partners. He is recognized for pioneering data-driven techniques to non-destructively assess lithium-ion battery degradation.

His work has produced a suite of software tools for predicting battery lifespan at both the cell and pack levels. His diagnostic model, ʻalawa—named for the Hawaiian word meaning “to diagnose with insight”—has earned global recognition and is used by universities and companies around the world.

Rick Kazman

Rick Kazman is the Danny and Elsa Lui Distinguished Professor of Information Technology Management at the UH ����ԴDz� Shidler College of Business. His research focuses on software architecture, analysis tools and technical debt. He helped develop several influential methods and tools, including the Architecture Tradeoff Analysis Method, Titan and DV8, which are widely used to evaluate and improve the structure and maintainability of software systems.

Kazman has authored more than 250 publications, holds three patents and has written nine books, including Software Architecture in Practice, Technical Debt: How to Find It and Fix It and Designing Software Architectures: A Practical Approach. His work has been widely adopted by Fortune 1000 companies and cited more than 30,000 times, according to Google Scholar.

A leading figure in his field, Kazman currently serves on the Institute of Electrical and Electronics Engineers Computer Society’s Board of Governors. His contributions continue to shape industry best practices and advance the discipline of software engineering.

Klaus Wyrtki, a pioneering oceanographer and former professor at the University of �鶹��ý at ����ԴDz�, has been honored by the �鶹��ý State Legislature for his groundbreaking contributions to oceanography and climate science. Wyrtki, who died in 2013, was a leading expert in ocean circulation and its impact on global climate patterns.

The certificate recognizing Wyrtki’s legacy was presented on March 12, to his widow, Erika Wyrtki, by her extended family during a symposium dedicated to his scientific achievements. The three-day event, from March 12 to 14, at the East-West Center, gathered leading researchers to discuss Wyrtki’s enduring influence on the field.

“Dr. Wyrtki’s work laid the foundation for much of what we understand today about ocean currents and climate variability,” said conference chair Malte Stuecker, director of the and associate professor in the in the UH ����ԴDz� . “It is a privilege to bring together scholars from around the world to celebrate together with the Wyrtki family his contributions.”

The marked the 50th anniversary of two milestone events in early El Niño-Southern Oscillation (ENSO) research that Wyrtki helped pioneer. In 1975, he published, , which shaped modern ENSO studies. That same year, he led the El Niño Watch Expedition, the first attempt to verify an El Niño forecast using the Southern Oscillation Index. The symposium brought together experts to reflect on these achievements and discuss the future of ENSO research.

Three University of �鶹��ý at ����ԴDz� projects in the fields of climate and physics research have each been . These projects are among 39 nationwide that have been awarded a total of $36 million in funding by the DOE via the .

Global warming in the Pacific

Associate Professor Malte Stuecker from the UH ����ԴDz� and in the was awarded $991,795 over the next four years to examine how greenhouse gas-induced global warming affects the tropical Pacific, with a focus on the differential warming between eastern and western regions.

Understanding this pattern is crucial for both predicting by how much the Earth will warm overall as well as predicting many climate change impacts, including tropical cyclone risks for �鶹��ý and other Pacific islands. The study investigates how El Niño and La Niña events, which cause significant temperature and wind fluctuations in the eastern and central tropical Pacific, can help reduce uncertainties in long-term warming patterns. The research involves collaboration with the Pacific Northwest National Laboratory and analyzes ocean and atmospheric processes during these events.

“This project aims to reduce the remaining uncertainties in the future warming pattern in the Pacific,” Stuecker said. “This information is critically needed to guide climate change adaptation across the Pacific including �鶹��ý.”

Free-electron laser

Siqi Li, an assistant professor in the UH ����ԴDz� , has been awarded $994,320 over the next four years to study how electrons and light interact in a free-electron laser (FEL), a device that makes light when electrons move through alternating magnets.

The FEL at UH ����ԴDz� makes infrared light, which is useful for many things such as studying molecules, medical imaging and communications. Li will also use machine learning to improve the ability to control electrons. Li and her team are working with experts from the SLAC National Accelerator Laboratory to develop their program and machine learning tools.

“This project will position UH as a key player in accelerator and beam physics,” Li said. “The collaboration with SLAC National Accelerator Laboratory will further enhance research efforts, bringing in students and researchers across different fields, and boosting the university’s role in scientific innovation and workforce development.”

Gaseous detectors

Assistant Professor Peter Lewis from the UH ����ԴDz� Department of Physics and Astronomy has been awarded $906,897 to further investigate gaseous detectors that can detect particles in various fields, from dark matter research to particle physics. InGrid sensors offer superior performance in measuring charge in gasses. This project, a collaboration between UH and Lawrence Berkeley Lab, aims to create advanced InGrid sensors.

Lewis’ goals are to achieve optimal performance and establish U.S.-based production capabilities, currently limited to Europe. The project, named FIMS (Flexible, Ideal MPGD System), combines advanced manufacturing and AI techniques. This research is crucial as it could lead to breakthroughs in understanding dark matter and fundamental physics, potentially revolutionizing our knowledge of the universe and enabling new technologies.

“This is exactly the sort of project that made me want to be a physicist,” Lewis said. “It will require creativity, collaboration, and cutting-edge technology, and it has plenty of opportunities for students to make a real and lasting impact.”

Department of Physics and Astronomy Chair and Professor Veronica Bindi added, “These exceptional young faculty members secured substantial grants within their first year, showcasing their initiative and boosting our research capacity. Their rapid success highlights the high-caliber talent we’re cultivating in our Department of Physics and Astronomy.”

An associate professor at the University of �鶹��ý at Mānoa was honored for his significant contributions to Earth and space science with the from the American Geophysical Union (AGU). As part of the award, he will also become an AGU Fellow.

Malte Stuecker’s research is on the dynamics, predictability and impacts of climate variability and projected climate change, with an emphasis on the Indo-Pacific region. “I am very grateful to receive this recognition. I am thankful for my mentors, postdocs, students, and colleagues who make up a research community that is exciting, challenging, and fun,” said Stuecker, who is appointed in the and the in the (SOEST). “It is a privilege to conduct research that I am passionate about and to be part of this community.”

It is a privilege to conduct research that I am passionate about and to be part of this community.

Stuecker joins a distinguished group of scientists, leaders and communicators recognized by AGU for advancing science. Each honoree reflects AGU‘s vision for a thriving, sustainable and equitable future supported by scientific discovery, innovation and action.

Stuecker earned degrees from the Carl von Ossietzky University of Oldenburg in Germany as well as from UH Mānoa. Prior to his current appointment in SOEST, he was an assistant project leader at the IBS Center for Climate Physics in South Korea and a NOAA Climate & Global Change postdoctoral fellow at the University of Washington in Seattle.

AGU honorees will be recognized at AGU24, which will convene more than 25,000 attendees from more than 100 countries in Washington, D.C. and online in December. The AGU announcement highlights that “these honorees have transformed our understanding of the world, impacted our everyday lives, improved our communities and contributed to solutions for a sustainable future.”

The Regents’ Medal for Excellence in Research is awarded by the University of �鶹��ý Board of Regents in recognition of scholarly contributions that expand the boundaries of knowledge and enrich the lives of students and the community.

Benjamin Shappee

Benjamin Shappee is an astronomer at the Institute for Astronomy. He specializes in transients and time-domain astronomy. Shappee is a founding member of one of the most successful time-domain projects, the All-Sky Automated Survey for Super-Novae (ASAS–SN), which uses telescopes around the globe to survey the entire sky daily.

The ASAS–SN survey paper (Shappee et al. 2014) is the 50th most-cited paper in astronomy in the past decade. Shappee is co-principal investigator of the largest near-infrared supernova survey to date, the �鶹��ý Supernova Flows, using the United Kingdom Infrared Telescope on Maunakea.

He and his group have made important contributions to our understanding of the origins of supernovae (exploding stars), stellar flares with potential impact on the habitability of nearby planets, and outbursts from supermassive black holes. ASAS–SN found the most luminous supernova yet discovered (ASASSN-15lh). Shappee was also part of the team that discovered the first and only counterpart to gravitational wave source from the merger of two neutron stars. He has authored 275 publications and has 20,000 citations.

Malte Stuecker

Malte Stuecker is an assistant professor in oceanography at the International Pacific Research Center in the University of �鶹��ý at Mānoa School of Ocean and Earth Science and Technology. Stuecker’s research is on climate variability and climate change in the past, present and future.

Much of his work is centered on the Pacific Ocean and phenomena such as the El Niño-Southern Oscillation. Stuecker earned a PhD in meteorology from UH Mānoa in 2015. He returned to UH as faculty in 2020, and was previously an assistant project leader/research professor at the IBS Center for Climate Physics in South Korea.

Stuecker received the IAPSO Early Career Scientist Medal in Physical Oceanography in 2023, the Kamide Lecture Award from the AOGS Atmospheric Sciences section in 2020, and the Outstanding Young Scientist Award from the EGU Climate: Past, Present & Future division in 2016. In 2018, he was a Future Leaders Program Fellow of the Science and Technology in Society forum in Kyoto (Japan), and in 2022 he received an NSF CAREER Award.

Donald Womack

Donald Reid Womack is a professor of music in the University of �鶹��ý at Mānoa College of Arts, Languages & Letters. A faculty member at UH since 1994, Womack chairs the music department, and is faculty in Japanese and Korean Studies.

He is the composer of more than 100 original works, which have been performed and broadcast in 25 countries and recorded on more than a dozen releases in the U.S., Korea and Japan. Ensembles around the globe have performed his works, including the Tokyo Metropolitan Symphony, Russia Ulan Ude Symphony, Hawaii Symphony, National Orchestra of Korea, among many others.

Womack is the recipient of the Guggenheim Fellowship, two Fulbright Fellowships, two Artist Fellowships from the State of �鶹��ý, and won numerous other national and international competitions. Widely recognized as a leader in intercultural composition, he integrates East Asian and western instruments. He has lectured on his work in Korea, Taiwan and Japan, and taught as visiting faculty at Seoul National University.

As part of global ocean circulation, warm water in the upper layer flows from the Pacific Ocean to the Indian Ocean through the Indonesian Archipelago. The flow through the archipelago, known as the Indonesian Throughflow, is neither a steady one nor a single stream as it navigates through the various seas, straits and passages.

A team of researchers that investigated the role eddies play in determining the path and transit times through this major sea area—dynamics that ultimately influence the climate of the region. The researchers represent the University of �鶹��ý at Mānoa, Tohoku University, Japan Agency for Marine-Earth Science and Technology, Kyushu University and the National Research and Innovation Agency of Indonesia.

Because of their warm surface temperature, the seas in the Indonesian Archipelago are an area where deep convection in the atmosphere develops, which is the heart of the overall atmospheric circulation in the tropics. The behavior of the Indonesian Throughflow is considered to be a factor that determines the sea surface temperature in the region, which is influential for climate phenomena such as El Niño events.

M. Riza Iskander, the lead author of the study, spent many months at the at UH Mānoa (SOEST) as part of the Tohoku University-UH jointly supervised graduate student program. While at SOEST, Iskander, ocean modeling specialist Yanli Jia, and oceanography professor Kelvin Richards, along with their co-authors, used a high-resolution ocean general circulation model to track simulated particles in the fluid flow of the Indonesian Throughflow and noted where and when the water properties change.

Influence on Indonesian current

They explored the role that flow variability plays in the Indonesian Throughflow pathway and its transit time through the major seas. The effects vary considerably depending on the route. In the Sulawesi Sea, flow fluctuations are large, seawater circulates over a wide area for an extended period, and rises from the middle to near the surface, causing significant changes in water properties due to turbulent mixing. On the other hand, in the Banda Sea, fluctuations of the current are slight, and the influence of eddies on the Indonesian current is negligible.

As global warming progresses, the Indonesian Throughflow is also expected to change. Such changes may alter water temperatures in the Indonesian Archipelago and Indian Ocean, modulate El Niño and the Indian Ocean Dipole Mode Phenomena, affecting local weather. In the future, the research team would like to clarify how the eddy effects on the path and residence time of the Indonesian Throughflow, are linked to water temperature in these areas, and thereby contribute to improving the accuracy of future projections.

The North Pacific “Garbage Patch” aggregates an abundance of floating sea creatures, as well as the plastic waste it has become infamous for, according to a study published in and co-authored by oceanographers in the University of �鶹��ý at Mānoa (SOEST).

Marine surface-dwelling organisms, such as jellies, snails, barnacles and crustaceans, are a critical ecological link between diverse ecosystems, the study authors wrote, but very little is known about where these organisms are found. Plastic pollution provides a clue: the oceanographic forces that concentrate buoyant man-made waste and pollutants in “garbage patches,” may also aggregate floating life.

There are five main oceanic gyres—vortexes of water where multiple ocean currents meet—of which the North Pacific Subtropical Gyre is the largest. It is also known as the North Pacific “Garbage Patch,” because converging ocean currents have concentrated large amounts of plastic waste there.

The researchers leveraged an 80-day, long-distance swim by through the gyre in 2019, dubbed The Vortex Swim. To investigate these floating lifeforms, the sailing crew accompanying the expedition collected samples of surface sea creatures and plastic waste. The expedition’s route was planned using computer simulations developed by SOEST oceanographers, Nikolai Maximenko and Jan Hafner, which simulate ocean surface currents to predict areas with high concentrations of marine debris.

“Surface currents are the most complex part of ocean dynamics,” said Maximenko, who is a senior researcher in the at SOEST. “The model, which had been successfully used previously to simulate trans-Pacific drift of debris generated by the 2011 tsunami in Japan, now helps us to understand the role that ocean currents play in sustaining the pelagic ecosystem.”

The expedition team collected daily samples of floating life and waste in the eastern part of the North Pacific Subtropical Gyre, and the researchers found that sea creatures were more abundant inside the gyre than on the periphery. The occurrence of plastic waste was positively correlated with the abundance of three groups of floating sea creatures: by-the-wind sailors (Velella sp), blue buttons (Porpita sp) and violet snails (Janthina sp).

The same ocean currents that concentrate plastic waste in oceanic gyres may be vital to the life cycles of floating marine organisms, by bringing them together to feed and mate, the authors say. However, human activities could negatively impact these high sea meeting grounds and the wildlife that depends on them.

“The ‘garbage patch’ is more than just a garbage patch,” said Rebecca Helm, assistant professor at the Earth Commons Institute at Georgetown University and lead author of the study. “It is an ecosystem, not because of the plastic, but in spite of it.”

Two pioneers of climate research share this year’s Nobel Prize in Physics, both with ties to the (IPRC) and the (SOEST) at the University of �鶹��ý at Mānoa. Klaus Hasselmann and Syukuro “Suki” Manabe were by the “for the physical modelling of Earth’s climate, quantifying variability and reliably predicting global warming.”

More on Manabe

Over his long and distinguished career, Manabe has made key contributions to understanding the processes controlling the variation of Earth’s climate and to the development of the computational tools for climate modelling. In a , the award committee praised Manabe’s numerical demonstration to the world that increased levels of carbon dioxide in the atmosphere lead to increased temperatures at the surface of the Earth.

“Manabe’s work launched the field of computer modeling of climate, and he was the pioneer in modeling the coupling of the atmospheric climate and circulation to the ocean, the land surface and the cryosphere,” said Kevin Hamilton, SOEST emeritus professor of atmospheric sciences and retired director of IPRC.

Manabe spent most of his career with the NOAA Geophysical Fluid Dynamics Laboratory and Princeton University, but in 1997 he returned to his native Japan where he headed the Global Warming Research Program for the Japan Agency for Marine-Earth Science and Technology (JAMSTEC) 1997–2001. This period also saw the 1997 establishment of IPRC at UH Mānoa by JAMSTEC as a Japan-U.S. collaborative center to advance research in understanding and modelling climate variability and climate change in the Asia-Pacific region.

In 2005, Manabe to share two scientific presentations with the UH community. Then, in 2009, he to further discuss climate modeling issues with faculty, staff and students. During the visit Manabe and IPRC outreach specialist Gisela Speidel finalized a dealing with Manabe’s career for the American Meteorological Society Oral Histories Project. The IPRC continues in its third decade as a unique Japan-U.S. collaboration for climate research and is a focus for climate science at UH.

More on Hasselmann

, professor emeritus at the University of Hamburg and founding director of the Max Planck Institute for Meteorology, developed the fundamental theory that explains how slow temperature variations in the oceans are related to day-to-day variations of the weather in the atmosphere.

“This theory has become one of the cornerstones of modern climate science and is a foundation for much of the research conducted at IPRC,” said Malte Stuecker, assistant professor of oceanography at SOEST and IPRC. “It has been widely applied in multiple fields, ranging from climate physics to terrestrial and marine ecosystems.”

His work was fundamental to the detection of the “fingerprint” of human-induced climate change in the presence of natural variability. In addition, Hasselmann was instrumental in advancing climate model development and computations in Germany. Furthermore, he advised the doctoral dissertations of SOEST alumni Axel Timmermann and Peter Müller.

A lasting scientific impact

The powerful statement issued in the latest report by the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change that “It is unequivocal that human influence has warmed the atmosphere, ocean and land. Widespread and rapid changes in the atmosphere, ocean, cryosphere and biosphere have occurred,” would not have been possible without the climate models that Manabe and the statistical methods that Hasselmann helped to pioneer.

Climate research is an example of UH Mānoa’s goal of Excellence in Research: Advancing the Research and Creative Work Enterprise (PDF), one of four goals identified in the 2015–25 �鶹��ý (PDF), updated in December 2020.

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A graduate student is the first Pacific Islander to voyage to the deepest part of the Earth, the Mariana Trench, and its deepest region, the Challenger Deep (35,827 feet), on March 11, 2021.

Nicole Yamase, a PhD candidate in the UH Mānoa , explored the Western pool of the Challenger Deep with Victor Vescovo, a deep-ocean explorer and multi-world record holder, making this the third dive ever to this location. Yamase was also the first marine botanist, youngest female and third woman to ever visit Challenger Deep.

“I couldn’t believe my eyes when I saw the fine silt bottom of the Challenger Deep through the small window. We were hovering 2 meters off the ground,” said Yamase. “This was the moment I was preparing for and it was finally here. All I could think about was how proud my ancestors and the whole Pacific Island community would be.”

“I hope this experience inspires other young Pacific Islanders to pursue STEM fields and higher education, so that they can serve as role models for the next generations,” added Yamase.

This event is an example of UH Mānoa’s goal of (PDF), one of four goals identified in the (PDF), updated in December 2020.

10-hour expedition

Because the Challenger Deep is located in the Exclusive Economic Zone (EEZ) ocean territory for the Federated States of Micronesia, Yamase was nominated by the Micronesia Conservation Trust in partnership with the Waitt Institute to represent her country.

Vescovo, owner of the 224-foot research vessel DSSV Pressure Drop and the only commercially certified submersible that is capable of reaching any ocean depth multiple times, piloted the two-person submersible to the Challenger Deep. Four hours after leaving the surface, Yamase and Vescovo made it to the bottom and spent 2 hours exploring the eastern part of the pool, an area no human, to their knowledge, has ever been before. Then they took another 4-hour ride back up to the surface, spending a total of 10 hours underwater.

Yamase brought down a few personal items, one being a hand-size model canoe that belongs to her father, Dennis Yamase, who is a UH Mānoa alum. The canoe represented her father being her first inspiration to pursue undergraduate and now graduate studies in marine biology. Yamase reflected, “I’ve identified as a Micronesian. The canoe also represents my mother’s family from Pohnpei and Chuuk. She instilled in all her children the values of respect for others, our traditional culture and my natural surroundings, as well as an appreciation for our diverse background.”

Shallow reefs connect to deep ocean

Yamase’s research focuses on shallow-water communities, specifically macroalgae—the foundation of the food web. Some of the energy that supported life in Challenger Deep may have been contributed by dead plant material that has made its way to the bottom via marine snow, a shower of organic material falling from upper waters to the deep ocean.

“And now I could see, quite literally how these reefs in the Federated States of Micronesia are connected with the deepest place on Earth,” added Yamase.

After seeing debris (tethers) at the bottom of the ocean, this pushes Yamase to finish her degree and be a part of organizations that help protect the full reef from shallow waters to deep ocean.

“Yamase’s inspiring voyage to the Challenger Deep is a once-in-a-lifetime journey to a place that less than 20 people visited before in human history,” said Malte Stuecker, an assistant professor at UH Mānoa’s Department of Oceanography and . “In addition to being an explorer, Nicole is currently finishing her graduate studies in marine biology and working as a teaching assistant for the ‘Sustainability in a Changing World’ class offered in the Oceanography Department.”

The impact of sea surface temperature variations in the tropical Pacific on global climate has long been recognized. For example, the episodic warming of the tropical Pacific during El Niño events causes melt of sea ice in far-reaching parts of the Southern Ocean via its effect on the global atmospheric circulation. , by an international team including University of �鶹��ý at Mānoa Assistant Professor Malte Stuecker from the and , published in Science Advances demonstrates that the opposite pathway exists as well.

Using a hierarchy of climate model simulations, the authors demonstrate the physical pathways through which polar climate variations can affect the trade winds in the tropics.

“Climate signals can propagate from the polar regions to the tropics either via the atmosphere or the ocean,” explained Stuecker. “Our climate model simulations were designed to investigate the relative role of these pathways and whether their importance differs for perturbations originating from the North pole or the South pole.”

Anomalous cooling

The authors found that in the most complex model simulations, which include realistic representations of the ocean, atmosphere, land processes, and sea ice, an anomalous cooling in either hemisphere leads to a strengthening of the tropical trade winds.

Lead author Sarah Kang from the Ulsan National Institute of Science and Technology in South Korea explained the reasoning behind these experiments. “One of the largest sources of uncertainty in the current generation of climate models are biases in the representation of clouds over the cold Southern Ocean. We wanted to explore what effect too much reflection of solar radiation by these clouds to outer space might have on global climate. In addition, large emissions of aerosols in the late 20th century due to industrial activity in the Northern Hemisphere from North America, Europe and Asia resulted in a slight, temporary reduction of the global warming rate that is due to increasing greenhouse gas emissions,” she said.

According to the authors’ results, both of these effects could potentially explain why the Pacific trade winds were anomalously strong in recent decades.

The model experiments developed by the authors can be used to further explore two-way interactions between the tropics and polar regions both for future climate projections as well as for interpreting reconstructions of climate states in the geological past.

–By Marcie Grabowski