NASA’s next generation of scientists

From the sea to the stars, two University of Delaware doctoral students - one studying the ocean and the other the cosmos - are charting new frontiers as part of NASA's next generation of scientists.

Yuleny Gomez Rodriguez, who is studying oceanography, and Siddarth Chaini, who is studying astrophysics, each received a NASA FINESST (Future Investigators in NASA Earth and Space Science and Technology) award, a prestigious research fellowship that provides funding to graduate students for innovative, self-designed research projects aligned with NASA's goals in Earth and space science. The highly competitive fellowship offers up to $50,000 annually for up to three years to support tuition, travel and research expenses and aims to support the next generation of NASA scientists and engineers.

Studying the daily commute beneath the waves

Every day at dusk, marine organisms travel to the surface of the water in order to feed. At dawn, they travel back down to deeper waters in order to avoid predators. This process, known as diel vertical migration, plays an important role in the transportation of carbon from the surface of the ocean down to deeper ocean layers, as the marine organisms making the journey respire and excrete carbon during their daily journey.

The traditional way of studying diel vertical migration is through acoustic technology. Instruments such as echosounders can emit sound pulses and measure the return echoes, which are affected by the presence and size of organisms. Rodriguez, an oceanography doctoral student in the College of Earth, Ocean and Environment, will use her NASA FINESST award to research whether this daily migration can be tracked optically as well.

Using a glider equipped with both acoustic and optic sensors, Rodriguez started collecting data for the first time in Santa Barbara in the fall of 2024. From that initial deployment, she was able to gather a large dataset of diel vertical migration.

The goal of the research is to determine how much carbon these organisms are moving up and down in the water column every day.

"It's a big part of the biological carbon pump, but we're not really sure who the key players are, what they're contributing and how much they're contributing," Rodriguez said. "With optic sensors, you can start to get at those questions because you're able to make proxies between the particles, the chlorophyll and the carbon."

As the glider dives, it records nonstop. The researchers have collected a full month of these dives and can see the particles in the water at specific points in time.

"Over time, we put all of these together into a picture and you see how, at the surface, there are a lot of particles, but as you go deeper you see fewer particles," Rodriguez said. "Then, during the days and nights, there are regions where we see features pop out where it looks like there's an increase of particles."