Faculty/Staff Photography, 2nd Place. Erin Baker. The molecular patterns from the water sample shown in this picture, and evaluated with our advanced mass spectrometry instrument, looked similar to the aurora borealis we observed in Fairbanks, Alaska. The illustrated data combines ion mobility spectrometry and mass spectrometry (IMS-MS) to assess the structure and size of molecules in under 60 milliseconds. These rapid assays enable the screening of thousands of samples per day to provide an informative look at molecules present and changing in sample types ranging from drinking water to blood.
Faculty/Staff Graphics, 1st Place. Javier Brumos. Frequently, roots remain unnoticed because they are out of site, but they play vital functions during a plant’s life. Roots take up water and nutrients from the soil and at the same time they communicate with the environment and the shoot coordinating growth and development accordingly to the surrounding conditions. The picture depicts a cartoon of a tomato root generated using the app Painnt.
Graduate Student/Postdoc Photography, 2nd Place. Steve Anderson. Freshwater marshes and forested wetlands on the Albemarle-Pamlico Peninsula in eastern North Carolina are changing at an accelerated rate. These changes are largely a result of land-use change and climate change causing saltwater intrusion. Saltwater intrusion is the movement of seawater further inland in surface and ground water. Increasing salinity exposure to freshwater wetlands is causing transitions of forest and marsh habitats to bare ground and even open water. Such change have major implications for loss of biodiversity and loss of wetland ecosystem function and habitat loss.Graduate Student/Postdoc Microscopy, Honorable Mention. Xiaomeng Fang. This unedited polarized light microscope image shows the crystal morphology of a special type of polyhedral oligomeric silsesquioxane (POSS) solvent-casted with tetrahydrofuran. POSS is a unique hybrid molecule that fuses in organic as well as inorganic chemistry; since it improves thermal and mechanical properties of polymeric materials drastically it is applicable in a wide range of industries from electronics to biomedical applications. The crystal morphologies that we investigate, guide us to the direction of its final application. POSS molecules can form a continuous surface that can be used as a protective coating on polymers against X-rays and UV light. Like an emotional painting in an art gallery, this image fills our heart with romance due to its strong colors and shapes. We would like to share it with the science and art community.
Graduate Student/Postdoc Microscopy, 1st Place. Taylor Neumann. We are continually trying to utilize data and sensors to better inform our lives. Wearable electronics provide a new approach to enable monitoring of our health. Most electronics, though, use rigid components that are inflexible and uncomfortable. Utilizing liquid metal alloys, flexible pathways for circuitry are being developed. This opens up opportunities to build flexible and stretchable electronics which can be used to power health monitoring systems, or transmit data to receivers. We are studying a variety of ways to pattern this liquid metal, including 3D printing, injection filling, and spray coating, to integrate it with electronic devices to enable wearable health monitoring systems, and understanding the way the oxide skin adheres is critical to our understanding of these processes. This image depicts regions of a liquid metal droplet that have collapsed under vacuum.
Faculty/Staff Photography, 1st Place. David Suchoff. Roots play the critical role of water and nutrient resource acquisition. Root system traits such as length and diameter can affect how well a plant utilizes water under drought, maintain growth in cold soils, and efficiently use nutrients. Unfortunately, roots are exceedingly difficult to study due to their underground growth. We developed a means to easily harvest, clean, and analyze root systems in an effort to unlock the mysteries of improved drought and cold tolerance in tomato.Faculty/Staff Microscopy, 1st Place. Javier Brumos. In our planet, life would not exist as we know it without flower fertilization. All life begins with pollination. The gynoecium (the female part of the flower) coated with pollen grains emerging from the anthers (the male part of the flower) is portrayed in this scanning electron microscopy image. The flower is one of the most complex structures in the plant. Flower growth and development is regulated by plant hormones that shape its anatomy and determine the optimal timing to maximize the possibilities of fertilization. Ultimately, this process results in the production of fruits and seeds.
Graduate Student/Postdoc Graphics, 1st Place. Matt Zimmer. Visualization of a high-resolution simulation of a bubble-water flow being accelerated through a vertical cylindrical pipe. The grey areas in the image represent bubbles, and the colored areas represent the liquid velocity. In the left-most frame the system is known as slug flow, a type of flow pattern, or regime, defined by a large bubble followed by a long liquid region. As the liquid becomes faster and more turbulent, small bubbles are torn off the tail, dispersing them into the liquid region behind the bubble. The continual acceleration increases turbulence’s energy, which increases the number of bubbles being torn off the main bubble. Eventually, enough bubbles have been torn off the tail that the slug regime no longer exists, and the flow regime is known as bubbly flow. This process is known as a flow regime transition.
Undergraduate Student Photography, 2nd Place. Carmen Mackenzie Cromer. I study lemur vocalizations with Dr Lisa Paciulli. Our goal is to record and analyze call patterns in several species of lemur, including aye-ayes, ring-tailed lemurs, and Coquerel’s sifakas. Male and female ring-tailed lemurs make different types of calls, and I want to know why. To answer this question, I go to the Duke Lemur Center and record lemurs in free-range enclosures. I record audio footage continuously and jot down what they are doing every five minutes (this is known as scan sampling). I also take notes on the appearance of the lemurs, looking for specific features that will allow me to easily recognize an individual when he or she vocalizes. I usually stay out for five to seven hours at a time with the lemur troop.Graduate Student/Postdoc Photography, 1st Place. Theresa Guillette. Our study examined per- and polyfluoroalkyl substances (PFAS) in the local American Alligator population of coastal North Carolina. Alligators are a great example of a sentinel species™ for human health because they are top predators, and do not migrate. We like to think of them as canaries of the swamp! We sampled alligators at two locations in NC: Lake Waccamaw and Greenfield Lake near Cape Fear River. Lake Waccamaw had a good representation of younger alligators (less than one year old), which indicates reproductively active females at this site. We found differences in PFAS concentrations between Lake Waccamaw and Greenfield Lake. Alligators caught from Greenfield Lake (close to Cape Fear River) had 10 times higher concentration of PFAS in their blood than their Waccamaw brethren. We will further study reproductive endpoints as well as other health indicators to examine whether increased PFAS at Cape Fear River impacts the health of American alligators in coastal NC.
Undergraduate Student Photography, 1st Place.. Carmen Mackenzie Cromer. I took this photo during a class field trip to Green Mill Run, a North Carolina river bed that harbors fossils from the Cretaceous and Paleogene periods. We collected sediment and then visited underserved schools in the Raleigh area; hundreds of middle and high-school students helped us catalog fossilized shark teeth as part of an ongoing citizen science project (Shark Tooth Forensics).
Faculty/Staff Microscopy, 2nd Place. Richard Spontak. This unedited polarized light microscope image shows the crystal morphology of a special type of polyhedral oligomeric silsesquioxane (POSS) solvent-casted with carbon tetrachloride. POSS is a unique hybrid molecule that fuses in organic as well as inorganic chemistry; since it improves thermal and mechanical properties of polymeric materials drastically it is applicable in a wide range of industries from electronics to biomedical applications. The crystal morphologies that we investigate, guide us to the direction of its final application. POSS molecules can form a continuous surface that can be used as a protective coating on polymers against X-rays and UV light. You don’t need to look at the sky in the middle of the night to see shooting stars. If lucky enough, they also can be seen under a microscope. Let’s make a wish!Graduate Student/Postdoc Photography, Honorable Mention. Qandeel Hussain. A Kalasha speaker in Chitral (Northern Pakistan) is coming back from the forest after collecting firewood.
Graduate Student/Postdoc Microscopy, 2nd Place.. Ogheneovo Idolor. The image shows the magnified surface of a room temperature cured epoxy with bubbles of different sizes formed at the air/epoxy interface.Faculty/Staff Photography, Honorable Mention. Elsa Youngsteadt. Carpenter bees (Xylocopa virginica) build nests by chewing tunnels into wooden structures. These false-color X-ray images show nesting activity within redwood bench boards on the NCSU campus. The top image was taken in October, revealing young adult bees preparing to overwinter inside the nest. In spring, those bees mate, and the females fill the nests with pollen for their new offspring (bottom, taken in May). In this nest, each compartment contains a pollen ball and a developing larva; the youngest larvae are nearest the nest entrance (left), and the oldest larvae have grown large by consuming much of their pollen (right). These images are part of a research project to understand how carpenter bees have adjusted to urban living, and to develop new management advice for homeowners concerned about structural damage. Michelle Cavalieri, Donna Decker, Jennifer Landin, and Elsa Youngsteadt contributed to these images.
Faculty/Staff Graphics, 2nd Place. George Elvin. This drawing explores the phenomenological aspects of my current research into resilient design strategies for coastal dwellings. The research focuses on new methods in design and construction to help coast-dwellers adapt to increasing hurricanes and rising sea levels. The research includes designing, building and testing at full-scale hurricane-resistant building assemblies. This drawing, however, explores the phenomenological aspects of coastal dwelling which cannot be captured through quantitative research–light and shadow, dynamism and tranquility, depth and surface, meaning and emotion. Technically, this ten-square-foot pencil drawing is made of over fivGraduate Student/Postdoc Microscopy, Honorable Mention. Amber Hubbard. This research develops novel, hands-free techniques to convert thin, flat plastic sheets into functional three-dimensional structures. Thin plastic sheeting, commercially known as Shrinky-Dinks, is patterned on the surface using ink before being exposed to a light source. This light source initiates a 2D-to-3D transformation which can be used for remote deployment, gripping technologies, or increased shipping efficiency. Understanding and controlling the ink color and placement generates precise control of the resulting shape change, broadening the application space of such adaptable materials.
Graduate Student/Postdoc. Graphics, 2nd Place
K. Umesh. This picture is a live interactive map of approximate 11.6 billion records of vessel (ship) traffic data for the whole US region. The Automatic Identification System (AIS) data is generated every six-minute by every vessel moving or anchored. With the large stream of data received, it becomes very challenging to handle and analyze the data in maritime spatial planning. With the innovation in computing, we are able to not only load any such big data but also interact with it in real-time. I selected tugs, cargo, passengers, and fishing vessels from 2008 to 2015 for this representation using tools like Omni Sci and Mapbox that runs on GPU.
Graduate Student/Postdoc Video, Honorable Mention. Minyung Song. This work focuses on how the surface tension of liquid metal can be effectively lowered by forming a thin layer of oxide on the surface of the metal. Normally liquids that have high surface tension tend to form spherical shape to minimize their surface area. The surface tension of the liquids can be lowered by adding surfactants like soap or detergent in water. Likewise, the oxide layer acts as a surfactant in this system and allows liquid metal to form interesting shapes like a flower.
Graduate Student/Postdoc Video, 2nd Place. Taylor Neumann. This material is made up of tiny droplets of liquid metal suspended in a silicone rubber. When a force is applied, the material can flow through a nozzle, but holds its shape after the force is removed. By studying the way the composite flows, we can better understand how to pattern it into useful shapes. The composite solidifies over a few hours, producing a trace that can be rendered electrically conductive but features an insulating shell on the surface. And, because it features a liquid metal filler particles instead of solids, it is still stretchable. This could potentially make printing self-contained circuits a simple one-step process.
Graduate Student/Postdoc Video, Honorable Mention
Faculty/Staff Video, 1st Place. Colin Keenan. This short demonstration shows the application of a 3D-rendered display environment, or hologram, for sharing hands-on learning tools for students of natural science topics such as botany. It’s well-documented that a plurality of students learn better from these kinds of spatial interactions than from the lecture model and physical teaching tools are already a staple for topics such as chemistry and anatomy. Holograms and physical computing interfaces offer the potential for students to get hands-on experiences with specimens that could otherwise be difficult to procure, dangerous to introduce into a classroom environment, too small for observation, or expensive to maintain. This work is part of the VRPlants initiative, a collaboration between the NC State Libraries and Department of Plant & Microbial Biology. This team’s work is concerned with using immersive media to compensate for gaps in plant biology education for middle school, high school, and undergraduate audiences.
