RE Log - Spring 2020

The laser loaned to RE by Dr. Ted Caplow P’25 arrived from the Frost Museum of Science June 17. This was quite a boon for us to receive, this portable device that had been invented to allow for wider access to this relatively new technique of chemical analysis, laser- induced breakdown spectroscopy. ‘Portable’ meant a 400-pound system with significant electronics and lenses and optics and software – it took seven people to carry this equipment into our lab, and two full days to set it up. The laser was designed to help detect heavy metals in solid samples and is currently used by NASA to study the composition of the surface of Mars; however, no one had developed an easy, reproducible and safe technique to allow it to be used on liquid samples. Only solids had been tested successfully. Liquids would just splatter. That was a problem for us because we wanted to study metal contaminants in the bay. We needed to figure out: How are we going to solidify these samples? Two college students, Emily Orme from Augustana College and Melissa Fernandez from Florida International University, had worked with the laser at Dr. Claudia Ochatt Josh Buttrick ’22, Max Vallone ’22 , Dr. Luis Felipe, Joseph Gross ’20 Laser Focus Students employ laser for groundbreaking scientific research Equipped with a state-of-the-art laser loaned to RE by a parent, the support of hardworking faculty members, and their own unrelenting ingenuity, a handful of Ransom Everglades students participated in groundbreaking scientific research last summer that almost immediately earned national recognition. The students, who ranged in age from 14 to 18, barely knew each other when they started congregating around the 400-pound laser system that had arrived from the Frost Museum of Science to Room 301 of the Math/Science Building in June 2019. Working under the leadership of faculty members Dr. Claudia Ochatt and Dr. Luis Felipe, the students helped unravel a series of interdisciplinary problems that arose as they sought to detect heavy metal contaminants in salt water from Biscayne Bay. They offered contributions from distinct fields – chemistry, engineering and computer science – to jointly develop a brand-new, multifaceted approach to the detection using the relatively new technique of laser-induced breakdown spectroscopy. Elements of the students’ remarkable work earned top prizes in science poster competitions among fields of collegians and doctoral candidates, and additional abstracts related to the research will be submitted for peer review in the coming weeks and months. Kushi Shah ’19 , now a student at the University of Miami, and Dr. Claudia Ochatt use the laser to study bay water samples. 16 Ransom Everglades LOG SPRING 2020