May 1, 2024
Dasgupta Led the Rice-HISD Planetary and Space Exploration Education Project
Rajdeep Dasgupta, as the principal investigator, is leading the Rice and the Houston Independent School District (HISD) Planetary and Space Exploration Education Project, a pilot program aimed at inspiring the next generation of space and planetary science enthusiasts. The program will provide HISD K-12 students and teachers with enrichment opportunities, including campus visits, internships, and hands-on learning experiences. Rice faculty and students will also collaborate with NASA and local industry leaders to engage and support the future workforce in the growing space industry.
Read the Rice University press release here.
September 24, 2023
Pal Awarded NASA Future Investigator Award
Aindrila Pal has been awarded the prestigious NASA Future Investigators in NASA Earth and Space Science and Technology (FINESST) grant, one of the largest and most competitive funding programs for U.S.-based graduate students in Earth and space sciences. Her research will explore the origin and evolution of nitrogen in rocky planetary bodies, including Earth, Moon, Mars, Mercury, and Venus, using computational models and high-pressure, high-temperature experimental simulations. This work will help scientists better understand planetary habitability and aid in interpreting observational data and determining exoplanetary nitrogen budgets.
Read the Rice University press release here.
August 15, 2023
Dasgupta Received Rice-IITK Strategic Collaboration Award
Rajdeep Dasgupta has been awarded the Rice-IITK Strategic Collaboration Award, collaborating with Debajyoti Paul from the Indian Institute of Technology Kanpur (IITK). The award program supports high-impact collaborative research between Rice University and its strategic partner IITK in the areas of energy and environment, health care, biomedical sciences, biomedical engineering, data science, computer science and engineering, and other areas of common research interest. Rajdeep Dasgupta and Debajyoti Paul aim to combine experimental and geochemical approaches to understand the processes of rare-earth elements (REE) and tungsten concentrations in carbonatites. The team will conduct laboratory experiments to determine pathways of REE concentrations in carbonatite and associated phases.
Read the Rice University press release here.
March 27, 2023
Pal Wins AGU Outstanding Student Presentation Award
Aindrila Pal, a second-year doctoral student in ExPeRT, received the 2022 Outstanding Student Presentation Awards (OSPA) at the American Geophysical Union (AGU) Fall Meeting. Her presentation, titled "Partitioning of Nitrogen in Reduced Magmatic Systems: Implications for Early Differentiation of Rocky Bodies in the Inner Solar System," was recognized in the Mineral and Rock Physics section. Congratulations Aindrila!
See the full award list here.
April 20, 2022
Grewal wins AGU Outstanding Student Presentation Award
Damanveer S. Grewal, a fifth-year doctoral student in ExPeRT, received the 2021 Outstanding Student Presentation Awards (OSPA) at the American Geophysical Union (AGU) Fall Meeting. His presentation, titled “The Effect of Carbon Concentration on Its Core-Mantle Partitioning Behavior in Inner Solar System Rocky Bodies,” was recognized in the Mineral and Rock Physics section.
See the full award list here.
January 6, 2021
Sun Awarded 2021 MSA Award
Former ExPeRT post-doctoral researcher Dr. Chenguang Sun received this year’s MSA award from the Mineralogical Society of America. The MSA Award is intended to recognize outstanding published contributions to the science of mineralogy by relatively young individuals or individuals near the beginning of their professional careers. Dr. Sun will be recognized for his work on the interpretation of trace elements in minerals and rocks and interactions between carbonatite and peridotite and genesis of kimberlitic magmas. Congratulations Chen!!
Read Rice University’s news release here.
June 13, 2018
Dasgupta awarded new NASA CLEVER Planets grant
A brand new research project, funded by NASA’s Science Mission Directorate, was announced today. The multi-million-dollar project, dubbed CLEVER Planets (the Cycles of Life-Essential Volatile Elements on Rocky Planets), is headed by Rajdeep Dasgupta, at Rice University, and involves 10 other co-investigators at various institutions around the US and collaborators around the world. ExPeRT lab manager, Kyusei Tsuno and doctoral student, Damanveer Grewal will be assisting in the research for this massive investigation, which aims to better understand the chemical recipes that make life possible on rocky planets in our solar system and beyond. Through this funding, the team also joins the astrobiology research coordination network Nexus for Exoplanet System Science (NExSS).
Read the Rice University press release here.
And learn more about the project on the CLEVER Planets website here.
June 13, 2018
Saha Selected for AGU Voices for Science Program
The American Geophysical Union (AGU) has selected Sripana Saha for the inaugrual 2018 Voices for Science program in recognition of her outstanding work. The science communication program provides participants with resources, support, expense-paid travel to a workshop and skill-building in return for her "interest in sharing the value and impact of Earth and space science with key decision makers, journalists and public audience, with the goal of increasing the widespread understanding of and support for science."
May 25, 2018
Grewal awarded Goldschmidt Travel Grant
Damanveer S. Grewal awarded a travel grant by the Geochemical Society to attend the August 2018 Goldschmidt Conference in Boston. He was selected for this NASA-funded grant out of all applicants who were required to follow the following guidelines: being a current graduate student or postdoctoral scholar in the US; and submitting an abstract "related to planetary sciences, i.e. work on the origin and history of solar system bodies (work on meteorites, Lunar rocks, sample returned from NASA missions, planetary analogues, experiments or modeling), or related to a NASA mission, or studying the potential for life elsewhere or of planetary resources for human space exploration."
Image modified from a figure in the paper, showing a schematic of the carbon cycling that would release oxygen to the atmosphere.
April 25, 2017
Duncan & Dasgupta Identify A Source Of Earth's High Atmospheric Oxygen
After their publication in Nature Geoscience, now-graduate Megan Duncan and Rajdeep Dasgupta are quoted in various news articles reporting on their finding, including Live Science and Science Daily.
Their results, exploring the fate of organic compounds in subduction zones, indicate that early cycling and volcanism of carbon along plate boundaries may have led to the rise of oxygen in Earth's atmosphere. This sudden surge, called the Great Oxidation Event, which occurred about 2.5 billion years ago, may therefore be linked to plate tectonics. Duncan & Dasgupta's findings have implications for our planet's unique habitability.
Sept 5, 2016
Image by A. Passwaters/Rice University based on original courtesy of NASA/JPL-Caltech at http://www.nasa.gov/multimedia/imagegallery/image_feature_1454.
Li, Dasgupta & Tsuno Explain Collisional Origin Of Earth's Carbon
With the publication of their Nature Geoscience article about Earth's carbon content, Yuan Li, Kyusei Tsuno and Rajdeep Dasgupta, swept international news. The findings from the three ExPeRT members and co-authors Brian Monteleone (WHOI) and Nobumichi Shimizu (Guangzhu Institute of Geochemistry in China), respectively, were reported by Rice, BBC, Astrobiology Magazine, CBC, Business Insider, Space.com, and Yahoo! News, among others and were shared across social media.
The paper addresses the question of how early Earth became a host for carbon, a major building block of life. Carbon is a highly volatile element, easily vaporized and, thus, hard to retain. Li et al.'s results support the Late Veneer Hypothesis suggesting that a layered planetary embryo with a unique, Mercury-like make-up may have smashed into Earth, delivering the sulfur and carbon proportions we see in Earth's mantle today.
Jan 6, 2015
Dasgupta wins AGU Medal
Rajdeep Dasgupta was awarded the prestigious James B. Macelwane Medal at the Honors Reception at the 2014 AGU Annual Meeting in San Francisco, CA, as one of five with “significant contributions to the geophysical sciences by an outstanding early career scientist.”
Dec 30, 2014
Dasgupta addresses career plans
In a Nature Jobs blog post titled "Hopes for the year ahead," Rajdeep Dasgupta, among other highly recognized young scientists, was interviewed about his plans and wishes for the future of science, including getting more hands-on in his lab, while finding "enough time to play with my three little boys and spend quality time with family and friends." He's quoted saying, "supporting more exploration and curiosity-driven science would be welcome."
Jan 9, 2013
Mallik, Tsuno And Dasgupta Determine Depth Of Magma Formation In Earth's Interior
Schematic modified from the paper indicating the potential depths of melting underneath mid-ocean ridges where new seafloor erupts.
Several news reports, including the National Science Foundation (who funded the research) and Live Science, commented on the conclusions from a Nature publication by Rajdeep Dasgupta, Ananya Mallik, Kyusei Tsuno, and co-authors Anthony Withers (UMN), Greg Hirth (Brown) and Marc Hirschmann (UMN), regarding the depth of mantle melting that produces the magma erupting to form new crust at the surface.
Their experiments discerned that the onset of melting can shift deeper in the mantle when the rocks there contain heterogeneities like carbon. Their results modify previous thought, potentially explaining changes in seismic data at various depths in the mantle.
December 7, 2012
Dasgupta wins AGU Award
Rajdeep Dasgupta was recognized for the “accomplishments of junior scientists who make outstanding contributions to the fields of volcanology, geochemistry, and petrology” with the Hisashi Kuno Award at the 2012 AGU Annual Fall Meeting in San Francisco, CA.
August 19, 2011
Dasgupta wins GS Medal
Rajdeep Dasgupta was a 2011 F.W. Clarke Medalist, presented by the Geochemical Society at the 2011 Goldschmidt Conference in Prague, Czech Republic, which "recognizes an early-career scientist for a single outstanding contribution to geochemistry or cosmochemistry, published either as a single paper or a series of papers on a single topic".
September 25, 2010
Dasgupta Receives Packard Fellowship
Rajdeep Dasgupta receives a Packard Fellowship for Science and Engineering. Dasgupta is one of 17 early career professors named to the prestigious honor this year by the David and Lucile Packard Foundation
July, 2010
Publication featured in Reuter
Rajdeep Dasgupta’s publication selected for Reuter’s fast moving front commentary in the field of geoscience for the month of July, 2010. Dasgupta was interviewed by ScienceWatch.com to discuss his paper.
