Expert Directory

Please use the search bar below to find Florida Tech faculty experts based on name or area of expertise. You may filter results by last name, category or area of expertise using functions in the right-hand column. On a deadline? If you are a journalist on deadline, each profile contains a contact button that is monitored by our communications team to ensure we can respond quickly to any request.

'Chemtrails' and other climate conspiracies: Florida Tech's expert sets the record straight

When Florida Today columnist Tim Walters wanted to 'clear the air' about a popular conspiracy theory, he connected with Michael Splitt, an assistant professor at Florida Institute of Technology's College of Aeronautics with a focus on meteorology. The "chemtrail" conspiracy follows the erroneous belief that condensation trails (contrails) that trail behind jets are actually being used on a large scale to manage radiation and combat global warming. In the column, Splitt argued against the conspiracy by explaining what might happen if that level of "climate engineering" was actually going on. I recently wrote a column about the “chemtrail” conspiracy theory, and to say it caused quite a stir would be a serious understatement. My motivation for writing the piece came because there is a bill being looked at by the Florida legislature to address concerns of people who think the skies are being seeded by commercial airplanes with poisonous, weather-manipulating substances. Some of those raising concerns claim there are vague amorphous operatives in the federal government leading this charge. I decided I’d try to find answers, and I did so by asking someone credible in the field of weather sciences. Answers from climate expert Can the climate be altered by humans? The idea of trying to manipulate weather is called “climate engineering.” There is a form of this called solar geoengineering. “We've been doing things like this for decades in terms of, for example, fog management products. People have used this kind of methodology of adding things to the air to help get rid of fog, like the ice fog problem in Salt Lake City. So, there are places where people try to manage a local cloud layer,” Splitt said. However, it’s not done to a scale that would impact the country or globe. That’s where conspiracy theorists take climate engineering a step too far. There are those who say commercial airliners are spraying other substances like aluminum and barium (and other metallic) nano particles to reflect the sun's heat to reduce global warming. Splitt said if this were real, it might have the opposite effect. “When you have more contrails, it actually ends up warming the planet. The cirrus clouds created by aircraft and their reflective power isn't as much as let's say, the warming impact from below, from infrared radiation, so they end up being warmer." March 20 - Florida Today In the full column, Splitt also takes on other common misconceptions such as, "Why do some contrails last longer than others?" And, "Are ‘chemtrails’ steering, strengthening storms?" It's a worthwhile read for those interested in meteorology or conspiracy theories. Are you curious or looking to know more about those chasing clouds? Michael Splitt is available to speak with media. Contact Adam Lowenstein, Director of Media Communications at Florida Institute of Technology, at adam@fit.edu to arrange an interview today.

April 07, 2025

2 min

Florida Tech Welcomes Visiting Australian Scholar to Aid in Antifouling Research

Florida Tech’s Center for Corrosion and Biofouling Control is welcoming a new teammate for the semester. Tamar Jamieson, a postdoctoral researcher hailing from Australia’s Flinders University, is in Melbourne, Fla. to collaborate on biofouling research with assistant professor of marine sciences Kelli Hunsucker and professor of oceanography and ocean engineering Geoffrey Swain. Biofouling is the growth of a bacterial film or larger marine life, such as barnacles, after an object’s surface is submerged in water. It can inhibit a ship’s functionality by creating drag and slowing it down, which forces the vessel to use more fuel and emit more greenhouse gases. Over the course of the semester, Jamieson will help Hunsucker’s team develop a collaborative experiment to test antifouling techniques, combining Jamieson’s expertise with that of the lab. “I’m excited to have someone here who has this kind of wealth of knowledge in her field,” Hunsucker said. “She’ll be able to use her knowledge to help move our research forward and then kind of in return, use our knowledge to help move hers forward.” The Center for Corrosion and Biofouling Control aims to understand and improve corrosion and biofouling control systems. Part of Hunsucker’s research involves evaluating materials that can protect surfaces, such as a ship’s hull, from unwanted growth. She is currently working with the U.S. Navy to see how antifouling techniques perform under different conditions. Jamieson’s research through Flinders’s ARC Training Centre for Biofilm Research & Innovation focuses on the small-scale microorganisms that make up biofilm. She also studies the genetic makeup of microbial communities, which Hunsucker wants to add to her own research. Jamieson is especially interested in learning how antifouling materials interact with local waters. Florida’s seascape is warmer than Australia’s, so fouling grows quicker here than it does there. She also wants to see how American antifouling materials vary from those used in Australia and collaborate on a versatile solution that can withstand a variety of conditions. “Materials that work well here will probably not work in other environments,” Jamieson said. “Seeing how to develop materials for all three environments will be an interesting pathway forward.” Hunsucker hopes this exchange will lead to even more collaboration with Flinders University. “The program that she’s involved with opens the door for collaborative efforts for us to maybe go to Australia in the future,” Hunsucker said. “Her colleagues can also similarly come back and work with us.” Jamieson’s scholarship is funded by the American Australian Association, a New York-based non-profit organization dedicated to deepening and strengthening ties between the United States and Australia. The South Australia Defense, Space and Cyber Scholarship funds scholars from the U.S. and South Australia undertaking Ph.D. or post-doctoral research in those fields. Kelli Hunsucker and Geoffrey Swain are available to speak with media. Contact Adam Lowenstein, Director of Media Communications at Florida Institute of Technology at adam@fit.edu to arrange an interview today.

April 06, 2025

2 min

Life Beyond Earth? Florida Tech's Expert's are Hoping SPHEREx Will Have The Answer

In March, NASA's SPHEREx — short for Spectro-Photometer for the History of the Universe, Epoch of Reionization and Ices Explorer — was launched to the skies and far into space. Its mission has received plentiful media coverage but demands the expert analysis of scholars like astrobiologist Manasvi Lingam, an assistant professor of aerospace, physics and space sciences at the Florida Institute of Technology. The space telescope is designed to [operate] with unmatched clarity, gathering a big-picture view that will help scientists tackle questions about the origin of the universe itself, the galaxies within and life's essential ingredients wafting in our home galaxy, the Milky Way. While scientists have previously detected lots of complex organic molecules in the interstellar medium and protoplanetary disks, "we still do not know a lot about the actual abundances of useful building blocks," astrobiologist Manasvi Lingam of the Florida Institute of Technology told Space.com. That means scientists don't have strong constraints about how efficiently frozen water molecules are transferred from interstellar clouds to protoplanetary disks, where they would eventually be incorporated into newborn planets, he said. "This mission can improve the data, and help make better forecasts about the probability of the origin of life on those worlds." Looking to know more about Astrobiology and the work Manasvi Lingam is doing at Florida Tech? March 01 - Space.com Looking to know more about this latest NASA mission? Let us help. Astrobiologist Manasvi Lingam, author and assistant professor of aerospace, physics and space sciences at Florida Tech, is available to speak with media regarding this and related topics. Simply click on his icon now to arrange an interview.

April 04, 2025

2 min

NASA Grant Funds Research Exploring Methods of Training Vision-Based Autonomous Systems

Conducting research at 5:30 a.m. may not be everybody’s first choice. But for Siddhartha Bhattacharyya and Ph.D. students Mohammed Abdul, Hafeez Khan and Parth Ganeriwala, it’s an essential part of the process for their latest endeavor. Bhattacharyya and his students are developing a more efficient framework for creating and evaluating image-based machine learning classification models for autonomous systems, such as those guiding cars and aircraft. That process involves creating new datasets with taxiway and runway images for vision-based autonomous aircraft. Just as humans need textbooks to fuel their learning, some machines are taught using thousands of photographs and images of the environment where their autonomous pupil will eventually operate. To help ensure their trained models can identify the correct course to take in a hyper-specific environment – with indicators such as centerline markings and side stripes on a runway at dawn – Bhattacharyya and his Ph.D. students chose a December morning to rise with the sun, board one of Florida Tech’s Piper Archer aircraft and photograph the views from above. Bhattacharyya, an associate professor of computer science and software engineering, is exploring the boundaries of operation of efficient and effective machine-learning approaches for vision-based classification in autonomous systems. In this case, these machine learning systems are trained on video or image data collected from environments including runways, taxiways or roadways. With this kind of model, it can take more than 100,000 images to help the algorithm learn and adapt to an environment. Today’s technology demands a pronounced human effort to manually label and classify each image. This can be an overwhelming process. To combat that, Bhattacharyya was awarded funding from NASA Langley Research Center to advance existing machine learning/computer vision-based systems, such as his lab’s “Advanced Line Identification and Notation Algorithm” (ALINA), by exploring automated labeling that would enable the model to learn and classify data itself – with humans intervening only as necessary. This measure would ease the overwhelming human demand, he said. ALINA is an annotation framework that Hafeez and Parth developed under Bhattacharyya’s guidance to detect and label data for algorithms, such as taxiway line markings for autonomous aircraft. Bhattacharyya will use NASA’s funding to explore transfer learning-based approaches, led by Parth, and few-shot learning (FSL) approaches, led by Hafeez. The researchers are collecting images via GoPro of runways and taxiways at airports in Melbourne and Grant-Valkaria with help from Florida Tech’s College of Aeronautics. Bhattacharyya’s students will take the data they collect from the airports and train their models to, in theory, drive an aircraft autonomously. They are working to collect diverse images of the runways – those of different angles and weather and lighting conditions – so that the model learns to identify patterns that determine the most accurate course regardless of environment or conditions. That includes the daybreak images captured on that December flight. “We went at sunrise, where there is glare on the camera. Now we need to see if it’s able to identify the lines at night because that’s when there are lights embedded on the taxiways,” Bhattacharyya said. “We want to collect diverse datasets and see what methods work, what methods fail and what else do we need to do to build that reliable software.” Transfer learning is a machine learning technique in which a model trained to do one task can generalize information and reuse it to complete another task. For example, a model trained to drive autonomous cars could transfer its intelligence to drive autonomous aircraft. This transfer helps explore generalization of knowledge. It also improves efficiency by eliminating the need for new models that complete different but related tasks. For example, a car trained to operate autonomously in California could retain generalized knowledge when learning how to drive in Florida, despite different landscapes. “This model already knows lines and lanes, and we are going to train it on certain other types of lines hoping it generalizes and keeps the previous knowledge,” Bhattacharyya explained. “That model could do both tasks, as humans do.” FSL is a technique that teaches a model to generalize information with just a few data samples instead of the massive datasets used in transfer learning. With this type of training, a model should be able to identify an environment based on just four or five images. “That would help us reduce the time and cost of data collection as well as time spent labeling the data that we typically go through for several thousands of datasets,” Bhattacharyya said. Learning when results may or may not be reliable is a key part of this research. Bhattacharyya said identifying degradation in the autonomous system’s performance will help guide the development of online monitors that can catch errors and alert human operators to take corrective action. Ultimately, he hopes that this research can help create a future where we utilize the benefits of machine learning without fear of it failing before notifying the operator, driver or user. “That’s the end goal,” Bhattacharyya said. “It motivates me to learn how the context relates to assumptions associated with these images, that helps in understanding when the autonomous system is not confident in its decision, thus sending an alert to the user. This could apply to a future generation of autonomous systems where we don’t need to fear the unknown – when the system could fail.” Siddhartha (Sid) Bhattacharyya’s primary area of research expertise/interest is in model based engineering, formal methods, machine learning engineering, and explainable AI applied to intelligent autonomous systems, cyber security, human factors, healthcare, explainable AI, and avionics. His research lab ASSIST (Assured Safety, Security, and Intent with Systematic Tactics) focuses on the research in the design of innovative formal methods to assure performance of intelligent systems, machine learning engineering to characterize intelligent systems for safety and model based engineering to analyze system behavior. Siddhartha Bhattacharyya is available to speak with media. Contact Adam Lowenstein, Director of Media Communications at Florida Institute of Technology at adam@fit.edu to arrange an interview today.

April 03, 2025

4 min

With aviation in the news, Florida Tech's Shem Malmquist offers insight and clarity

Recent news on the safety of airlines in America has detailed tragic fatalities, airplanes flipping over and some crashing into prominent city streets, which has shone a less than flattering light on what is supposed to be a safe industry. Given recent events, Florida Tech College of Aeronautics visiting assistant professor Shem Malmquist has appeared in high-profile interviews on both current and historic aviation incidents. Recently, he spoke with the Boston Globe, Rolling Stone and the news platform FedScoop to lend his insight and expertise as a pilot. Officials have repeatedly warned about a shortage of air traffic controllers. Pilots have made up for that gap by accepting visual approaches and separation from other airplanes to relieve some of the workloads off controllers, said Shem Malmquist, a pilot and visiting instructor at the Florida Institute of Technology, who teaches courses on aviation safety. He noted that was “part of the problem” with the D.C. collision. Still, flying remains safe because “pilots are overcoming the challenges in the system to prevent accidents,” Malmquist said. “Random distribution can create clusters like this. ... That doesn’t mean there’s more risk.” February 21 - Boston Globe One former pilot told FedScoop that the system can be overpopulated with notices, only some of which might be important for a pilot to understand before taking off. Still, there’s generally no automated way of sorting through these notices, which means they can be incredibly long and difficult to completely process before flights. The notices themselves are densely written and use terminology that is often not immediately discernible. An example provided by the FAA shows the notices’ unique format. Textual data can also limit the ability to modernize the NOTAM system, an FAA statement of objectives from 2023 noted. Shem Malmquist, a working pilot who also teaches at Florida Tech’s College of Aeronautics, said the entire NOTAM system “migrated from color pipe machines,” which locked in “certain abbreviations and codes” beyond their point of usefulness. “It’s really great for computers, which is kind of funny because it was created before computers,” Malmquist added. “But it’s … not really very user friendly for the way humans think.” February 21 -FedScoop Recently, Malmquist was featured on National Geographic's TV series, "Air Crash Investigation." There, he spoke about the China Eastern Airlines Flight 583 crash investigation from 1993. Looking to connect with Shem Malmquist regarding the airline industry? He's available. Click on his icon to arrange an interview today.

March 16, 2025

2 min

Transforming Work Meetings: Strategies for More Effective and Engaging Collaboration

I’m sure you’ve heard it before—maybe from colleagues, leaders, friends or even yourself: “I am dreading my upcoming meeting.” Work meetings often have a bad reputation. People commonly complain about their frequency, the lack of purpose or how tedious they can feel. Memes and phrases like “this meeting should have been an email” have become cultural staples. Yet, over 55 million meetings take place daily in the United States. The average employee spends nearly 10 hours each week in meetings, and for executives, this number jumps to nearly half their working time. If meetings are as unproductive as people claim, consider how much of a CEO’s salary is wasted on ineffective discussions! Rather than seeing this as a hopeless situation, I view it as an opportunity. My research focuses on making work meetings more effective, engaging and satisfying, ultimately leading to better outcomes for individuals, teams and organizations. I call myself a “meeting scientist,” studying and sharing best practices for every stage of a meeting—before, during and after. BEFORE THE MEETING Meeting success starts with preparation. Research suggests having a clear and purposeful agenda shared in advance is a crucial factor in making meetings more effective. Be intentional about your attendee list—over-inviting can reduce inclusion and participation. Focus on who absolutely needs to be there, and consider listing others as optional participants. Aim to keep meetings as short as possible while still achieving your objectives. Avoid defaulting to the hourlong meeting just because it’s standard practice. Designing a meeting requires intention—every element should have a purpose. “My research focuses on making work meetings more effective, engaging and satisfying, ultimately leading to better outcomes for individuals, teams and organizations.” DURING THE MEETING Whether you’re facilitating or participating, engagement is key. Actively involve attendees, ask and answer questions and ensure quieter voices are included. Consider using round-robin discussions to ensure everyone has a chance to speak, incorporating interactive elements, like polls or brainstorming sessions, and creating a safe environment where participants feel comfortable sharing their thoughts. AFTER THE MEETING The meeting isn’t over until next steps are clearly defined. Take five minutes to recap key points, decisions and action items. Assign responsibilities and deadlines to specific individuals—Joe should leave knowing his next task, and Kate should understand when her deliverables are due. All participants should walk away feeling that something was accomplished, they have a clear path forward and their time was well spent. While these best practices might seem obvious, they’re surprisingly rare—75% of managers report never being trained on how to design or lead a meeting, even though they spend a significant portion of their roles in meetings. This lack of training is a missed opportunity to foster more productive and engaging collaboration. Looking to know more? We can help. Dr. Liana M. Kreamer is an Assistant Professor in the Industrial Organizational Psychology program at Florida Institute of Technology. She is available to speak with media. Contact Adam Lowenstein, Director of Media Communications at Florida Institute of Technology at adam@fit.edu to arrange an interview today.

March 13, 2025

3 min

Expert Opinion: Maneuvering friendships in the age of half-truths can be challenging

I recently shared an op-ed written by my colleague and friend, Ted Petersen, on a few social media sites. His thoughtful piece advocated for media literacy education. Later that day I received an alert that someone had commented on my post. The comment, made by a dear friend, alluded to disinformation about U.S.A.I.D.’s use of funds ― a false assertion that the federal agency supported the news outlet Politico for partisan gain. The comment was a perfect example of why media literacy education is important ― not just for school children. It gives people the tools to navigate a borderless media environment in which news and opinion, verified facts and unsubstantiated statements, and information and entertainment coexist. My dilemma after reading the comment was multi-faceted. What should I do? Do I respond? If so, how do I tell my friend that he is misinformed? If I don’t respond, am I shirking my responsibility as a friend, a citizen, an educator? How do I now live in a world in which my friends and family consume and trust media that actively promote disinformation? And, most importantly, how do I live in a world in which people I love are listening to a barrage of messages telling them that I am evil? That I cannot be trusted? That I should be hated? Because underlying his deceptively simple comment is the possibility that, like many, my friend trusts certain media and messages while castigating all those that don’t always align with their world view. These messages are coming through media channels that give voice to leaders and media personalities who gain traction with their audiences by demonizing those they deem their enemies. They use half-truths and outright lies to gain sway with their followers. Anyone who thinks, looks, believes differently cannot be trusted. As a media scholar I have studied media effects, persuasion, and audiences. I’ve analyzed the meaning audiences give messages and how different approaches affect audience perceptions. I’ve written about the importance of narrative and message framing. I have advocated for the ethical use of these powerful tools. As a human being, I’m saddened as I witness blatant disregard for ethical principles in those leaders and media personalities who wield communication like a weapon to undermine trust. The results are impenetrable walls separating us from those who should be our allies. After spending most of my life believing I was part of a community, able to agree or disagree, discuss and argue, to teach and to learn in conversation with others, I find myself the “other.” Dismissed. Demonized. Hated. Not by faceless strangers, but by those dear to me. I suspect I’m not alone in this feeling ― regardless of ideological preferences. Discord is painful. My heart hurts. Yet, I am stubbornly hopeful. When I see my students from different backgrounds, cultures, and generations, discussing ideas for solutions to social issues, I am hopeful. When I hear my pastor fearlessly speaking to the congregation about loving each other even in disagreement, I am hopeful. When I speak to community groups and listen to their concerns and insights, I am hopeful. When I have a long-overdue conversation with my friend instead of relying on mediated social platforms, I am hopeful. I recently spoke to a Rotary Club and borrowed their four-way test to suggest a healthier relationship with media and communication generally. Of the things we produce, consume, or share, we should ask ourselves: Is it the truth? Is it fair to all concerned? Will it build goodwill and better friendships? Will it be beneficial to all concerned? If the answer to any of those questions is no, we should change the channel, seek another source for context, delete the post, block the sender, or adjust our message so we can answer yes And if you are asking yourself why you should be fair, or build goodwill, or benefit anyone from “the other side” ―perhaps scroll through your photos or look at the pictures on your desk or mantel. We are not adversaries. We’re on the same side. It’s time to stop listening to those who tell us otherwise. Heidi Hatfield Edwards is associate dean in Florida Tech’s College of Psychology and Liberal Arts and head of the School of Arts and Communication where she is a professor of communication. She began her career as a media professional and worked nearly a decade gaining experience across multiple media platforms and in strategic communication. She teaches courses in mass communication, theory, and science communication. Heidi is available to speak with media. Contact Adam Lowenstein, Director of Media Communications at Florida Institute of Technology at adam@fit.edu to arrange an interview today.

March 12, 2025

4 min

Expert Insight: Keeping the power on!

With extreme weather becoming more commonplace than a phenomenon, America's reliance on power and electricity has been in the spotlight. Unfortunately, it's not for its resilience and reliability, but for the vulnerability of millions of Americans with each passing weather event. Florida Tech's Ken Cummins contributed to a recent study published in PLOS Climate that examined how various extreme weather events threaten the power grid in the United States. Multiple studies have shown that power outages alone can increase threats to human health—from spoiled food to failing medical equipment to a loss of heat in winter. These threats become more dire when paired with severe weather. This kind of information could be useful to utility companies, which must allocate finite resources for maintenance and repair and make plans for a range of scenarios, said Ken Cummins, a researcher at the Florida Institute of Technology with experience in grid reliability who wasn’t involved in the research. (Cummins is a former science adviser to Eos.) But he cautioned that the specific infrastructure used by local electric utilities, which can vary significantly, is also an important factor. “One thing that would be a problem in St. Louis might not be a problem in Denver or Omaha and would certainly be a different problem in New York City or Long Island,” he said. February 21 - EOS The same research got a lot of coverage across America and internationally. United Nations Office for Disaster Risk Reduction: ZME Science: This is a vital topic given the weight climate change and extreme weather are now placing on America's energy sector. If you're a journalist looking to cover this topic, let us help. Dr. Ken Cummins is a part-time Research Professor in the Department of Aerospace, Physics, and Space Sciences at Florida Institute of Technology. He is formally trained in statistical signal processing, modeling, and instrumentation. Ken is available to speak with media. Contact Adam Lowenstein, Director of Media Communications at Florida Institute of Technology at adam@fit.edu to arrange an interview today.

March 11, 2025

2 min

Covering the Tragic Crash in Washington - Our Experts Can Help

The shocking news of an in-air collision in Washington has garnered massive attention from media, airline authorities and industry experts. Reporters covering the story - rely on experts. And that's where's Florida Tech's Shem Malmquist was called to lend his expert perspective, insight and opinion on a story that's making international news. "It just shows that traffic is in our location, there's a potential collision hazard," said Shem Malmquist, a pilot and visiting instructor of general aviation and transport aircraft at the Florida Institute of Technology. And in certain situations, it will provide guidance for the pilots on how to avoid a collision, he said. For example, if TCAS believes the pilot needs to pay attention to other air traffic in the area, it may say "traffic traffic," Malmquist said. January 30 - CBC News Shem Malmquist, who is a pilot and instructor at the Florida Institute of Technology, said midair collisions are extremely rare. Malmquist said if they happen they normally happen at smaller airports without air traffic control towers like the Lantana Airport. "The only method of separating traffic is visually, as well as airplanes communicating their positions to other airplanes, and that's going to create more risk," Malmquist said. January 30 - WPTV/NBC News American Airlines Flight 5342 and a military helicopter collided mid-air late Wednesday night near Ronald Reagan Washington National Airport. Officials believe all 64 people aboard the airplane -- 60 passengers, 4 crew members -- and the three people aboard the helicopter are dead. Officials conducted a frantic rescue effort overnight, which transitioned to a recovery effort early Thursday. Many aboard the plane were in Wichita, Kansas for a figure skating competition. Captain Shem Malmquist, an aviation expert at Florida Institute of Technology, joins FOX 35 to talk more about what happened. January 30- Fox News Orlando Looking to connect with Shem Malmquist regarding this ongoing story? He's available, simply click on his icon now to arrange an interview today.

January 31, 2025

2 min

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