This summer, Nina Osborne participated in a growth chamber experiment led by Dr. Dannenberg and Dr. Meerdink. Students used the LICOR and spectrometer to measure the response of bur oak leaves to different levels of temperature, precipitation, and carbon dioxide.

A H M Mainul Islam attended the ESA's annual conference in Baltimore to share his research titled, "Exploring the impact of Bur Oak Blight (BOB) on the Photosynthetic Capacity of Bur Oaks".

Sixteen undergraduate students from across the country gathered for the 2025 Edge of Space Academy, an immersive, hands-on research experience focused on space-based instrumentation for observing Earth and space.

On July 12, 2025, Meerdink and Pirro represented LOQATE at the BioBlitz by taking the drone and thermal camera to the Ashton Prairie Living Laboratory.

On July 1st, the School of Earth, Environment, and Sustainability (SEES) was launched. Check it out: https://youtu.be/gR7xr4DkTcg

This year's Iowa City Citywide Garage Sales will take place on June 20-21, and Dr. Meerdink has volunteered to map the address locations for the garage sales to make it easier for shoppers to find those deals.

Congratulations to Nina Osborne and Isaac Young for winning the Nicholas L. Paape Memorial Scholarship. This award is for meritorious students pursuing a degree in Geographic Information Sciences.

Congratulations to Sam Taylor, Riley Pacer, and Jalissa Pirro for receiving Graduate Student Research Awards to fund their summer research. Sam's proposal titled "Improving the Spatiotemporal Capacity of HAB Monitoring in Small, Freshwater Lakes by Fusing Daily NASA Satellite and Weather Products" is supported by the Professor Gerry Rushton Academic Excellence Fund. Riley's proposal titled “Assessing the Biogeophysical Cooling Potential of Restored Prairie with Eddy Covariance & UAV Remote Sensing,” is supported by the Andrea Hauer and David Perret Student Success Fund. Jalissa's proposal titled “Assessing the Long-Term Productivity of Miscanthus x giganteus Using UAS-based LiDAR and Multispectral Remote Sensing,” is supported by the Harold H. McCarty Memorial Fund.

Isaac Young finished his senior year at UIowa with a successful defense of his senior thesis titled, "Identifying Bur Oak Blight from Space using PlanetScope Satellite Imagery and Assessing the Role of Landscape Characteristics in Blight Severity". He also showcased this work at the 2025 Spring Undergraduate Research Festival.

Jalissa Pirro and Dr. Meerdink headed over to Iowa State's Sustainable Advanced Bioeconomy Research (SABR) farm to collect the first drone imagery of the 2025 season. Jalissa will use this data in her thesis research.