In the latest Alumni Magazine, the article Beauty is all around by Jo McCulty features images provided by Ohio State researchers across all departments. These images highlight research in earth science, agriculture, medicine, physics, biology, and more, and are taken by X-rays, cameras, drones, electron microscopes, and more. Forrest Schoessow, a Geography doctoral candidate and member of the Byrd Polar and Climate Research Center, is one such featured researcher: 

In the Central Andes of Peru, melting glaciers threaten the lives and livelihood of roughly 1 million people who live in the valleys below them. Forrest Schoessow, a doctoral candidate in geography conducting research in the Glacier Environmental Change Laboratory at Byrd Polar and Climate Research Center, studies the life and death of glaciers. His aim is to better understand not only the causes of a rapidly changing climate but also the effects: depleted water resources and increased potential for landslides and flooding. Schoessow uses high-altitude images like this one to monitor rapid changes in glaciers in high-mountain environments such as the Andes. “These images describe a point in time and provide a fleeting glimpse of what was and what no longer will be,” Schoessow says. “It’s imperative that we, as Earth’s data detectives, piece together the clues within these images to figure out the rate of the change. The past can help us understand the present and better prepare for the future.”