Jeff Davis, of the Georgia Institute of Technology, has brought together a team of undergraduates to work on this “grand challenge”. The group of young engineers and biologists traveled to the Dominican Republic to understand the scale of the problem and try to find solutions. Dr. Jeff Davis is Associate Professor School of Electrical and Computer Engineering at Georgia Institute of Technology and Ciera Hudson is a mechanical engineering student at Georgia Institute of Technology. Also, Jeff explain us about an amazing project using black soldier flies to process Sargassum into fuel. 01:10: Robby introducing our guest 02:00 What is Sargassum for Jeff 03:33 Whats Sargassum for Ciera 04:20 how did this initiative to form a sargassum research group come about 07:46 Description of the research team projects 09:35 using black soldier flies to process Sargassum into biofuel, how it works? 16:28 How they are including local people 17:40 bioaccumulation of heavy metals on Sargassum and the link with black soldier flies 19:30 Challenges on the project 21:55 black soldier flies into new environments, not a concern 23:45 Ciera's advices for woman that are interested in STEM and engineering 26:16 Robby, Holly and Jenna's thoughts as hosts in this interview The Sargassum Podcast is made possible through funding by the Resilience, Sustainable Energy and Marine Biodiversity Programme (RESEMBID). Financed under the 11th European Development Fund (EDF) Caribbean Overseas Countries and Territories Regional Programme, RESEMBID is being implemented by Expertise France, with the primary stakeholders being the 12 Caribbean Overseas Countries and Territories. Relevant links https://www.theguardian.com/environment/2023/mar/07/great-atlantic-sargassum-belt-seaweed-visible-from-space Jeff Davis https://davis.ece.gatech.eduhttps://scholar.google.com/citations?user=nO85x-0AAAAJ Ciera Hudson linked in https://www.linkedin.com/in/ciera-hudson/ Instagram: @ciera_423