Every summer, communities across the country are threatened by wildfires. To help firefighters and land managers mitigate the destructiveness of fires, one of the tools they use is modeling software that predicts what a fire is likely to do next. Bryan Quaife, an assistant professor in the Florida State University Department of Scientific Computing and a faculty associate in the Geophysical Fluid Dynamics Institute at FSU, studies fire modeling and fire dynamics.

After Danielle Mason earned her first bachelor's degree at Florida State University, she realized that FSU had become her home. Mason earned another bachelor's degree from FSU before helping her husband kickstart a Seminole service committee as a branch of the Jacksonville Seminoles Club, part of FSU's Alumni Association.

In the effort to mitigate destructive wildfires, wildland managers often fight those uncontrolled fires with prescribed fire — carefully controlled burns to safely eliminate the vegetation that piles up on forest floors and adds to potential fuel.

For half a century, the Florida State University Geophysical Fluid Dynamics Institute (GFDI) has been a global leader in the study of fluid flow and motion — the ways that the circulation of liquids and gases influence our oceans, atmosphere and groundwater.