Gregory Odegard (ME-EM/MuSTI), is the principal investigator on a project that has received a $40,000 research and development contract from Colorado Seminary-University of Denver.
Paul Sanders (MSE) and Julie King (ChE) are Co-PIs on the project “I/UCRC: Novel High Voltage/Temperature Materials and Structures.”
The EPA named Michigan Tech the new home of its Region 5 environmental finance center, a recognition that comes with a six-year grant of up to $5.6 million. EPA Region 5 covers Michigan, Minnesota, Wisconsin, Illinois, Indiana, and Ohio.
An EPA team will be at Tech to conduct a site visit on Sept. 13-14, 2016.
“The depth of engineering resources that we have, our business school’s involvement and the fact that a multidisciplinary approach is the norm here all made our application stand out,” says Tim Colling. The principal investigator on the EPA center, Colling also directs Tech’s Center for Technology and Training (CTT), part of the Department of Civil and Environmental Engineering (CEE). There are several co-PIs from various University departments, centers and institutes, including CEE, the Sustainable Futures Institute, Michigan Tech Transportation Institute (MTTI) and the School of Business and Economics.
IndiaWest, a newspaper for and about Indian Americans, reported that Bhakta Rath, a 1958 Michigan Tech alumnus and supporter who established the Bhakta Rath Research Award, is one of three Indian Americans honored by ASM International.
The rocks of the Keweenaw Peninsula are ancient: More than one billion years old, containing loads of native copper deposits. Mining them created a legacy seen throughout the region.
The nation’s first big mining boom certainly left its mark on the peninsula. It left icons like the Quincy Mine Hoist; it left massive deposits of mine waste, a fine material called stamp sands, outside Gay; it left a few problems, like a Superfund site in and around Torch Lake. As rich as the copper that people once mined here, the history of the Keweenaw is full of stories, insight, dilemmas, and opportunities. Call it geoheritage.
As part of ongoing geoheritage education, the annual Geotours are an effort to bring the earth processes and cultural legacy of the land to light. The program is run by Bill Rose, a professor emeritus of geology at Michigan Tech, and Erika Vye, a recent PhD graduate of the geology program. On Thursday, July 28, they took a boatload of people to the eastern side of the peninsula for an up-close and personal view of the Keweenaw’s industrial mining legacy.
Read more at Unscripted: Science and Research, by Allison Mills.
WJMN TV-UP Matters (CBS) and WLUC TV6 (NBC) broadcast stories on Michigan Tech’s Great Lakes research on a National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration (NOAA) vessel.
Michigan Tech pairs with NOAA for Lake Superior research
Andrew Barnard, an Assistant Professor of Mechanical Engineering at MTU, said, “As a mechanical engineer, I’m interested in making loud things quieter and one of the things we’re looking at making quieter is research vessels that specifically deal with fish or marine mammal wildlife so that they can affect the environment less when they’re going to do their work.”
Read more and watch the video at WJMN TV-UP Matters.
NOAA to work with MTU scientists out on Lake Superior
“Today, we’re laying some hydrophones which are under water microphones under the water and we’re doing some boat bypasses to baseline the sound coming from our research vessels and from the NOAA 5501,” said MTU Mechanical Engineer, Dr. Andrew Barnard.
Read more and watch the video at WLUC TV6, by Aleah Hordges.
Six Michigan teachers mentored by Michigan Tech grad students during a 6-week Summer Institute on Computational Tools and the Environment will present their research in a poster session from 1 to 3 p.m. tomorrow (Aug. 18) in the atrium of the Great Lakes Research Center.
The institute was sponsored by the National Science Foundation’s Research Experiences for Teachers program.
The poster session is the culmination of a six-week, intensive Summer Institute on Computational Tools and the Environment, sponsored by the National Science Foundation (NSF).
The teachers were mentored by environmental engineering, chemical engineering, geological engineering and forestry graduate students as they conducted research on water quality, forestry management and life cycle assessment.
The graduate students also worked with the teachers to translate the results of their research into curriculum materials to be used in the teachers’ science and mathematics classes.
For more information, contact Alex Mayer, asmayer@mtu.edu.
NSF CAREER award winner Caryn Heldt studies technologies used to remove viruses as well as cleaning up vaccines. A Michigan Tech Unscripted story animation on the role of osmolytes in cells is featured in Science360. The Unscripted article, To Purify a Virus, features an interview with Heldt by story author Allison Mills and a captured live Twitter chat via Storify.
Learn more about Heldt’s research in Caryn Heldt Receives CAREER Award for Her Virus Removal Work, Michigan Tech News, by Allison Mills.
Adrienne Minerick gave an invited keynote address at Dielectrophoresis 2016 held on the MIT campus July 13-15. The talk featured work from PhD Candidate Sanaz Habibi, Hector Moncada-Hernandez and Ran An.
In recognition of the University-wide efforts that some of our academic administrators are undertaking, the Vice Presidents for Academic Affairs and Research are testing out a new model intended to promote improved collaboration and communication on campus.
For the 2016-17 academic year, Jason Carter (KIP) will continue to serve as Chair of the Department of Kinesiology and Integrative Physiology while also serving as assistant to the Vice President for Research for Research Development.
In addition, Adrienne Minerick will continue in her position as Associate Dean for Research and Innovation in the College of Engineering and will also serve as Assistant to the Provost for Faculty Development.
Read more at Tech Today, by Offices of Vice Presidents for Academic Affairs and Research.
Deborah Huntzinger, who earned her BS and PhD in Geological Engineering at Michigan Tech, is now an Assistant Professor at Northern Arizona University in Flagstaff, AZ.
During her post-doc at the University of Michigan, Huntzinger was involved in research recently published in the journal Nature, “The terrestrial biosphere as a net source of greenhouse gases to the atmosphere.” Huntzinger is a coauthor in the research, which for the first time ever quantifies how greenhouse gas emissions vary by source sector and region.
“The comprehensive approach used to compile, synthesize, and interpret the data has led to results that bolster the understanding of human contributions to greenhouse gas emissions and point to regions where more attention is needed to manage emissions,” notes John Gierke, Huntzinger’s graduate advisor and chair of the Department of Geological and Mining Engineering and Sciences at Michigan Tech.
The group’s research suggests that a reduction in agricultural methane and nitrous oxide emissions, particularly in Southern Asia, may help mitigate climate change.
Read more at Eurekalert.org: “Greenhouse gas bookkeeping turns on its head”, and Nature: “The terrestrial biosphere as a net source of greenhouse gases to the atmosphere”.
Huntzinger’s research interests focus on improving the understanding of complex environmental systems and our ability to forecast their future variability. Her current research interests are in the integration and comparison of environmental remote sensing products, model estimates, and in situ data to advance the understanding of biospheric contributions, both spatially and temporally, to land-atmosphere carbon exchange.
