PI Patrick Martin (SS) and Co-PI Sean Gohman (SS), “Archaeological Surveys, Fort Wilkins State Park,” Michigan DNR.
PI Timothy Scarlett (SS), “pXRF Study of Antique Pottery in Two Utah Museums,” Utah Humanities Council.
PI Richelle Winkler (SS), “Angler Demographics–An Age-Period-Cohort Analysis,” Great Lakes Fishery Commission.
PI Adam Wellstead (SS), “Measuring Policy Capacity in the Great Lakes Fisheries Sector,” Great Lakes Commission.
She has also recently had an article on her research on people who install solar energy panels published in Energy Research & Social Science. The article is based on interviews with 48 Wisconsin residents who installed solar and Schelly looked at how the environmental and economic motivations related to the demographic characteristics of the adopters. As she states in her abstract, the research “offer[s] general insight for understanding investment in renewable energy technologies at the residential scale, suggesting means of improving environmental and energy policy and highlighting avenues for future research.” Read the abstract and article at “Residential Solar Electricity Adoption: What Motivates, and What Matters? A Case Study of Early Adopters,” Energy Research and Social Science 2 (2014:) 183-191.
A recent article in the Michigan Tech News highlighted Hugh Gorman’s book, The Story of N and how our current need to fix the nitrogen cycle bears a striking resemblance to problem in the carbon cycle that needs fixing. Read the full story in the article entitled: “Before There Was C, There Was N: How Humans Derailed the Nitrogen Cycle and Are Trying to Put It Back on Track”
It also mentions that his article that came out of his work on the book, “Learning from 100 Years of Ammonia Synthesis: Establishing Human-Defined Limits through Adaptive Systems of Governance,” Gaia 22.4 (2013): 263-270, that won second place in Gaia’s Best Paper competition for 2013. Congratulations, Hugh!
With many students thinking about what lies ahead after college, some may be thinking about graduate school or trying something completely new. But what if you could do both? Michigan Technological University offers programs that allow you to volunteer somewhere new and earn your graduate degree at the same time: Office of Surface Mining VISTA (OSM/VISTA) and the Peace Corps’ Paul D. Coverdell Fellowships.
Rhianna Williams is taking advantage of the OSM/VISTA program. Williams currently has a BS in Psychology and a MS in Library Science. She was working toward another master’s degree in environmental and energy policy until OSM/VISTA and Tech joined hands in 2012 and turned her in a new direction. “I joined for the opportunity to practice what I’d learned in the class out in the field,” she says.
WalletHub, a financial news web site, featured Professor Kathleen E. Halvorsen, (SS) on an “Ask the Experts” panel, discussing the domestic energy revolution. See WalletHub.
For the ninth year in a row, Michigan Technological University ranks as the number one university nationwide for the number of Peace Corps Master’s International (PCMI) students currently serving as Peace Corps volunteers. Michigan Tech has 32 graduate students overseas, earning the University top spot on the Peace Corps’ annual ranking of PCMI and Paul D. Coverdell Fellows graduate schools.
“We have an amazing group of students who enter our program each year from all walks of life,” said Kari Henquinet, director of Michigan Tech’s PCMI program. “They are not only dedicated academically, but also able to apply what they have learned to problem solve and work collaboratively on the ground. Our Master’s International programs are set up to produce scientists and professionals who think creatively, understand social problems and function in multiple cultures. Our graduates go on to work for places like USAID, environmental engineering firms, and non-profit groups such as Doctors Without Borders.”
Professor Mary Durfee, social sciences, has been awarded a Fulbright Scholarship to Corvinus University in Budapest, Hungary, for fall 2015. She will teach a graduate course on international water cooperation and conflict as well as an undergraduate course on writing about international relations. She will also be learning about water management in Hungary. In Spring 2015 she will be a visiting researcher at the University of Groningen, Netherlands. There she will be affiliated with the Department of International Relations, the Institute for Globalisation Studies, and the Arctic Centre.
This is Durfee’s second Fulbright, her first was to Malta. She has returned to that country every year since as a visiting professor at the University of Malta.
Research Excellence Fund Awards Announced
The Vice President for Research Office is pleased to announce the 2015 REF awards and would like to thank the volunteer review committees, as well as the deans and department chairs, for their time spent on this important internal research award process.
Melissa Baird, SS, will receive a Scholarship and Creativity Grant.
Please join the social sciences department for two important lectures by Wendy Jepson, associate professor of geography at Texas A&M University, who is sponsored by the Visiting Women and Minority Lecture/Scholar Series.
Today, “Water insecurity as Environmental Justice: The Case of ‘Colonials’ along the US-Mexico Border” will be presented in GLRC 202 at 12:35-1:50 p.m.
Friday, April 25, “No-win waterscapes”: Household Water Insecurity in Low-Income Communities along the US-Mexico Border” will be at AOB 201, Department of Social Sciences Colloquium from 4 to 5 p.m.
More about Jepson’s work can be found online.
Global City Presents “A Village In Bangladesh” Today
“A Village in Bangladesh” will be presented by S. M. Mizanur Rahman, today at 5 p.m., in EERC 103.
Mizanur will present the development disaster caused by shrimp farming in his village and how small producers are left out of the economic development of this product. He will also talk about his work in the community and The Motorcycle Project, an idea he developed to provide capital support and planning skills to the local people, which he plans on implementing this summer. He is now pursuing his PhD in Environmental and Energy Policy at Michigan Tech.
