Tag: Environmental Engineering

Stream Monitoring in Your Own Backyard

Schoolchildren in the Houghton area are learning about water resources protection in a hands-on way. They are joining Michigan Tech faculty and students in monitoring Huron Creek and its watershed, which serves a large part of Houghton and surrounding communities.

Graduate student Lindsey Watch wrote about this stream monitoring project as part of an NSF-funded program to help scientists learn to communicate their research to schoolchildren and the public.

Read the full news story.

Published in Tech Today by Jenn Donovan, director of news and media relations

US News Ranks Michigan Tech PhD Programs in Engineering, Science

More of Michigan Tech’s PhD level engineering and science programs than ever made US News & World Report’s annual graduate school rankings, released today. The rankings reflect momentum generated by Michigan Tech’s focus on graduate education and research, said Provost Max Seel. The Graduate School has more than doubled its enrollment since 2005.

Michigan Tech’s PhD engineering programs earned an overall ranking of 90th, tied with George Washington University, Rochester Institute of Technology and Mississippi State University. Biomedical engineering at Tech showed up in the rankings for the first time, placing 71st.

10th ESC/BRC Student Research Forum Seeking Submissions

The Ecosystem Science Center and the Biotechnology Research Center invite graduate and undergraduate students conducting research related to ecology, the environment or biotechnology to submit titles and abstracts for poster presentation for the 10th Annual ESC/BRC Student Research Forum sponsored by both centers and the School of Forest Resources and Environmental Science.

The event will be held on the afternoon of Wednesday, Mar. 19, in the Atrium of the UJ Noblet Forestry Building.

Please note, the abstracts are due Feb. 25.

IIASA’s Young Scientists Summer Program (YSSP) opportunity

Each summer, the International Institute for Applied Systems Analysis (IIASA), located in Schloss Laxenburg near Vienna, Austria, hosts a selected group of graduate students, primarily doctoral, from around the world in its Young Scientists Summer Program (YSSP).  These students work closely with IIASA’s senior scientists on projects related both to their thesis research and one or more IIASA research programs.

Application deadline is January 13, apply online.

For students selected to participate, funding is available for travel and living support, principally from IIASA’s twenty-one National Member Organizations (NMOs), who fund primarily students from NMO countries.  However, applicants from all nations are eligible to apply, and some unrestricted fellowships  are available.

IIASA is an international, nongovernmental research institution located just outside Vienna, Austria, supported by its twenty-one National Member Organizations.  IIASA is known for its interdisciplinary research, combining natural and social sciences with integrated assessment techniques and advanced mathematical methodologies, with a goal of providing policy insight on issues of regional and global importance in the following fields:

GLOBAL PROBLEM AREAS

  • Energy and Climate Change
  • Food and Water
  • Poverty and Equity

PROGRAM AREAS

  • Energy
  • Transitions to New Technologies
  • Advanced Systems Analysis
  • Ecosystem Services and Management
  • Mitigation of Air Pollution and Greenhouse Gases
  • Evolution and Ecology
  • World Population
  • Risk Policy and Vulnerability
  • Water

2014 Smithsonian Institution Fellowship Program

The Smithsonian Office of Fellowships and Internships (OFI) is currently accepting applications for the 2014 Smithsonian Institution Fellowship Program.

Through this flagship fellowship program, graduate, pre-doctoral, and post-doctoral students – as well as conservationists and senior scholars – have the opportunity to delve into independent research and study across an incredible range of disciplines.

Smithsonian Institution Fellows have access to unparalleled collections, world-class scholars, and state-of-the-art facilities to explore science, art, history, and culture.

Fellowship awards range from 10 weeks to 2 years with stipends ranging between $6,500 to $50,000.

Application deadline for the 2014 cycle is January 15, 2014.

The program is open to US citizens and Non-US citizens. Applicants whose native language is not English are expected to have the ability to write and converse fluently in English.

California Science and Technology Policy Fellowships

CONTRIBUTE TO THE SCIENCE POLICY DISCUSSION IN CALIFORNIA BY APPLYING FOR A 2014-2015 CALIFORNIA SCIENCE AND TECHNOLOGY POLICY FELLOWSHIP!

Offered by the California Council on Science and Technology (CCST), the California Science and Technology Policy Fellowships place professional scientists and engineers in the California State Legislature for one-year appointments. These professional development opportunities enable fellows to work hands on with policy-makers to develop solutions to complex scientific and technical issues facing California through their interaction with the legislative process.

New Dissertations Available in the Library

The Graduate School is pleased to announce new dissertations are now available in the J.R. van Pelt and Opie Library from the following programs:

  • Biological Sciences
  • Biomedical Engineering
  • Chemical Engineering
  • Chemistry
  • Civil Engineering
  • Environmental Engineering
  • Forest Science
  • Geology
  • Materials Science and Engineering
  • Mathematical Sciences
  • Mechanical Engineering-Engineering Mechanics
  • Rhetoric and Technical Communication

Research Universities Partner to Increase the Diversity in Future Faculty

Michigan Tech, the University of Michigan, Michigan State University, Western Michigan University and Wayne State University are partners on a 3.5-year $1.32 million project sponsored by the National Science Foundation.  Michigan Tech will partner with the other research universities in Michigan to test strategies designed to increase the number of domestic underrepresented minority graduate students pursuing careers in academia.  The project will involve an extensive research component that will test the effectiveness of mentoring and community-building events on graduate students’ persistence toward a degree and interest in continuing on to a career in academia.

“I am very excited about this project because it will result in hard data that can be used to test the importance of mentoring relationships and a sense of community on graduate students’ experiences,” said principal investigator Jacqueline Huntoon.  “I anticipate that by learning more about the graduate experience for students who are not members of the dominant racial/ethnic group, we will learn more about how to better meet the needs of all graduate students regardless of their race, ethnicity or gender.”

This research project is strengthened by the fact that five very different universities will participate in the project.  Their graduate deans recognize that the demographics of the US population are changing dramatically.  The goal of the project is to ultimately diversify the ranks of higher education faculty so that they are more representative of the US population at large and can better meet the needs of students and employers.  The project will ultimately help graduate schools across the country learn more about how to better serve students.

Craig Friedrich (MEEM), Shekhar Joshi (Bio Sci) and Chris Wojick (CEE) are co-principal investigators on the project.

STEM Faculty Openings at the University of Maryland

The University of Maryland has openings in the following STEM fields:

  • Biological Sciences-Lecturer
  • Chemical, Biochemical and Environmental Engineering-Assistant Professor
  • Chemistry and Biochemistry-Assistant/Associate Professor
  • Computer Science and Electrical Engineering-Assistant Professor, Professor of Practice, Lecturer
  • Economics-Assistant Professor
  • Information Systems-2 Assistant Professor, Lecturer
  • Marine and Biotechnology-Assistant Professor
  • Mechanical Engineering- Multiple Assistant Professors
  • Physics-Assistant Professor
  • Psychology-Assistant Professor

For more information and additional faculty opportunities: http://www.umbc.edu/facultydiversity/jobs.html

2014 Lee Schipper Scholarship Call for Applications Announced

Applications are now open for the 2014 Lee Schipper Memorial Scholarship for Sustainable Transport and Energy Efficiency.  Provided jointly by the Schipper Family and EMBARQ, the sustainable transport and urban planning program of the World Resources Institute (WRI), the Scholarship will award two extraordinary candidates up to $10,000 each to advance transformative research in efficient and sustainable transport.