Social Sciences Newsblog

Category: Alumni

Pischke, Solomon, and Wellstead Among Co-Authors in Article- From Kyoto to Paris: Measuring Renewable Energy Policy Regimes in Argentina, Brazil, Canada, Mexico and the United States

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Erin Pischke (PhD EEP alumnus), Barry Solomon (Professor Emeritus) , and Adam Wellstead (SS) along with Alberto Acevedo, Amarella Eastmond, Fernando De Oliveira, Suani Coelho, Oswaldo Lucon recently published  an article From Kyoto to Paris: Measuring Renewable Energy Policy Regimes in Argentina, Brazil, Canada, Mexico and the United States in Energy Research & Social Science journal where they investigate the central research question:  How do we measure the national and subnational policy output of existing renewable energy policies in order to assess how they broadly address climate change?

 

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Lankton to Give Presentation on Quincy History

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Larry LanktonLocal historian, educator and author Larry Lankton (Emeritus SS) will present the latest in the Quincy Mine Hoist Association’s “History on the Hill” series at 7 p.m. Thursday (July 26) at the Quincy Mine 1894 Hoist House.

Lankton’s presentation is titled, “The National Park Service Arrives on Quincy Hill, 1978.” In the summer of 1978 a team from the Historic American Engineering Record (HAER), a part of the National Park Service, conducted a 10-week study of the social history of the Quincy Mining Company.

Lankton led the HAER team in 1978 and moved to the Keweenaw three years later to continue his research and write about the local copper industry. Find out more about Lankton’s presentation.

History on the Hill presentations are free and open to the public.

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Graduate Student Prehoda In the News

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image144321-persABC-10 News aired a story, about the potential for using solar energy in the UP, quoting Michigan Tech graduate student Emily Prehoda.

She is working on a survey that will be conducted in L’Anse next fall, a collaborative effort of the Western Upper Peninsula Planning and Development Region, the Village of L’Anse, WPPI Energy, and Michigan Tech’s Keweenaw Research Center and Department of Social Sciences.

Residents of the village buy their power from WPPI Energy, a non-profit company.

Prehoda was also featured in USA Today (“The US could prevent a lot of deaths by switching from coal to solar“), and on NBC and CBS with researcher Joshua Pearce (MSE/ECE).

Also in print, Joshua Pearce (MSE/ECE) and social sciences PhD Student Emily Prehoda coauthored, potential lives saved by replacing coal with solar photovoltaic electricity production in the U.S., in Renewable and Sustainable Energy Reviews that can be read here.

 

 

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SS Alumnus Publishes on Immigration and Ethnic History

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Marc Sanko
Marc Sanko

Marc Sanko (History, 2011) published an essay, “The Worlds of the Immigration Historian” in the Immigration and Ethnic History Society’s new blog on July 1st. The essay was picked as one of ten to run over the course of the year in a competition during December. Sanko, a PhD Candidate at West Virginia University, also had an article, “The Gift of Empire: Exploring the Importance of the Skilled Labor Experience in Maltese Migrants, 1919-1924”, recently accepted for publication in The Michigan Historical Review.

 

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Stathi Pappas and Steam Locomotive Heritage

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Steam Locomotive For the Love of Steam

In March 2009, Michigan Technological University industrial archaeology alumnus Stathi Pappas purchased the Santa Cruz Portland Cement Company No. 2 Engine and began restoring it in his Mineral, Wash.,, shop.

As true living history, he says, they run them like they ran them, break them like they broke them, fix them like they fixed them, and repeat.

“From an anthropological standpoint, we want to understand that subculture and act accordingly,” Pappas says. “It’s a social movement as well as a professional rebuild.”

Read more at Michigan Tech News, by Dennis Walikainen.

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IA Grads in Virgin Islands

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IA Grads at Work in USVI

From David Hayes we hear that a number of MTU IA graduates are taking part in a monitoring project in the U.S. Virgin Islands this winter (yes, we here in Houghton are jealous).  In the photo the person on the far right in the maroon shirt is Alicia Valentino (IA ’03) and to her right is David Hayes (IA ’00)  They are working with a large team of archaeologists checking back dirt from an sewer line excavation in Charlotte Amalie on the island of St Thomas on 21 January 2014. This federally-funded project will allow  infrastructure improvement on Main Street, but it runs through a 1500-2000 year old site of the Saladoid people (for more on the ancient Saladoid sites, see this post from the V.I. Daily News last Feb.).  David Hayes  is the principal investigator on this project.

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Mary Durfee and MindTrekkers

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Parade of Nations
Parade of Nations

As the representatives of some sixty nations were lining up in Hancock for the Parade of Nations, the sun came out and it was starting to warm up.

Nearby, Social Sciences Professor Mary Durfee was gathered with a group of students from Malta. They are attempting to create the first international chapter of MindTrekkers, that fantastic traveling science demonstration that has enthralled school kids around the Midwest and in DC.

Read more at Here, There, and Everywhere in TechAlum Newsletter, by Dennis Walikainen.

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