Chelsea Schelly was quoted in the Sierra Magazine article Think Your Household Is Susatinable? Think Again. Schelly is a co- principal investigator on the project, “Reducing Household Food, Energy and Water Consumption: A Quantitative Analysis of Interventions and Impacts of Conservation.”, that has received a $1,477,068 grant from the National Science Foundation.
Audrey Mayer (SS) authored an article in Science discussing work-life balance as a researcher, professor and single mom. In her words, “I’ve come to appreciate that there is no one schedule that best produces excellent science or demonstrates dedication to its practice.”
Aparajita Banerjee (who recently completed her PhD in Environmental and Energy Policy), Chelsea Schelly (SS) and Kathleen E. Halvorsen (SS/SFRES) recently published the article “Understanding Public Perceptions of Wood-based Electricity Production in Wisconsin, United States: Place-based Dynamics and Social Representations” in the journal Environmental Sociology. It is available via Online First.
The article is based on research conducted with the support of funding from the National Science Foundation’s Partnerships in International Research and Education (PIRE) Program IIA #1243444 and Research Coordination Network (RCN) Program CBET #1140152.
Jonathan Robins (SS) was interviewed by investigative reporter Peter Guest for a story in Raconteur Magazine on the growth of oil palm plantations in Southeast Asia. Robins discusses factors which contributed to the emergence of palm oil as the most important fat in the global food system.
You can read the article on medium.com.
GeoConnexion, a UK based geotechnology magazine, featured an article about the partnership project between MTU Social Scientist’s Don Lafreniere and Sarah Scarlett and the Keweenaw National Historical Park to bring GIS-based career education to local high school students. Read the article.
From The Keweenaw Report
The Villages of Calumet and Laurium and Calumet Township all have highlights and their own challenges.
Dwindling populations and median household incomes well below the state average–especially in Calumet Village–have reduced the availability of services to residents over the years.
A team from Michigan Tech’s Department of Social Sciences has spent the last four months looking at the advantages and disadvantages of several options for the area.
Doctoral Student Kelley Christensen said, “We looked at five different possibilities. We looked at keeping the status quo, we looked at intergovernmental agreements, revenue sharing, the possibility of the Village of Calumet dissolving into the township, and we also looked at the possibility of Laurium and Calumet Village becoming a city.”
Changes could take years to implement and a monumental effort would be needed by all community members involved, but Christensen says it all starts with people willing to talk about the possibilities.
Christensen said, “We just really hope that this starts a conversation. Our purpose here was to provide information to them and give them a list of options, and then we’re hoping that it will facilitate discussion and participation in government.”
Their report is online for the public to review.
http://www.mtu.edu/social-sciences/research/reports/
The team will also post the power point presentation from Monday’s meeting online. Questions can be directed to Dr. Richelle Winkler of Michigan Tech’s Department of Social Sciences.
Kari Henquinet published an article “Production of Knowledge: International Development Agencies: Sahelian West Africa” in the collaborative project Encyclopedia of Women and Islamic Cultures Online (Brill publishing). The Encyclopedia of Women and Islamic Cultures Online crosses history, geographic borders and disciplines to create a groundbreaking reference work reflecting the very latest research on gender studies and the Islamic world. Read More
John Baeten, IHA PhD Candidate, recently had a post published by NiCHE (Network in Canadian History and Environment) for their “Seeds: New Research in Environmental History” Series, titled: “Busting Ghosts: Building an HGIS to Reveal Historical Mine Waste Producers and Develop Strategies to Mitigate Future Risk”
J
ohn Baeten, Nancy Langston, and Don Lafreniere recently published an article titled: “A Geospatial Approach to Uncovering the Hidden Waste Footprint of Lake Superior’s Mesabi Iron Range” published in The Extractive Industries and Society.
The article is available for download until January 26, 2017 at the following link: https://authors.elsevier.com/a/1UAjI,oMyQ5uEu
Article Abstract: “For decades, the Lake Superior Iron District produced a significant majority of the world’s iron used in steel production. Chief among these was the Mesabi Range of northern Minnesota, a vast deposit of hematite and magnetic taconite ores stretching for over 100 miles in length. Iron ore mining in the Mesabi Range involved three major phases: direct shipping ores (1893–1970s), washable ores (1907– 1980s), and taconite (1947–current). Each phase of iron mining used different technologies to extract and process ore. Producing all of this iron yielded a vast landscape of mine waste. This paper uses a historical GIS to illuminate the spatial extent of mining across the Lake Superior Iron District, to locate where low- grade ore processing took place, and to identify how and where waste was produced. Our analysis shows that the technological shift to low-grade ore mining placed new demands on the environment, primarily around processing plants. Direct shipping ore mines produced less mine waste than low-grade ore mines, and this waste was confined to the immediate vicinity of mines themselves. Low-grade ore processing, in contrast, created more dispersed waste landscapes as tailings mobilized from the mines themselves into waterbodies and human communities.”
Jennifer Lind-Riehl ’15, Audrey L. Mayer (SS), Adam Wellstead (SS) and Oliver Gailing (SFRES) published a paper entitled “Hybridization, agency discretion, and implementation of the U.S. Endangered Species Act” in Conservation Biology. You can find the paper here.