Research Archives | Page 12 of 27 | Social Sciences Newsblog

On the Road: Durfee Travels to Iceland

Published October 14, 2016

Mary Durfee (SS), participated in the Polar Law Symposium and Arctic Circle held in Akureyri and Reykjavik, Iceland, October 5-9, 2016. She gave a paper, “Free Trade: The Expected Impacts of TTIP and CETA on the Arctic” and chaired a panel devoted to Sovereignty and Its Contestation at the Poles.

G.R.A.C.E Project Featured in National GIS Publication

Published October 6, 2016

By Amy Spahn

Keweenaw Time Traveler and National Park Service received media attention for their NSF-ITEST GRACE Project collaboration in Directions Magazine, a national GIS periodical. The article, G.R.A.C.E Project team creates ‘time machine’ with GIS, outlines some of the detail of the summer career education program that brought local high school students to work with the KHNP and the Keweenaw Time Traveler team as paid interns.

PhD Research Assistantship Opportunity

Published October 6, 2016

By Amy Spahn

Energy Conservation PhD Research Assistantships at Michigan Technological University – Drs. Chelsea Schelly and Kathleen Halvorsen seek motivated applicants for two fully funded three-year research assistantship positions available for students pursuing a PhD in Environmental and Energy Policy at Michigan Technological University (MTU).

Students will be involved in a National Science Foundation Innovations at the Nexus of Food, Energy, and Water (NSF INFEWS) funded interdisciplinary research project. The project focuses on understanding and seeking ways to reduce greenhouse gas emissions through conservation of household-scale food, energy, and water. FEW PhD Position Description-1

Schelly Co-PI on the Project “Reducing Household Food, Energy and Water Consumption: A Quantitative Analysis of Interventions and Impacts of Conservation”

Published September 1, 2016

By Amy Spahn

Dave Watkins is the principal investigator on a research and development project that has received a $1,477,068 grant from the National Science Foundation. Buyung Agusdinata, Chelsea Schelly, Rachael Shwom and Jenni-Louise Evans are co-PIs on the project, “Reducing Household Food, Energy and Water Consumption: A Quantitative Analysis of Interventions and Impacts of Conservation.”

This project starts on Oct. 1 and is scheduled to finish in 2021.

From Tech Today.

Vaidya Published on the Sustainability of Woody Biomass

Published August 17, 2016

By Amy Spahn

Ashma Vaidya, who graduated in summer 2016 with a PhD in Environmental and Energy Policy, has published three papers on the sustainability of woody biomass in the UP for bioenergy:

Vaidya A and AL Mayer. 2014. Use of the participatory approach to develop sustainability assessments for natural resource management. International Journal of Sustainable Development and World Ecology 21(4):369-379.

Vaidya A and AL Mayer. 2016. Use of multiple criteria analysis to develop a regional assessment tool for bioenergy production. Biomass and Bioenergy 94:1-11.

Vaidya A and AL Mayer. In press. Criteria and indicators for a bioenergy production industry via stakeholder participation. International Journal of Sustainable Development and World Ecology. DOI:10.1080/13504509.2015.1135830

Contact Audrey Mayer for reprints.

From Tech Today.

Local High School Students Learn Historical GIS with the Keweenaw Time Traveler Team

Published August 4, 2016

By Amy Spahn

Careers that incorporate geospatial technologies are among the fastest-growing nationwide. That’s why Michigan Tech and Eastern Michigan University have teamed up on the NSF-funded GRACE Project to introduce high school students to GIS techniques and tools that can be used to tackle community issues.

This summer, eleven students from CLK and Houghton high schools are working as paid interns with researchers in the Department of Social Sciences and the Great Lakes Research Center to help build the Keweenaw Time Traveler, an NEH-funded project directed by Assistant Professor Don Lafreniere (SS). This innovative online historical atlas will allow users to pinpoint data about changes in the built, social, and natural environments of the Copper Country. The students have joined our team of “Time Travelers,” which includes graduate students in the Industrial Heritage and Archaeology program as well as undergraduates from departments across Michigan Tech. Together, they are learning to use GIS to identify, digitize, and follow changes in thousands of buildings and features from 1888-1950.

During the six week program, students are exploring the many exciting opportunities provided by mobile geospatial technologies by participating in interactive hands-on field trips, including an afternoon in Lake Linden with Carol MacLennan (SS) exploring the vast milling and processing systems that once studded the western shore of Torch Lake, a related trip on the Agassiz Research Vessel learning about the changing shoreline and water quality, and a day conducting active data collection with mobile tablets and GPS in Calumet to capture the students’ perspectives on how to improve non-motorized transportation in conjunction with the Keweenaw National Historical Park’s Complete Streets initiative. The student interns, who are paid through the GRACE project, will present their work in a final celebration on August 11^th in GLRC 2020. Details forthcoming. The Keweenaw Time Traveler is co-directed by Sarah Fayen Scarlett (SS) and John Arnold (SS)

Wurst Awarded Funding from U.S. Forest Service

Published July 6, 2016

By Amy Spahn

LouAnn Wurst is the principal investigator on a project that received $6,550 from the U.S. Department of Agriculture, Forest Service. The project is titled “Archaeological Collection Cooperative Management Ottawa and Hiawatha National Forests“.

Study on Solar-Hybrid Energy Systems Featured in Several Media Outlets

Published July 1, 2016

By Amy Spahn

A new study focused on solar-hybrid energy systems using cogeneration, photovoltaics and battery technology and its potential impact in the Upper Peninsula was picked up by several media outlets including Solar Thermal Magazine, Phys.org and e! Science News.

The research was conducted by Abhilash Katamneni (CS), Richelle Winkler (SS), Joshua Pearce (ECE/MSE) and Lucia Gauchia (ECE/ME).

From Tech Today.

ABC10 Story on Keweenaw Time Traveler

Published May 30, 2016

By

Professors Don Lafreniere and Sarah Scarlett, along with Ph.D. candidate John Arnold were interviewed by ABC 10 about the Keweenaw Time Traveler. The Time Traveler is funded by an NEH grant (see earlier story).

ABC News 10 Interview on KTT: “Traveling back in time into Upper Peninsula history”

A Digital Time Travel Machine Reveals Keweenaw History

Published May 18, 2016

By Amy Spahn

by Mark Wilcox

The miners in the boom days of the Copper Country knew that in order to find what they wanted, they had to “drill down.” Today, thanks to the efforts of researchers in Michigan Technological University’s Social Sciences Department and a grant from the National Endowment for the Humanities, those wishing to find out about the people and the places of the Keweenaw’s past can “drill down” through history.

Keweenaw Time Traveler is an online map-based tool allowing visitors to explore the layers of history for any location in the Houghton, Keweenaw and Ontonagon county region. The project uses proven technologies and techniques of participatory Geographic Information Systems (GIS). It also employs collections of geographic data and tools that are interactively connected, enabling users to incorporate their own information about a place and store that data long-term, to create a high-resolution database that maps changes in the social, natural, industrial and built environments of the Copper Country from 1850 to 1970.

The project is the brainchild of Social Sciences faculty Don Lafreniere, assistant professor of historical geography; Sarah Scarlett, assistant professor of history; and PhD candidate John Arnold, an architect by profession. They have received $259,882 from the National Endowment of the Humanities to support their work.

The project can be accessed at http://www.keweenawhistory.com.

Read the full story.

From Tech Today.

Category: Research