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“.
Sean M. Gohman, PhD candidate in the Department of Social Sciences’ Industrial Heritage and Archaeology Program, was awarded the 2016 Vogel Prize during the meeting of the Society for Industrial Archeology’s annual conference in Kansas City, MO.
Each year the Society for Industrial Archeology recognizes outstanding scholarship in the field of industrial archaeology with the Robert M. Vogel Prize. Named for the founding and distinguished member Robert Vogel, the award honors the author of the best article to appear in the society’s journal IA within the past three years.
Gohman’s awarded article, “It’s Not Time to Be Wasted: Identifying, Evaluating, and Appreciating Mine Wastes in Michigan’s Copper Country,” describes work Gohman did for the Keweenaw National Historical Park’s Advisory Commission to survey and evaluate extant mining waste deposits on the Keweenaw Peninsula. Though perhaps not aesthetically pleasing, these wastes have stories to tell about operational scale and environmental impact that structures may not as easily convey and these stories should therefore not be overlooked.
From Tech Today.
The Kansas City Star quoted Assistant Professor Steven Walton (SocSci) in an article about the Society for Industrial Archeology’s annual meeting in Kansas City and tours of historical industrial sites. The Society for Industrial Archeology is based at Michigan Tech. See the article here.
From Tech Today.
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.
Audrey Mayer (SS/SFRES), was interviewed on Public Radio station KJZZ from Rio Salado College and Maricopa Community Colleges in Tempe, Arizona.
The story “Does the Endangered Species Act Benefit More Than Just Endangered Species?” by Mark Brodie aired Tuesday.
You can listen to the story here. Mayer’s segment begins at the 4:49 mark.
From Tech Today.
Chelsea Schelly (SS) is co-author of the article “To Frack or Not to Frack: Perceptions of the Risks and Opportunities of High-volume Hydraulic Fracturing in the United States,” published in Energy Research and Social Sciences.
Amanda Kreuze, who completed her MS in Environmental and Energy Policy in 2015 was a co-author.
From Tech Today.
This year’s archaeological field school at Coalwood logging camp, run by Prof. LouAnn Wurst, has been included in the U.S. Forest Service’s “Passport in Time” (PIT) program. PIT is a volunteer cultural heritage resources program sponsored by the Forest Service, with partners including some State Parks and Historicorps. This year’s dig at Coalwood will have Wurst overseeing 10 volunteers from 1-5 Aug. in excavations at the camp’s boarding houses.
For mor information on the PIT program and this year’s offering, click here.
John Baeten (Ph.D. candidate, IHA) has received a research grant from the Mining History Association to study the industrial heritage of the Mesabi Iron Range of Northern Minnesota. Baeten’s research project investigates the historic context of low-grade iron ore mining and processing in the Mesabi Range through the lens of industrial heritage and environmental history. His project will consist of both archival and field research. While in the field he will be conducting a driving and pedestrian survey of the western Mesabi Range, documenting the historical footprints of iron ore “beneficiation” plants that produced both “washed ores” and the more familiar taconite, concentrated iron ore pellets, before shipment to the steel mills of the Great Lakes and beyond. The landscape he is investigating has undergone extensive abandonment and scrapping. This project hopes to connect the stories of direct shipping iron ores to taconite by exploring how the development of washable iron ores in the Mesabi Range helped pave the way for the eventual success of the taconite industry.
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”
Steven Walton (SS) contributed the chapter “Heavy Artillery Transformed” in “Astride Two Worlds: Technology and the American Civil War” (Smithsonian Institution Press, 2016) by Barton C. Hacker (editor). The volume developed from a conference of the same name at the Smithsonian in 2012.
From Tech Today.