"I have followed a career path that did not exist when I graduated from the University of Michigan. But this great University gave me the skills to create it," Peter C. Mertz, Visiting Committee member and alumnus, delivered this year's Commencement address April 30. Mertz is chief executive officer and co-founder of Global Forest Partners (GFP), one of the largest timber investment management organizations in the world.
Air pollution from industrial sources near Michigan public schools jeopardizes children's health and academic success, according to a new study from University of Michigan researchers. The researchers found that schools located in areas with the state's highest industrial air pollution levels had the lowest attendance rates—an indicator of poor health—as well as the highest proportions of students who failed to meet state educational testing standards. The researchers examined the distribution of all 3,660 public elementary, middle, junior high and high schools in the state and found that 62.5 percent of them were located in places with high levels of air pollution from industrial sources.
The second conference of the Initiative on Climate Adaptation Research and Understanding through the Social Sciences, or ICARUS-2, will take place at the School of Natural Resources and Environment (SNRE) in the University of Michigan's Dana Building, Ann Arbor campus, May 5-8. The theme for ICARUS-2 is Climate Vulnerability and Adaption: Marginal Peoples and Environment. More than 100 papers are registered to be presented by scholars and researchers from around the world. ICARUS-1was held at University of Illinois in 2010. Since last year, interest in climate adaptation has grown substantially, and ICARUS-2 is twice as large in terms of papers submitted and registered attendees.
With 25 former Peace Corps volunteers enrolled in the Fellows program, University of Michigan ranked No. 6 as a Peace Corps Fellows/USA school in 2011. Out of those 25 students, eight are enrolled at SNRE--a disproportionately large share of fellows and an illustration of the globally oriented and service-minded goals the school shares with the Peace Corps.
The second conference of the Initiative on Climate Adaptation Research and Understanding through the Social Sciences, or ICARUS, will take place at SNRE in the Dana Building May 5 to 8. The theme is Climate Vulnerability and Adaption: Marginal Peoples and Environment. More than 150 papers will be presented by scholars and researchers from around the world. ICARUS II is twice as large as the first conference, held at University of Illinois in 2010, in terms of papers submitted and registered attendees.
ReGenerate, a company started by Erb students Paul Davis, Nolan Orfield and Hunt Briggs, along with chemical engineering Ph.D. student Bobby Levine, won $100,000 in the 2011 Rice Business Plan Competition on April 16. ReGenerate designs, markets and leases on-site waste management systems called Compact Organic Waste System (COWS) that reduce the cost and environmental impact of organic waste disposal for food manufacturing, retail, and service operations.
The ongoing spread of non-native mussels in the Great Lakes has caused "massive, ecosystem-wide changes" throughout lakes Michigan and Huron, two of the planet's largest freshwater lakes, according to a new University of Michigan-led study. The blitzkrieg advance of two closely related species of mussels—the zebra and quagga—is stripping the lakes of their life-supporting algae, resulting in a remarkable ecological transformation and threatening the multibillion-dollar U.S. commercial and recreational Great Lakes fisheries.
April 13, 2011
Rosina M. Bierbaum, dean of the School of Natural Resources and Environment, has been named to the National Climate Assessment Development and Advisory Committee to plan the nation's next assessment report.
Rosina M. Bierbaum, dean of the School of Natural Resources and Environment, has been appointed a Fellow at The World Bank under a new global fellowship program designed to bring expertise into the Bank's development work. Dean Bierbaum co-directed The World Bank's 2010 World Development Report, which focused on climate change. In her role as Fellow (an advisory position that is not full-time), she will remain based in Ann Arbor while working with the Bank's climate-change team to develop screening tools for lending operations in low-income countries.
Doctoral student Baruani Mshale received the prestigious International Dissertation Research Fellowship (IDRF) from the Social Science Research Council (SSRC). The fellowship will support his forest-related dissertation work in Tanzania.