The research tool of spatial-data analysis is key to discovering and addressing environmental risks to children's health, Marie Lynn Miranda said Monday in giving the 11th Annual Wege Lecture on Sustainability.Miranda, the new dean of the School of Natural Resources and Environment, said such tools give both scientists and policy makers the ability to see obscure but possibly meaningful connections between a child's environment and his or her health. (VIEW VIDEO). The lecture drew on Miranda's more than 20 years of research on the topic, and specifically her published work about lead contamination among children.
Dow Chemical Company and the University of Michigan will bring together 300 students from all areas of study to help solve some of the world's most pressing sustainability challenges in a new and unprecedented fellowship program announced today. Andrew Liveris, chairman and chief executive officer of The Dow Chemical Company and U-M President Mary Sue Coleman told a Detroit Economic Club audience that Dow will provide a gift of $10 million over six years to support the Dow Sustainability Fellows Program at U-M. Business, environmental, civic and academic leaders and media attended the event at the Westin Book Cadillac in Detroit.
Out of 10 Michigan Society Postdoctoral Fellows selected university wide this year, two—Kimberley Kinder and Elizabeth Pringle—are affiliated with the School of Natural Resources and Environment. Each is finishing their first of three years as an assistant professor and using funding from the Fellows program to pursue research projects.
Marie Lynn Miranda began her term as dean of the School of Natural Resources and Environment Jan. 1. Dean Miranda has devoted much of her professional career to research directed at improving the health status of disadvantaged populations, particularly children. To inaugurate her tenure, she sent the following email to faculty, students and staff Jan. 1.
U-M students in the Sustainable Energy Systems course (NRE 574/ESENG 599/PP 519) had two electrifying guests this past week, as a pair of 2011 Chevy Volts came to campus. The Volts, manufactured by General Motors, were used to demonstrate topics being discussed in the course taught by Greg Keoleian, the Peter M. Wege Professor of Sustainable Systems at SNRE and the director of its Center for Sustainable Systems (CSS). Students had a chance to sit inside the cars, look under the hoods at the battery system and learn more about the special monitoring equipment installed by GM to assess the car's performance. Nearly 40 GM engineers are also taking the course via distance learning.
Two SNRE students in the Frederick A. and Barbara M. Erb Institute for Global Sustainable Enterprise maximized a prime career and scholarly opportunity this month, as they exchanged ideas and met with global policymakers at the United Nation's global climate change convention in Durban, South Africa. Miguel Sossa (M.S./MBA '13) and Daniel Gerding (M.S./MBA '14) represented the Ross School of Business at the conference, which brought together leaders in business, government and non-governmental organizations. Sossa also moderated an official side event Dec. 2 on the topic of professional standards in carbon markets, an idea generated in part during his first visit to the conference last year.
The Obama administration has announced that Corporate Average Fuel Economy (CAFE) standards for cars and light trucks will be 54.5 miles per gallon by 2025. What will this mean for drivers? John DeCicco, a clinical professor of natural resources and environment at SNRE and research professor at the Michigan Memorial Phoenix Energy Institute, shares his insights in this video podcast.
Three aspiring student entrepreneurs have set their sights on overcoming a major obstacle to electric vehicle (EV) adoption: "range anxiety." Range anxiety refers to the concerns of potential EV buyers about the limited range of these new automobiles and the accessibility of re-charging stations to keep them on the road. University of Michigan students Javier Rivera, Lawrence Han and Ajay Varadharajan believe they can eliminate these concerns by creating an EV network that matches the demand for electric vehicle power with supply.
SNRE Professor Andy Hoffman talks about reframing the climate change debate during an interview on WEMU-FM (89.1). The interview was aired during the public radio station's "November First Friday Focus on the Environment" show. The hosts are WEMU's David Fair and Lisa Wozniak, executive director of the Michigan League of Conservation Voters.
John DeCicco has been appointed as a research professor at the Michigan Memorial Phoenix Energy Institute (MMPEI). DeCicco holds a joint appointment as a newly-named professor of practice at the School of Natural Resources and Environment (SNRE), where since 2009 he served as a senior lecturer and MMPEI faculty fellow.
President Mary Sue Coleman higlighted several programs of the School of Natural Resources and Environment in her address yesterday unveiling the progress and new goals behind the university's sustainability initiatives.
The Wege Foundation, based in Grand Rapids, Mich., has pledged to fund a new graduate student fellowship and a professorship in the School of Natural Resources and Environment (SNRE) as part of its ongoing support of the school and the University of Michigan. Both gifts acknowledge the decades-long relationship between Peter M. Wege, the foundation's founder, and Jonathan W. Bulkley, who retired in June as a University of Michigan professor after 43 years of service. The announcements were made as part of a special academic panel discussion, organized to reflect upon the career and celebrate Professor Bulkley's research, teaching and mentoring accomplishments.
Faced with increasing risks of intense storms, heat stress, clean water availability and economic hardship, municipal leaders are seeking high-quality, location-specific analyses to help plan for climate change impacts. That is the focus of a new $1.2 million University of Michigan research project called the Great Lakes Adaptation Assessment for Cities.
A merry-go-round that generates electricity to light a rural African schoolhouse is among the sustainability projects tackled this summer by a team of University of Michigan graduate students working with villagers in Liberia. With colleagues from Clemson University and the University of Liberia, the U-M student group also designed and installed a toilet system that creates biogas to fuel the school's kitchen stove and a solar-powered produce dehydrator that allows the villagers to keep dried mangoes, tomatoes and eggplant for up to a year without refrigeration. "The developing countries are a key to global sustainability," said Jose Alfaro, a doctoral student at the School of Natural Resources and Environment and co-founder of the U-M student group, Sustainability Without Borders.
Two School of Natural Resources and Environment professors have received a National Science Foundation grant from its Environmental Sustainability program to create models that can better predict the life-cycle environmental impacts of bioenergy systems.