Christoph Nolte, a doctoral candidate at the University of Michigan School of Natural Resources and Environment, has been selected as the first recipient of the Marshall Weinberg Population, Development, and Climate Change Fellowship. Nolte is studying the economic tradeoffs of land conservation in the Amazon rainforest in Brazil.
The Graham Environmental Sustainability Institute has selected six faculty-led research projects, including one involving SNRE Landscape Architecture Professor Bob Grese, to join with Focus: HOPE, a nationally recognized civil and human rights organization, on a Detroit community development initiative. The U-M-funded projects will incorporate social, economic and environmental strategies to help develop a comprehensive plan for advancing the HOPE Village Initiative, a 100-block area immediately surrounding theFocus: HOPE campus straddling the cities of Detroit and Highland Park. The initiative seeks to integrate Focus: HOPE's strengths in workforce development, early childhood education and community development.
Four substantial, student-led sustainability projects are gaining momentum on campus, thanks to financial support from the new Planet Blue Student Innovation Fund. Three of the four, focused on reusable takeout food containers, a sustainable food kiosk and a U-M campus farm, were developed by students at SNRE. Announced by President Mary Sue Coleman last fall as part of her larger campus sustainability address, the Planet Blue Student Innovation Fund offers grants of up to $50,000 annually for projects that reduce the university's environmental footprint and/or promote a culture of sustainability on campus.
The University of Michigan ranks No. 7 in the nation as a Peace Corps Paul D. Coverdell Fellows university in the latest 2012 rankings. Of the 20 Returned Peace Corps Volunteers (RPCVs) at U-M, five are students in the School of Natural Resources and Environment. The Coverdell Fellows program provides returned volunteers with scholarships, academic credit and stipends to earn an advanced degree after they complete their Peace Corps service along with professional internships helping underserved American communities. The Peace Corps Master's International program allows students to earn their graduate degree while serving in the Peace Corps. U-M is the only school in the state of Michigan with both Peace Corps Fellows and Masterí¢â‚¬â„¢s International programs.
SNRE Professor Dorceta Taylor has received the HR Johnson Diversity Service Award. Taylor is a professor in the Environmental Justice field of study at SNRE and director of the Multicultural Environmental Leadership Development Initiative, a research and outreach center she founded and which is housed within the school. In 1992, she received a Rockefeller-Ford post-doctoral fellowship at Michigan's Poverty and the Underclass program. She joined SNRE in 1993 and is dually appointed with the Center for Afroamerican and African Studies. In 2010, she was honored with the Outstanding Publication Award for Environment and the People in American Cities, 1600s-1900s: Disorder, Inequality, and Social Change by the Environment and Technology Section of the American Sociological Association.
SNRE Professor Joan Iverson Nassauer has received the Distinguished Faculty Achievement Award from the Rackham Graduate School. The award honors senior faculty who consistently demonstrate outstanding achievements in scholarly research and/or creative endeavors; teaching and mentoring of students and junior faculty; service; and other activities that bring distinction to themselves and the University of Michigan. Nassauer joined SNRE's Landscape Architecture program in 1997. She is a member of the American Society of Landscape Architects, Council of Educators in Landscape Architecture and the International Association for Landscape Ecology.
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.
Strategies to meet the leadership and management challenges facing environmental groups is the focus of a special symposium Friday, March 16, at the University of Michigan. The "Conservation Forward: Environmental Leadership in Action" symposium concludes with a keynote address by John Ehrmann (M.S. '81, Ph.D. '7), who has pioneered the use of collaborative decision-making processes for more than two decades at the local, national and international levels. The symposium also features expert-led panel discussions on topics such as urban sustainability, energy, state and federal policy, ecosystem services and landscape-scale conservation. The discussions will give managers and leaders at southeast Michigan conservation groups the chance to learn new techniques and strategies to help their organizations.
Matthaei Botanical Gardens is celebrating its 50th anniversary and SNRE Landscape Architecture Professor Bob Grese is playing a central role in the promoting an exhibit and display commemorating the event. Grese is also director of the gardens and the Nichols Arboretum. "One of the statements Regent Fred Matthaei Sr. made when he donated the land was that he wanted the botanical gardens to be second to none in the world, so we want the public to see what progress we've made toward that goal," Grese said.