News

Vermont EPSCoR member Dr. Lesley-Ann Dupigny-Giroux, Professor and Chair of Geology at the University of Vermont, was recognized for her professional achievements by the Association for Women Geoscientists (AWG), which selected her as the winner of the 2018 AWG Professional Excellence Award in the Academia/Research category. The award is designed to recognize exceptional women who have made distinguished contributions in their professions during their careers.

BREE Graduate Research Assistant, Kevin Andrew, presented his current research at the University of Vermont (UVM) Computer Science (CS) Student Research Day on September 7, 2018.

Vermont EPSCoR GRA Kevin Andrew attended the San Diego Supercomputing Center at the University of California San Diego (UCSD) from August 6-10, 2018 for their Summer Institute Workshop. Kevin was able to attend because of a student travel grant he received through the program, which covered the majority of costs, including room and board on UCSD's campus for the week of the workshop.

The St. Albans Area Watershed Association (SAAWA) reorganized during their annual meeting last week, adding a new vice president to their board before hearing updates from several environment- and water-related projects in their namesake watershed.

Saint Michael’s College leaders learned Wednesday (8/29/2018) that they will receive the largest scholarship grant in the College’s history from the National Science Foundation (NSF) to help faculty train more data-savvy scientists and science-savvy mathematicians, statisticians and computer scientists through scholarships, enrichment programs and new curriculum that connects disciplines better.

Kristen Underwood, a GRA with the RACC project, delivered her PhD dissertation on Friday, August 24, 2018. The title of the dissertation was "Smart Classification and Bayesian Inference for Evaluating River Sensitivity to Natural and Human Disturbances: A Data Science Approach."

CWDD members Veronica Sosa-Gonzalez and Janel Roberge attended STEAM (Science, Technology, Engineering, Art, and Mathematics) night at historic Centennial Field on August 12, 2018 sponsored by the Community College of Vermont (CCV). Attendees at the Vermont Lake Monsters minor league baseball game were given the opportunity to explore the world of STEAM in a fun and interactive way.

BREE mentors took interns from the Social Systems, IAM, and Climate teams to the Mad River Valley on August 2, 2018. Guided by Josh Schwartz, the Mad River Planning District Executive Director, interns reviewed the site of the flood resilient Lovett Park on Bridge Street in Waitsfield, Vermont. This park is located around the footprint of a historic barber shop, later a photography studio and gallery, which was swept away during Tropical Storm Irene flooding.

On Wednesday August 1, 2018, Vermont EPSCoR awarded Native American and First Generation Scholarships to undergraduate students majoring in Science, Technology, Engineering and Math (STEM) during a ceremony held in the Senate Chambers at the Vermont State House in Montpelier, VT. Five awards were made to meritorious students from Burlington, Newport, Addison and Bellows Falls. The students are seeking degrees in Engineering , Integrated Biological Sciences and Medical Laboratory Sciences from Norwich University, Vermont Technical College and the University of Vermont.

Welcome to the start of Year 3. It is inspiring to begin a new year, reflect on the past year’s progress and plan for the future directions and milestones of the VT EPSCoR BREE research.

The second cohort of the Basin Resilience to Extreme Events (BREE) high school research program had its training week at St. Michael’s College from June 18-22, 2018. The participants will continue to work on their research until the spring of 2019. They will sample streams near their schools and analyze their data to present at the 2019 Spring Research Symposium hosted by the CWDD. During orientation week, the teams learned about environmental concerns in the Lake Champlain Basin, BREE research, watershed model and stream table, water quality and macroinvertebrate fieldwork, identifying macroinvertebrate species, the macroinvertebrate phone application, data mining and analysis. Participants had the opportunity to explore the ECHO Science Center in Burlington as part of their orientation activities.

The CWDD welcomed the 2018-2019 Basin Resilience to Extreme Events (BREE) undergraduate interns at St. Michael’s College on Tuesday May 29th, 2018 to begin their internship. The first week was a four-day orientation packed with activities, including learning about the Lake Champlain watershed and its environmental issues, hiking Mt. Philo, a Ropes Course, using a stream table, and a UVM Library Resources session. During this week, they also had an introduction to the research done under BREE, and meeting our faculty, graduate students and postdoctoral associates. Throughout the summer the interns have worked on all aspects of scientific research: literature review, data collection, data analysis and presentations. The CWDD has offered biweekly workshops on data analysis and poster preparation, among others.

Dr. Mandar Dewoolkar, VT EPSCoR Resilience to Extreme Events in the Lake Champlain Basin (BREE) faculty researcher, chair and professor of the Department of Civil and Environmental Engineering at UVM, was awarded $1.25M from the U.S. Department of Transportation to create a highly competitive University Transportation Center (UTC) called the Transportation Infrastructure Durability Center (TIDC).

ST. ALBANS – A day-long tour of St. Albans found Rep. Peter Welch, D-Vt., joining members of the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service and Lake Champlain Basin Program aboard a pontoon in the middle of St. Albans Bay, where the Representative saw first hand the Bay’s struggles with water quality.

Saving Our Waters, a three-part documentary, produced by VT PBS with major funding by VT EPSCoR was recognized with a Boston/Regional Emmy Award in the Environmental category, on June 2, 2018. The series focuses on the health and resiliency of Lake Champlain Basin especially with the increase of extreme weather events. VT EPSCoR Science Leaders (pictured above) from the University of Vermont and who are from multiple disciplines ranging from engineering, social, natural and computational sciences, were instrumental in the content development and provided guidance on the science and complex issues surrounding the Lake Basin. Together they work with broader teams of researchers from across the state on the National Science Foundation (NSF) VT EPSCoR

The Office of the Vice President for Research at UVM and the Vermont Technology Council are pleased to announce that Dr. Arne Bomblies has accepted an appointment as Vermont State EPSCoR Director.

At the invitation of the New York City Department of Environmental Protection (NYC DEP), Scott Hamshaw, Donna Rizzo and Mandar Dewoolkar visited the office and field sites of NYC DEPs 10 year study on reducing sediment and turbidity in New York City’s water supply. The NYC DEP and Scott Hamshaw presented an overview of each other’s various projects and discussed potential collaborations that could arise given the overlapping research objectives of both groups. The NYC DEP also led a tour of study sites in the watersheds of the Ashokan reservoir.

CWDD Coordinator Veronica Sosa-Gonzalez led Vermont EPSCoR’s annual mentor training on May 17, 2018. A total of 25 BREE mentors attended the training, which involved different exercises and activities centered on aligning competencies, self-efficacy, and diversity and inclusion.

The largest ice sheet on Earth was stable throughout the last warm period in geologic time, indicating it should hold up as temperatures continue to rise, researchers say.

VT EPSCoR held a successful kick off to Year 3 with an exciting All Hands Meeting on June 12, 2018 at Saint Michael’s College in Colchester, VT. Over 80 participants attended including the new 2018 Undergraduate interns, graduate students, post-doctoral associates, and members from the VT EPSCoR External Advisory Committee.