News

An email chirped in my inbox; "Check out the cute face on this insect we found." I opened the attachment (yes, from a reliable source). My colleague Professor Peter Hope had taken a spectacular photograph through his microscope. The larva in question had fallen into a pit trap set by our first-year Saint Michael's College students in Camp Johnson in Colchester.

The Vermont EPSCoR Communications app enables you to keep up to date with Vermont EPSCoR News, Solicitations, Events, Videos and Photos.

Drs. Andrew Schroth and Asim Zia attended the American Geophysical Union (AGU) Chapman Conference in San Juan, Puerto Rico from January 22 through January 27, 2017. There they presented findings from the BREE, RACC, and NEWRnet research programs.

Dr. Schroth gave a presentation titled "Provenance Drives Chemical and Physical Partitioning of Iron During High Flow Events from Catchments to Receiving Waters: Insight from Alaska and Vermont." Dr. Zia presented "Combined Temperature and Precipitation Variability May Increase the Frequency of Harmful Algal Blooms in Lake Champlain, 1992-2100"

The AGU Chapman Conference focused on extreme climate events such as tropical storms, hurricanes, thunderstorms, heat waves, droughts, and more that are expected to have significant consequences for aquatic ecosystems. Funding for the event came from both NSF EPSCoR and the USDA.

Research presented at the conference will be used in a number of synthesis papers that will be developed around extreme events and water quality. These papers will be featured in a special issue of the journal Biochemistry.

The Vermont EPSCoR Winter 2017 Magazine is now available!

Workshop Overview:
Leading water quality managers and policy makers participated in a unique opportunity to engage with academic colleagues and other water quality professionals in a virtual Tri-State workshop focusing on Human Behavior, Sensor Networks and Water Quality. The workshop was held by video-conference on January 18, 2017 from 8:30 am to 3:30 pm.

A high school team from Bellows Free Academy - Fairfax traveled with CWDD member Livia Donicova, to California in December 2016, where they presented research at the American Geophysical Union Conference (AGU) in San Francisco. The team, consisting of high school science teacher Mr. Tom Lane and high school students in their junior year, Bailey Halliday and Hallie Hoffman, presented their VT EPSCoR research poster, "Phosphorous Loading in the Lake Champlain Basin," at the poster session on December 15th.

The poster presentation gave them an opportunity to practice their communication skills and present their research findings to interested participants from around the world. The students were also invited to attend a "Bright Stars" luncheon at the conference. This luncheon honored all high school and middle school students who participated in the international event.

Jody Stryker, a PhD candidate with Vermont EPSCoR, presented her doctoral dissertation defense on Monday, December 19, 2016. The defense, "Sediment Mobilization from Streambank Failures: Model Development and Climate Impact Studies," presented modeling information that helps to measure sediment mobilization in the Lake Champlain Basin.

Vermont EPSCoR member Andrew Schroth, PhD was appointed to the Technical Advisory Committee (TAC) of the Lake Champlain Basin Program (LCBP) on December 14, 2016.


As a member of the TAC, Dr. Schroth's role includes presenting the Basin Program Steering Committee with technical information to be used in decision making, advising on emerging management issues, overseeing and facilitating technical aspects of implementation projects, and interpreting technical information such as monitoring program results to help determine the success or redirection of projects.


"I am pleased at the Lake Champlain Steering Committee's recent appointment of Dr. Schroth to the LCBP Technical Advisory Committee," said LCBP Executive Director Eric Howe. "Andrew will bring a welcome perspective to the LCBP's science-based committee with regards to in-lake and tributary monitoring projects, particularly for cutting-edge monitoring approaches to help us solve management problems associated with nutrient loading to and in Lake Champlain."


A professor at the University of Vermont (UVM) since 2012, Dr. Schroth's research focuses on nutrient and algal bloom dynamics within the Lake Champlain Basin.

On December 13, 2016 Professor Declan McCabe from Saint Michael's College and CWDD Research Technician Janel Roberge welcomed four High School Streams Project Teams in addition to seven educators from around Vermont to the Saint Mike's Campus for an annual Macroinvertebrate Identification Workshop. Educators got to learn more about the Macroinvertebrate App created by EPSCoR's own Declan McCabe as well as a chance to practice their macroinvertebrate identification skills. Participating High School Teams dedicated their time to picking, sorting, and in some cases identifying the macroinvertebrate samples they themselves collected earlier this year. Participants also enjoyed the photograph-capable microscope provided by Dr. McCabe.

Austin Wilkes was recently awarded the Ian A. Worley Award by the environmental studies department at the University of Vermont. Wilkes was an undergraduate intern in the NEWRNet program during the summer of 2016 and is currently a senior at the University of Vermont. He studies environmental science with a focus on chemistry, and was honored for his work to understand riverine iron chemistry across NEWRnet catchments with Dr. Andrew Schroth, Research Assistant Professor of Geology (UVM), an Ecological Systems Science Leader with the Vermont Experimental Program to Stimulate Competitive Research (VT EPSCoR) and the Sensor Group for NEWRnet.

The Ian A. Worley Award was named for the Director of the Environmental Program from 1994 to 2008, and is intended to encourage and support creativity and independent thinking in the pursuit of addressing environmental goals. Students recognized with this award receive financial support for their proposed innovative and imaginative projects.

We are happy to share with you the following funding opportunities and positions offered through Vermont EPSCoR in this "Funding Updates" issue of our e-newsletter

On November 13-18, 2016 RACC Undergraduate Summer Intern Valeria Santana Pruna presented research at the American Institute of Chemical Engineers (AICHE) annual meeting in San Francisco, California. Valeria is a student at the University of Puerto Rico - Mayagüez Campus (UPR) and the President of the AICHE Puerto Rico chapter, and of the Instituto de Ingenieros Químicos - Colegio de Ingenieros y Agrimensores de Puerto Rico (IIQ-CIAPR), an association of chemical engineering students at UPR. Valeria's research, "Watershed and lake bio-geochemistry: Movement of Phosphorus and Sediments from Forested Areas into Water Bodies" was conducted with the mentorship of VT EPSCoR University of Vermont faculty members Drs. Beverley Wemple and Don Ross.

Lake's history created its present
St. Albans Messenger
ALBANS — A staff scientist for Lake Champlain Committee for over 15 years, Mike Winslow spoke about the history of the Lake Champlain watershed and how water quality reached its current levels during a talk for the Osher Lifelong Learning Institute on ...

and more »

Dr. Veronica Sosa-Gonzalez (VT EPSCoR Outreach Professional for the Center for Workforce Development and Diversity or CWDD) and Dr. Janet Murray (Vermont Genetics Network or VGN), attended the 2016 Annual Biomedical Research Conference for Minority Students (ABRCMS) meeting held in Tampa, FL from November 9-12, 2016. They shared a booth at the conference, where they talked to potential candidates about summer internship opportunities. Both programs sparked interest among the attendees, including students and faculty from universities and colleges across the country.

Vermont Public Radio
High And Dry: Three Scientists Explain Vermont's Drought
Vermont Public Radio
Our guests are state climatologist Lesley-Ann Dupigny-Giroux, state geologist Marjorie Gale and Greg Hanson, a hydrologist with the National Weather Service in Burlington. Post your questions and comments below, or on Vermont Edition's Facebook page.

Hunt Middle School partnered with Vermont EPSCoR to facilitate the "Watershed Design-Challenge Project." Students were tasked with designing an approach to address the issue of improving & maintaining biodiversity and water quality in Burlington's local waterways. The focus of this project was on student evaluatory and reflective pratice; students were required to evaluate other students' designs to develop designs and consider real world applications.

Dupigny-Giroux to Lead Northeast Chapter of National Climate Assessment
UVM News
Professor Lesley-Ann Dupigny-Giroux, chair of the Department of Geography at the University of Vermont, has been named regional lead of the northeast chapter of the fourth National Climate Assessment. Dupigny-Giroux was selected from nearly 200 ...

Study: Climate Change Could Outpace EPA Lake Champlain Protections
UVM News
“This paper provides very clear evidence that the lake could be far more sensitive to climate change than is captured by the current approach of the EPA,” said University of Vermont professor Asim Zia, the lead author of the new study. ... behavior and ...

and more »

DirectionsMag.com
GeoInspirations: Lesley-Ann Dupigny-Giroux: Pushing geography into the sky — literally
DirectionsMag.com
Editor's note: Welcome back to our GeoInspirations series, in which our distinguished guest columnist, Dr. Joseph Kerski, introduces us to the men and women who are changing the face of the geospatial industry, and shining a light on the importance of ...

CWDD Intern Rebekah Larose was recognized as an Academic All-Star in the October 30, 2016 Burlington Free Press. Rebekah noted the Vermont EPSCoR spring science symposium where she received the best poster award as one of her top 5 accomplishments. She is a member of the National Honor Society and a student/teacher at the Ballet School of Vermont.

On December 17th, 2015, Rebekah's CWDD high school team presented their research poster at the annual fall meeting of the American Geophysical Union (AGU). Photos and details of that event can be found at: http://epscor.w3.uvm.edu/2/node/2980