News

List describing federal opportunities/agency notices regarding COVID-19.

University of Vermont and Vermont EPSCoR Post-Doctoral Associate Erin Seybold and colleagues conducted a two-year study in seven watersheds throughout the northeastern U.S. to investigate the export of two nutrients, dissolved organic carbon and nitrate.

NSF has developed a new website for the research community with detailed guidance on the Coronavirus (COVID-19). This includes guidance for awardee organizations, researchers and reviewers of NSF proposals.

UVM team develops 2-minute suicide risk assessment app. A suicide risk assessment tool developed by a team of University of Vermont researchers is making its way into the prison and the military systems. It’s in the early stages of a rollout that the creators hope will significantly aid health care providers in identifying and saving people who are in crisis.

Vermonters Face Stormwater Threat With Fungi, Rain Gardens and More. New weather patterns are affecting Vermont, according to the state's climate change website. Some locals might welcome rising average temperatures and shorter winters, but more intense storms? Not so much.

You’ve likely heard about broad trends that scientists are certain will occur as a result of climate change: Plants and animals will be pushed out of their native habitats. Ice sheets will melt, and sea level will rise. Extreme weather events, like droughts and storms, will become more common and more severe.

A new study, led by Vermont EPSCoR member Jason Stockwell and a team of 39 scientists, shows that much uncertainty exists about the effects of storms on phytoplankton—and, therefore, on the health of lakes around the world.

We are happy to share with you the latest news from Vermont EPSCoR in the 2020 winter magazine.

VT EPSCoR researcher and Professor of Geography Lesley-Ann Dupigny-Giroux, PhD was appointed as a new member of the President's Commission for Inclusive Excellence by UVM President Suresh Garimella, PhD. President Garimella made the appointment official on February 18, 2020 via an email sent to the UVM community. As a member of the Commission, Dr. Dupigny-Giroux will provide insights and suggestions to forward UVM's goals of inclusion and diversity.

Milton Middle School students were treated to some real-time CSI work in early February! Vermont EPSCoR Post-Doctoral Associate Dustin Kincaid, PhD and CWDD Education and Outreach Liaison Janel Roberge led students through a macroinvertebrate investigation activity on February 12, 2020. 7th and 8th graders were presented a mock-up teaching sample and charged with finding the macroinvertebrates. This activity taught students how real scientists find macroinvertebrates and taught them how to discover clues indicating more about the health of local streams. Approximately 45 students from 7th and 8th grade classrooms participated in the activity.

In 2018, Dr. Bond was invited to be a Member in the School of Social Science at the Institute for Advanced Study (IAS) in Princeton, NJ. The support of the EPSCoR Research Fellowship made it possible for him to accept this premier invitation and join 26 scholars from across the social sciences and around the world working on the theme of “Crisis and Critique.”

Faculty from the Department of Biology (Sara Helms Cahan, Brent Lockwood ) and the Department of Biomedical and Health Sciences (Seth Frietze) at UVM have received a $4,771,722 Track-2 award to build a cross-jurisdictional research network with colleagues in Rhode Island (James Waters, Providence College and Heather J. Axen, Salve Regina University) and at the University of Kentucky (Nicholas Teets). In line with the program’s theme of “Genome to Phenome”, the team will be investigating how the genotype and environment interact to determine resistance to temperature stress, using the fruit fly model organism Drosophila melanogaster.

Ben Frechette, a BREE undergraduate intern in 2017 and 2018, now serves as the newest member of the NBC5 First Alert Weather team as a meteorologist.

The VT EPSCoR Policy and Technical Advisory Committee (PTAC) Spring Meeting was held on December 19, 2019. The biannual meetings offer a space for policy makers, decision makers, researchers, federal agency representatives, town and local officials from around the state and region to convene and take an active role in interactive sessions surrounding the Lake Champlain Basin.

Dr. Lesley-Ann Dupigny-Giroux was inducted as a Fellow of the AMS during the annual meeting. As a Fellow, Dupigny-Giroux is among a select group of AMS members recognized for their outstanding contributions to the atmospheric, oceanic or hydrologic sciences over a substantial period of years. An applied climatologist by training, Dupigny-Giroux's research interests intersect several fields including hydroclimatic natural hazards and climate literacy, as well as the use of remote sensing and GIS (Geographic Information Systems) in the fields of spatial climate and land-surface processes. Dupigny-Giroux is the State Climatologist for Vermont.

Vermont EPSCoR hosted a successful Alan Alda Communicating Science Workshop on January 8, 2020.

Patrick Clemins, PhD, VT EPSCoR Manager of Cyberinfrastructure and Partnerships, attended SuperComputing 2019 (SC19), the world's premier conference on SuperComputing and High Performance Computing, in Denver, Colorado from November 17-22, 2019. While at the meeting, he participated in the Campus Research Computing Consortium (CaRCC), a gathering of research computing groups from across the United States that serves to bring the community together to share best practices. The Emerging Centers Track consisted of smaller research computing groups, including those at the Universty of Vermont (UVM) and other R2 and smaller R1 institutions. This provided Dr. Clemins an opportunity to learn from similar institutions while also sharing best practices currently in place within Vermont EPSCoR systems.

Vermont EPSCoR CWDD's Janel Roberge, Education and Outreach Coordinator, and LeeAnn Trusela, Project Manager, led roughly 40 seventh-grade students at Harwood Union Middle School in Duxbury, VT through water quality and site assessment and macroinvertebrate sampling at the school's Lozelle Brook on October 22, 2019. Under the CWDD's guidance, students made observations about the stream sites near their school and collected macroinvertebrates for later identification.

After more than 26 years teaching meteorology, oceanography and other environmental science courses at NVU-Johnson, Tania Bacchus is moving on at the end of this semester.

BREE interns Julyanice Cruz and Pamela Garcia presented the results of their summer 2019 research during the Society for the Advancement of Chicanos/Hispanics and Native Americans in Science (SACNAS) Annual Conference that took place from October 31 to November 2, 2019 in Honolulu, Hawaii. This marked the first time that BREE research was presented at a SACNAS meeting, and both posters were highly visited by conference attendees.