Judith Van Houten, PhD.
The first year of our BREE award has flown by and we are into Year 2. We have made great progress in the first year and met our milestones. Available here is a brief snapshot of many of the efforts that are underway. Of particular interest is the All Hands Meeting held in June, 2017. It was the first time many of our faculty, post-doctoral associates, graduate students and undergraduate interns convened to hear about the progress of the entire program. Our External Advisory Committee Members and Program Officer from the National Science Foundation present also attended this important event.
In May of 2017, the Social Systems team convened a highly diverse and impressive group of stakeholders who collaborate with us on strategies for water quality of the Lake Champlain Basin. The group, called the Policy and Technical Advisory Committee (PTAC), will give us technical advice and advice about the scenarios to be tested in the Integrated Assessment Model. We will communicate our research findings to the members and together we will develop actionable, decision-support tools to inform water quality. Presentations for each meeting are available in the newsletter and our website.
In addition, our Workforce Development and Diversity programs have taken off with a great start at Saint Michael’s College with 30 finishing their research on August 4 and high school teams having returned to their home high schools to continue their water analysis research.
Our Native American and First Generation Vermont Student Scholarships went to a record number of 11 students. Please visit their stories on our website.
The Private Sector programs have also been successfully launched with a record number of SBIR/ STTR Phase 0 awards.
We are excited to share with you the many innovations. We also ask that you consider a matching gift to our EPSCoR gift fund. Your contribution will go toward matching my donation of $2,500 to start an EPSCoR Fellow award for our graduate students and postdocs.
Stay in touch!
Judith Van Houten, Ph.D.
Vermont State EPSCoR Director
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