From The Massachusetts Institute of Technology: “New process could enable more efficient plastics recycling”

From The Massachusetts Institute of Technology

10.6.22
David L. Chandler

A new chemical process can break down a variety of plastics into usable propane — a possible solution to our inability to effectively recycle many types of plastic. Image: Courtesy of the researchers. Edited by MIT News.

The accumulation of plastic waste in the oceans, soil, and even in our bodies is one of the major pollution issues of modern times, with over 5 billion tons disposed of so far. Despite major efforts to recycle plastic products, actually making use of that motley mix of materials has remained a challenging issue.

A key problem is that plastics come in so many different varieties, and chemical processes for breaking them down into a form that can be reused in some way tend to be very specific to each type of plastic. Sorting the hodgepodge of waste material, from soda bottles to detergent jugs to plastic toys, is impractical at large scale. Today much of the plastic material gathered through recycling programs ends up in landfills anyway. Surely there’s a better way.

According to new research from MIT and elsewhere, it appears there may indeed be a much better way. A chemical process using a catalyst based on cobalt has been found to be very effective at breaking down a variety of plastics, such as polyethylene (PET) and polypropylene (PP), the two most widely produced forms of plastic, into a single product, propane. Propane can then be used as a fuel for stoves, heaters, and vehicles, or as a feedstock for the production of a wide variety of products — including new plastics, thus potentially providing at least a partial closed-loop recycling system.

The finding is described today in the open access journal JACS Au [below], in a paper by MIT professor of chemical engineering Yuriy Román-Leshkov, postdoc Guido Zichitella, and seven others at MIT, the DOE’s SLAC National Accelerator Laboratory, and the National Renewable Energy Laboratory.

Recycling plastics has been a thorny problem, Román-Leshkov explains, because the long-chain molecules in plastics are held together by carbon bonds, which are “very stable and difficult to break apart.” Existing techniques for breaking these bonds tend to produce a random mix of different molecules, which would then require complex refining methods to separate out into usable specific compounds. “The problem is,” he says, “there’s no way to control where in the carbon chain you break the molecule.”

But to the surprise of the researchers, a catalyst made of a microporous material called a zeolite that contains cobalt nanoparticles can selectively break down various plastic polymer molecules and turn more than 80 percent of them into propane.

Although zeolites are riddled with tiny pores less than a nanometer wide (corresponding to the width of the polymer chains), a logical assumption had been that there would be little interaction at all between the zeolite and the polymers. Surprisingly, however, the opposite turned out to be the case: Not only do the polymer chains enter the pores, but the synergistic work between cobalt and the acid sites in the zeolite can break the chain at the same point. That cleavage site turned out to correspond to chopping off exactly one propane molecule without generating unwanted methane, leaving the rest of the longer hydrocarbons ready to undergo the process, again and again.

“Once you have this one compound, propane, you lessen the burden on downstream separations,” Román-Leshkov says. “That’s the essence of why we think this is quite important. We’re not only breaking the bonds, but we’re generating mainly a single product” that can be used for many different products and processes.

The materials needed for the process, zeolites and cobalt, “are both quite cheap” and widely available, he says, although today most cobalt comes from troubled areas in the Democratic Republic of Congo. Some new production is being developed in Canada, Cuba, and other places. The other material needed for the process is hydrogen, which today is mostly produced from fossil fuels but can easily be made other ways, including electrolysis of water using carbon-free electricity such as solar or wind power.

The researchers tested their system on a real example of mixed recycled plastic, producing promising results. But more testing will be needed on a greater variety of mixed waste streams to determine how much fouling takes place from various contaminants in the material — such as inks, glues, and labels attached to the plastic containers, or other nonplastic materials that get mixed in with the waste — and how that affects the long-term stability of the process.

Together with collaborators at NREL, the MIT team is also continuing to study the economics of the system, and analyzing how it can fit into today’s systems for handling plastic and mixed waste streams. “We don’t have all the answers yet,” Román-Leshkov says, but preliminary analysis looks promising.

The research team included Amani Ebrahim and Simone Bare at the SLAC National Accelerator Laboratory; Jie Zhu, Anna Brenner, Griffin Drake and Julie Rorrer at MIT; and Greg Beckham at the National Renewable Energy Laboratory. The work was supported by the U.S. Department of Energy (DoE), the Swiss National Science Foundation, and the DoE’s Office of Energy Efficiency and Renewable Energy, Advanced Manufacturing Office (AMO), and Bioenergy Technologies Office (BETO), as part of the the Bio-Optimized Technologies to keep Thermoplastics out of Landfills and the Environment (BOTTLE) Consortium.

Science paper:
JACS Au
See the science paper for instructive material.

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USPS “Forever” postage stamps celebrating Innovation at MIT.

The Massachusetts Institute of Technology is a private land-grant research university in Cambridge, Massachusetts. The institute has an urban campus that extends more than a mile (1.6 km) alongside the Charles River. The institute also encompasses a number of major off-campus facilities such as the MIT Lincoln Laboratory , the MIT Bates Research and Engineering Center , and the Haystack Observatory , as well as affiliated laboratories such as the Broad Institute of MIT and Harvard and Whitehead Institute.

MIT Lincoln Laboratory campus

Massachusettes Institute of Technology-Haystack Observatory Westford, Massachusetts, USA, Altitude 131 m (430 ft).

Founded in 1861 in response to the increasing industrialization of the United States, Massachusetts Institute of Technology adopted a European polytechnic university model and stressed laboratory instruction in applied science and engineering. It has since played a key role in the development of many aspects of modern science, engineering, mathematics, and technology, and is widely known for its innovation and academic strength. It is frequently regarded as one of the most prestigious universities in the world.

As of December 2020, 97 Nobel laureates, 26 Turing Award winners, and 8 Fields Medalists have been affiliated with MIT as alumni, faculty members, or researchers. In addition, 58 National Medal of Science recipients, 29 National Medals of Technology and Innovation recipients, 50 MacArthur Fellows, 80 Marshall Scholars, 3 Mitchell Scholars, 22 Schwarzman Scholars, 41 astronauts, and 16 Chief Scientists of the U.S. Air Force have been affiliated with The Massachusetts Institute of Technology. The university also has a strong entrepreneurial culture and MIT alumni have founded or co-founded many notable companies. Massachusetts Institute of Technology is a member of the Association of American Universities.

Foundation and vision

In 1859, a proposal was submitted to the Massachusetts General Court to use newly filled lands in Back Bay, Boston for a “Conservatory of Art and Science”, but the proposal failed. A charter for the incorporation of the Massachusetts Institute of Technology, proposed by William Barton Rogers, was signed by John Albion Andrew, the governor of Massachusetts, on April 10, 1861.

Rogers, a professor from the University of Virginia , wanted to establish an institution to address rapid scientific and technological advances. He did not wish to found a professional school, but a combination with elements of both professional and liberal education, proposing that:

“The true and only practicable object of a polytechnic school is, as I conceive, the teaching, not of the minute details and manipulations of the arts, which can be done only in the workshop, but the inculcation of those scientific principles which form the basis and explanation of them, and along with this, a full and methodical review of all their leading processes and operations in connection with physical laws.”

The Rogers Plan reflected the German research university model, emphasizing an independent faculty engaged in research, as well as instruction oriented around seminars and laboratories.

Early developments

Two days after The Massachusetts Institute of Technology was chartered, the first battle of the Civil War broke out. After a long delay through the war years, MIT’s first classes were held in the Mercantile Building in Boston in 1865. The new institute was founded as part of the Morrill Land-Grant Colleges Act to fund institutions “to promote the liberal and practical education of the industrial classes” and was a land-grant school. In 1863 under the same act, the Commonwealth of Massachusetts founded the Massachusetts Agricultural College, which developed as the University of Massachusetts Amherst ). In 1866, the proceeds from land sales went toward new buildings in the Back Bay.

The Massachusetts Institute of Technology was informally called “Boston Tech”. The institute adopted the European polytechnic university model and emphasized laboratory instruction from an early date. Despite chronic financial problems, the institute saw growth in the last two decades of the 19th century under President Francis Amasa Walker. Programs in electrical, chemical, marine, and sanitary engineering were introduced, new buildings were built, and the size of the student body increased to more than one thousand.

The curriculum drifted to a vocational emphasis, with less focus on theoretical science. The fledgling school still suffered from chronic financial shortages which diverted the attention of the MIT leadership. During these “Boston Tech” years, Massachusetts Institute of Technology faculty and alumni rebuffed Harvard University president (and former MIT faculty) Charles W. Eliot’s repeated attempts to merge MIT with Harvard College’s Lawrence Scientific School. There would be at least six attempts to absorb MIT into Harvard. In its cramped Back Bay location, MIT could not afford to expand its overcrowded facilities, driving a desperate search for a new campus and funding. Eventually, the MIT Corporation approved a formal agreement to merge with Harvard, over the vehement objections of MIT faculty, students, and alumni. However, a 1917 decision by the Massachusetts Supreme Judicial Court effectively put an end to the merger scheme.

In 1916, The Massachusetts Institute of Technology administration and the MIT charter crossed the Charles River on the ceremonial barge Bucentaur built for the occasion, to signify MIT’s move to a spacious new campus largely consisting of filled land on a one-mile-long (1.6 km) tract along the Cambridge side of the Charles River. The neoclassical “New Technology” campus was designed by William W. Bosworth and had been funded largely by anonymous donations from a mysterious “Mr. Smith”, starting in 1912. In January 1920, the donor was revealed to be the industrialist George Eastman of Rochester, New York, who had invented methods of film production and processing, and founded Eastman Kodak. Between 1912 and 1920, Eastman donated $20 million ($236.6 million in 2015 dollars) in cash and Kodak stock to MIT.

Curricular reforms

In the 1930s, President Karl Taylor Compton and Vice-President (effectively Provost) Vannevar Bush emphasized the importance of pure sciences like physics and chemistry and reduced the vocational practice required in shops and drafting studios. The Compton reforms “renewed confidence in the ability of the Institute to develop leadership in science as well as in engineering”. Unlike Ivy League schools, Massachusetts Institute of Technology catered more to middle-class families, and depended more on tuition than on endowments or grants for its funding. The school was elected to the Association of American Universities in 1934.

Still, as late as 1949, the Lewis Committee lamented in its report on the state of education at The Massachusetts Institute of Technology that “the Institute is widely conceived as basically a vocational school”, a “partly unjustified” perception the committee sought to change. The report comprehensively reviewed the undergraduate curriculum, recommended offering a broader education, and warned against letting engineering and government-sponsored research detract from the sciences and humanities. The School of Humanities, Arts, and Social Sciences and the MIT Sloan School of Management were formed in 1950 to compete with the powerful Schools of Science and Engineering. Previously marginalized faculties in the areas of economics, management, political science, and linguistics emerged into cohesive and assertive departments by attracting respected professors and launching competitive graduate programs. The School of Humanities, Arts, and Social Sciences continued to develop under the successive terms of the more humanistically oriented presidents Howard W. Johnson and Jerome Wiesner between 1966 and 1980.

The Massachusetts Institute of Technology‘s involvement in military science surged during World War II. In 1941, Vannevar Bush was appointed head of the federal Office of Scientific Research and Development and directed funding to only a select group of universities, including MIT. Engineers and scientists from across the country gathered at Massachusetts Institute of Technology ‘s Radiation Laboratory, established in 1940 to assist the British military in developing microwave radar. The work done there significantly affected both the war and subsequent research in the area. Other defense projects included gyroscope-based and other complex control systems for gunsight, bombsight, and inertial navigation under Charles Stark Draper’s Instrumentation Laboratory; the development of a digital computer for flight simulations under Project Whirlwind; and high-speed and high-altitude photography under Harold Edgerton. By the end of the war, The Massachusetts Institute of Technology became the nation’s largest wartime R&D contractor (attracting some criticism of Bush), employing nearly 4000 in the Radiation Laboratory alone and receiving in excess of $100 million ($1.2 billion in 2015 dollars) before 1946. Work on defense projects continued even after then. Post-war government-sponsored research at MIT included SAGE and guidance systems for ballistic missiles and Project Apollo.

These activities affected The Massachusetts Institute of Technology profoundly. A 1949 report noted the lack of “any great slackening in the pace of life at the Institute” to match the return to peacetime, remembering the “academic tranquility of the prewar years”, though acknowledging the significant contributions of military research to the increased emphasis on graduate education and rapid growth of personnel and facilities. The faculty doubled and the graduate student body quintupled during the terms of Karl Taylor Compton, president of The Massachusetts Institute of Technology between 1930 and 1948; James Rhyne Killian, president from 1948 to 1957; and Julius Adams Stratton, chancellor from 1952 to 1957, whose institution-building strategies shaped the expanding university. By the 1950s, The Massachusetts Institute of Technology no longer simply benefited the industries with which it had worked for three decades, and it had developed closer working relationships with new patrons, philanthropic foundations and the federal government.

In late 1960s and early 1970s, student and faculty activists protested against the Vietnam War and The Massachusetts Institute of Technology ‘s defense research. In this period Massachusetts Institute of Technology’s various departments were researching helicopters, smart bombs and counterinsurgency techniques for the war in Vietnam as well as guidance systems for nuclear missiles. The Union of Concerned Scientists was founded on March 4, 1969 during a meeting of faculty members and students seeking to shift the emphasis on military research toward environmental and social problems. The Massachusetts Institute of Technology ultimately divested itself from the Instrumentation Laboratory and moved all classified research off-campus to the MIT Lincoln Laboratory facility in 1973 in response to the protests. The student body, faculty, and administration remained comparatively unpolarized during what was a tumultuous time for many other universities. Johnson was seen to be highly successful in leading his institution to “greater strength and unity” after these times of turmoil. However, six Massachusetts Institute of Technology students were sentenced to prison terms at this time and some former student leaders, such as Michael Albert and George Katsiaficas, are still indignant about MIT’s role in military research and its suppression of these protests. (Richard Leacock’s film, November Actions, records some of these tumultuous events.)

In the 1980s, there was more controversy at The Massachusetts Institute of Technology over its involvement in SDI (space weaponry) and CBW (chemical and biological warfare) research. More recently, The Massachusetts Institute of Technology’s research for the military has included work on robots, drones and ‘battle suits’.

Recent history

The Massachusetts Institute of Technology has kept pace with and helped to advance the digital age. In addition to developing the predecessors to modern computing and networking technologies, students, staff, and faculty members at Project MAC, the Artificial Intelligence Laboratory, and the Tech Model Railroad Club wrote some of the earliest interactive computer video games like Spacewar! and created much of modern hacker slang and culture. Several major computer-related organizations have originated at MIT since the 1980s: Richard Stallman’s GNU Project and the subsequent Free Software Foundation were founded in the mid-1980s at the AI Lab; the MIT Media Lab was founded in 1985 by Nicholas Negroponte and Jerome Wiesner to promote research into novel uses of computer technology; the World Wide Web Consortium standards organization was founded at the Laboratory for Computer Science in 1994 by Tim Berners-Lee; the MIT OpenCourseWare project has made course materials for over 2,000 Massachusetts Institute of Technology classes available online free of charge since 2002; and the One Laptop per Child initiative to expand computer education and connectivity to children worldwide was launched in 2005.

The Massachusetts Institute of Technology was named a sea-grant college in 1976 to support its programs in oceanography and marine sciences and was named a space-grant college in 1989 to support its aeronautics and astronautics programs. Despite diminishing government financial support over the past quarter century, MIT launched several successful development campaigns to significantly expand the campus: new dormitories and athletics buildings on west campus; the Tang Center for Management Education; several buildings in the northeast corner of campus supporting research into biology, brain and cognitive sciences, genomics, biotechnology, and cancer research; and a number of new “backlot” buildings on Vassar Street including the Stata Center. Construction on campus in the 2000s included expansions of the Media Lab, the Sloan School’s eastern campus, and graduate residences in the northwest. In 2006, President Hockfield launched the MIT Energy Research Council to investigate the interdisciplinary challenges posed by increasing global energy consumption.

In 2001, inspired by the open source and open access movements, The Massachusetts Institute of Technology launched “OpenCourseWare” to make the lecture notes, problem sets, syllabi, exams, and lectures from the great majority of its courses available online for no charge, though without any formal accreditation for coursework completed. While the cost of supporting and hosting the project is high, OCW expanded in 2005 to include other universities as a part of the OpenCourseWare Consortium, which currently includes more than 250 academic institutions with content available in at least six languages. In 2011, The Massachusetts Institute of Technology announced it would offer formal certification (but not credits or degrees) to online participants completing coursework in its “MITx” program, for a modest fee. The “edX” online platform supporting MITx was initially developed in partnership with Harvard and its analogous “Harvardx” initiative. The courseware platform is open source, and other universities have already joined and added their own course content. In March 2009 the Massachusetts Institute of Technology faculty adopted an open-access policy to make its scholarship publicly accessible online.

The Massachusetts Institute of Technology has its own police force. Three days after the Boston Marathon bombing of April 2013, MIT Police patrol officer Sean Collier was fatally shot by the suspects Dzhokhar and Tamerlan Tsarnaev, setting off a violent manhunt that shut down the campus and much of the Boston metropolitan area for a day. One week later, Collier’s memorial service was attended by more than 10,000 people, in a ceremony hosted by the Massachusetts Institute of Technology community with thousands of police officers from the New England region and Canada. On November 25, 2013, The Massachusetts Institute of Technology announced the creation of the Collier Medal, to be awarded annually to “an individual or group that embodies the character and qualities that Officer Collier exhibited as a member of The Massachusetts Institute of Technology community and in all aspects of his life”. The announcement further stated that “Future recipients of the award will include those whose contributions exceed the boundaries of their profession, those who have contributed to building bridges across the community, and those who consistently and selflessly perform acts of kindness”.

In September 2017, the school announced the creation of an artificial intelligence research lab called the MIT-IBM Watson AI Lab. IBM will spend $240 million over the next decade, and the lab will be staffed by MIT and IBM scientists. In October 2018 MIT announced that it would open a new Schwarzman College of Computing dedicated to the study of artificial intelligence, named after lead donor and The Blackstone Group CEO Stephen Schwarzman. The focus of the new college is to study not just AI, but interdisciplinary AI education, and how AI can be used in fields as diverse as history and biology. The cost of buildings and new faculty for the new college is expected to be $1 billion upon completion.

The Caltech/MIT Advanced aLIGO was designed and constructed by a team of scientists from California Institute of Technology , Massachusetts Institute of Technology, and industrial contractors, and funded by the National Science Foundation .

Caltech /MIT Advanced aLigo

It was designed to open the field of gravitational-wave astronomy through the detection of gravitational waves predicted by general relativity. Gravitational waves were detected for the first time by the LIGO detector in 2015. For contributions to the LIGO detector and the observation of gravitational waves, two Caltech physicists, Kip Thorne and Barry Barish, and Massachusetts Institute of Technology physicist Rainer Weiss won the Nobel Prize in physics in 2017. Weiss, who is also a Massachusetts Institute of Technology graduate, designed the laser interferometric technique, which served as the essential blueprint for the LIGO.

The mission of The Massachusetts Institute of Technology is to advance knowledge and educate students in science, technology, and other areas of scholarship that will best serve the nation and the world in the twenty-first century. We seek to develop in each member of The Massachusetts Institute of Technology community the ability and passion to work wisely, creatively, and effectively for the betterment of humankind.

From The DOE’s Brookhaven National Laboratory: “DOE Funds Pilot Study Focused on Biosecurity for Bioenergy Crops”

From The DOE’s Brookhaven National Laboratory

10.6.22

Karen McNulty Walsh
kmcnulty@bnl.gov
(631) 344-8350

Peter Genzer
genzer@bnl.gov
(631) 344-3174

Research into threats from pathogens and pests would speed short-term response and spark long-term mitigation strategies.

Pilot study on an important disease in sorghum (above) will develop understanding of threats to bioenergy crops, potentially speeding the development of short-term responses and long-term mitigation strategies. (Credit: U.S. Department of Energy Genomic Science program)

The U.S. Department of Energy’s (DOE) Office of Science has selected Brookhaven National Laboratory to lead a new research effort focused on potential threats to crops grown for bioenergy production. Understanding how such bioenergy crops could be harmed by known or new pests or pathogens could help speed the development of rapid responses to mitigate damage and longer-term strategies for preventing such harm. The pilot project could evolve into a broader basic science capability to help ensure the development of resilient and sustainable bioenergy crops as part of a transition to a net-zero carbon economy.

The idea is modeled on the way DOE’s National Virtual Biotechnology Laboratory (NVBL) pooled basic science capabilities to address the COVID-19 pandemic. With $5 Million in initial funding, allocated over the next two years, Brookhaven Lab and its partners will develop a coordinated approach for addressing biosecurity challenges. This pilot study will lead to a roadmap for building out a DOE-wide capability known as the National Virtual Biosecurity for Bioenergy Crops Center (NVBBCC).

“A robust biosecurity capability optimized to respond rapidly to biological threats to bioenergy crops requires an integrated and versatile platform,” said Martin Schoonen, Brookhaven Lab’s Associate Laboratory Director for Environment, Biology, Nuclear Science & Nonproliferation, who will serve as principal investigator for the pilot project. “With this initial funding, we’ll develop a bio-preparedness platform for sampling and detecting threats, predicting how they might propagate, and understanding how pests or pathogens interact with bioenergy crops at the molecular level—all of which are essential for developing short-term control measures and long-term solutions.”

The team will invest in new research tools—including experimental equipment and an integrating computing environment for data sharing, data analysis, and predictive modeling. Experiments on an important disease of energy sorghum, a leading target for bioengineering as an oil-producing crop, will serve as a model to help the team establish optimized protocols for studying plant-pathogen interactions.

In addition, a series of workshops will bring together experts from a range of perspectives and institutions to identify partnerships within and outside DOE, as well as any future investments needed, to establish the full capabilities of an end-to-end biosecurity platform.

“NVBBCC is envisioned to be a distributed, virtual center with multiple DOE-labs at its core to maximize the use of unique facilities and expertise across the DOE complex,” Schoonen said. “The center will support plant pathology research driven by the interests of the bioenergy crop community, as well as broader plant biology research that could impact crop health.”

Building the platform

The pilot study experiments and workshops will be organized around four main themes: detection and sampling, biomolecular characterization, assessment, and mitigation.

In this initial phase, the research will focus on energy sorghum. This crop’s potential oil yield per acre far exceeds than that of soybeans, currently the world’s primary source of biodiesel.

“Sorghum is susceptible to a devastating fungal disease, caused by Colletotrichum sublineola, which can result in yield losses of up to 67 percent,” said John Shanklin, chair of Brookhaven Lab’s Biology Department and co-lead of the assessment theme. “Finding ways to thwart this pathogen is a high priority for the bioenergy crop community.”

The NVBBCC team will use a range of tools—including advanced remote-sensing technologies, COVID-19-like rapid test strips, and in-field sampling—to detect C. sublineola. Additional experiments will assess airborne propagation of fungal spores, drawing on Brookhaven Lab’s expertise in modeling the dispersal of aerosol particles.

The team will also use state-of-the-art biomolecular characterization tools—including cryo-electron microscopes in Brookhaven’s Laboratory for BioMolecular Structure (LBMS) and x-ray crystallography beamlines at the National Synchrotron Light Source-II (NSLS-II)—to explore details of how pathogen proteins and plant proteins interact. In addition, they’ll add a new tool—a cryogenic-focused ion beam—to produce samples for high-resolution three-dimensional cellular imaging and other advanced imaging modalities.

Together, these experiments will reveal mechanistic details that provide insight into how plants respond to infections, including how some strains of sorghum develop resistance to C. sublineola. The team will also draw on extensive information about the genetic makeup of sorghum and C. sublineola to identify factors that control expression of the various plant and pathogen proteins.

The program will be supported by an integrating computing infrastructure with access to sophisticated computational tools across the DOE complex and at partner institutions, enabling integrated data analysis and collaboration using community data standards and tools. The infrastructure will also provide capabilities to develop, train, and verify new analytical and predictive computer models, including novel artificial intelligence (AI) solutions.

“NVBBCC will build on the Johns Hopkins University-developed SciServer environment, which has been used successfully in large data-sharing and analysis projects in cosmology and soil ecology,” said Kerstin Kleese van Dam, head of Brookhaven Lab’s Computational Science Initiative. “NVBBCC’s computational infrastructure will allow members to easily coordinate research across different domains and sites, accelerating discovery and response times through integrated knowledge sharing.”

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Brookhaven Campus

One of ten national laboratories overseen and primarily funded by the The DOE Office of Science, The DOE’s Brookhaven National Laboratory conducts research in the physical, biomedical, and environmental sciences, as well as in energy technologies and national security. Brookhaven Lab also builds and operates major scientific facilities available to university, industry and government researchers. The Laboratory’s almost 3,000 scientists, engineers, and support staff are joined each year by more than 5,000 visiting researchers from around the world. Brookhaven is operated and managed for DOE’s Office of Science by Brookhaven Science Associates, a limited-liability company founded by Stony Brook University the largest academic user of Laboratory facilities, and Battelle, a nonprofit, applied science and technology organization.

Research at BNL specializes in nuclear and high energy physics, energy science and technology, environmental and bioscience, nanoscience and national security. The 5300 acre campus contains several large research facilities, including the Relativistic Heavy Ion Collider [below] and National Synchrotron Light Source II [below]. Seven Nobel prizes have been awarded for work conducted at Brookhaven lab.

BNL is staffed by approximately 2,750 scientists, engineers, technicians, and support personnel, and hosts 4,000 guest investigators every year. The laboratory has its own police station, fire department, and ZIP code (11973). In total, the lab spans a 5,265-acre (21 km^2) area that is mostly coterminous with the hamlet of Upton, New York. BNL is served by a rail spur operated as-needed by the New York and Atlantic Railway. Co-located with the laboratory is the Upton, New York, forecast office of the National Weather Service.

Major programs

Although originally conceived as a nuclear research facility, Brookhaven Lab’s mission has greatly expanded. Its foci are now:

Nuclear and high-energy physics
Physics and chemistry of materials
Environmental and climate research
Nanomaterials
Energy research
Nonproliferation
Structural biology
Accelerator physics

Operation

Brookhaven National Lab was originally owned by the Atomic Energy Commission and is now owned by that agency’s successor, the United States Department of Energy (DOE). DOE subcontracts the research and operation to universities and research organizations. It is currently operated by Brookhaven Science Associates LLC, which is an equal partnership of Stony Brook University and Battelle Memorial Institute. From 1947 to 1998, it was operated by Associated Universities, Inc. (AUI), but AUI lost its contract in the wake of two incidents: a 1994 fire at the facility’s high-beam flux reactor that exposed several workers to radiation and reports in 1997 of a tritium leak into the groundwater of the Long Island Central Pine Barrens on which the facility sits.

Foundations

Following World War II, the US Atomic Energy Commission was created to support government-sponsored peacetime research on atomic energy. The effort to build a nuclear reactor in the American northeast was fostered largely by physicists Isidor Isaac Rabi and Norman Foster Ramsey Jr., who during the war witnessed many of their colleagues at Columbia University leave for new remote research sites following the departure of the Manhattan Project from its campus. Their effort to house this reactor near New York City was rivalled by a similar effort at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology to have a facility near Boston, Massachusetts. Involvement was quickly solicited from representatives of northeastern universities to the south and west of New York City such that this city would be at their geographic center. In March 1946 a nonprofit corporation was established that consisted of representatives from nine major research universities — Columbia University, Cornell University, Harvard University, Johns Hopkins University, Massachusetts Institute of Technology, Princeton University, University of Pennsylvania, University of Rochester, and Yale University.

Out of 17 considered sites in the Boston-Washington corridor, Camp Upton on Long Island was eventually chosen as the most suitable in consideration of space, transportation, and availability. The camp had been a training center from the US Army during both World War I and World War II. After the latter war, Camp Upton was deemed no longer necessary and became available for reuse. A plan was conceived to convert the military camp into a research facility.

On March 21, 1947, the Camp Upton site was officially transferred from the U.S. War Department to the new U.S. Atomic Energy Commission (AEC), predecessor to the U.S. Department of Energy (DOE).

Research and facilities

Reactor history

In 1947 construction began on the first nuclear reactor at Brookhaven, the Brookhaven Graphite Research Reactor. This reactor, which opened in 1950, was the first reactor to be constructed in the United States after World War II. The High Flux Beam Reactor operated from 1965 to 1999. In 1959 Brookhaven built the first US reactor specifically tailored to medical research, the Brookhaven Medical Research Reactor, which operated until 2000.

Accelerator history

In 1952 Brookhaven began using its first particle accelerator, the Cosmotron. At the time the Cosmotron was the world’s highest energy accelerator, being the first to impart more than 1 GeV of energy to a particle.

BNL Cosmotron 1952-1966.

The Cosmotron was retired in 1966, after it was superseded in 1960 by the new Alternating Gradient Synchrotron (AGS).

BNL Alternating Gradient Synchrotron (AGS).

The AGS was used in research that resulted in 3 Nobel prizes, including the discovery of the muon neutrino, the charm quark, and CP violation.

In 1970 in BNL started the ISABELLE project to develop and build two proton intersecting storage rings.

The groundbreaking for the project was in October 1978. In 1981, with the tunnel for the accelerator already excavated, problems with the superconducting magnets needed for the ISABELLE accelerator brought the project to a halt, and the project was eventually cancelled in 1983.

The National Synchrotron Light Source operated from 1982 to 2014 and was involved with two Nobel Prize-winning discoveries. It has since been replaced by the National Synchrotron Light Source II. [below].

BNL National Synchrotron Light Source.

After ISABELLE’S cancellation, physicist at BNL proposed that the excavated tunnel and parts of the magnet assembly be used in another accelerator. In 1984 the first proposal for the accelerator now known as the Relativistic Heavy Ion Collider (RHIC)[below] was put forward. The construction got funded in 1991 and RHIC has been operational since 2000. One of the world’s only two operating heavy-ion colliders, RHIC is as of 2010 the second-highest-energy collider after the Large Hadron Collider (CH). RHIC is housed in a tunnel 2.4 miles (3.9 km) long and is visible from space.

On January 9, 2020, it was announced by Paul Dabbar, undersecretary of the US Department of Energy Office of Science, that the BNL eRHIC design has been selected over the conceptual design put forward by DOE’s Thomas Jefferson National Accelerator Facility [Jlab] as the future Electron–ion collider (EIC) in the United States.

Electron-Ion Collider (EIC) at DOE’s Brookhaven National Laboratory to be built inside the tunnel that currently houses the Relativistic Heavy Ion Collider [RHIC].

In addition to the site selection, it was announced that the BNL EIC had acquired CD-0 from the Department of Energy. BNL’s eRHIC design proposes upgrading the existing Relativistic Heavy Ion Collider, which collides beams light to heavy ions including polarized protons, with a polarized electron facility, to be housed in the same tunnel.

Other discoveries

In 1958, Brookhaven scientists created one of the world’s first video games, Tennis for Two. In 1968 Brookhaven scientists patented Maglev, a transportation technology that utilizes magnetic levitation.

Major facilities

Relativistic Heavy Ion Collider (RHIC), which was designed to research quark–gluon plasma and the sources of proton spin. Until 2009 it was the world’s most powerful heavy ion collider. It is the only collider of spin-polarized protons.

Center for Functional Nanomaterials (CFN), used for the study of nanoscale materials.

BNL National Synchrotron Light Source II, Brookhaven’s newest user facility, opened in 2015 to replace the National Synchrotron Light Source (NSLS), which had operated for 30 years. NSLS was involved in the work that won the 2003 and 2009 Nobel Prize in Chemistry.

Alternating Gradient Synchrotron, a particle accelerator that was used in three of the lab’s Nobel prizes.
Accelerator Test Facility, generates, accelerates and monitors particle beams.
Tandem Van de Graaff, once the world’s largest electrostatic accelerator.

Computational Science resources, including access to a massively parallel Blue Gene series supercomputer that is among the fastest in the world for scientific research, run jointly by Brookhaven National Laboratory and Stony Brook University-SUNY.

Interdisciplinary Science Building, with unique laboratories for studying high-temperature superconductors and other materials important for addressing energy challenges.
NASA Space Radiation Laboratory, where scientists use beams of ions to simulate cosmic rays and assess the risks of space radiation to human space travelers and equipment.

Off-site contributions

It is a contributing partner to the ATLAS experiment, one of the four detectors located at the The European Organization for Nuclear Research [La Organización Europea para la Investigación Nuclear][Organization européenne pour la recherche nucléaire] [Europäische Organization für Kernforschung](CH)[CERN] Large Hadron Collider(LHC).

The European Organization for Nuclear Research [La Organización Europea para la Investigación Nuclear][Organization européenne pour la recherche nucléaire] [Europäische Organization für Kernforschung](CH)[CERN] map.

Iconic view of the European Organization for Nuclear Research [La Organización Europea para la Investigación Nuclear] [Organization européenne pour la recherche nucléaire] [Europäische Organization für Kernforschung](CH) [CERN] ATLAS detector.

It is currently operating at The European Organization for Nuclear Research [La Organización Europea para la Investigación Nuclear][Organization européenne pour la recherche nucléaire] [Europäische Organization für Kernforschung](CH) [CERN] near Geneva, Switzerland.

Brookhaven was also responsible for the design of the Spallation Neutron Source at DOE’s Oak Ridge National Laboratory, Tennessee.

DOE’s Oak Ridge National Laboratory Spallation Neutron Source annotated.

Brookhaven plays a role in a range of neutrino research projects around the world, including the Daya Bay Neutrino Experiment (CN) nuclear power plant, approximately 52 kilometers northeast of Hong Kong and 45 kilometers east of Shenzhen, China.

Daya Bay Neutrino Experiment (CN) nuclear power plant, approximately 52 kilometers northeast of Hong Kong and 45 kilometers east of Shenzhen, China .

DOE’s Fermi National Accelerator Laboratory DUNE LBNF from FNAL to Sanford Underground Research Facility, Lead, South Dakota.

BNL Center for Functional Nanomaterials.

BNL National Synchrotron Light Source II.

BNL NSLS II.

BNL Relative Heavy Ion Collider Campus.

BNL RHIC’s newly enhanced STAR detector.

BNL/RHIC Phenix detector.

Brookhaven sPhenix Assembly

BNL RHIC Schematic view of the proposed sPHENIX detector.

BNL RHIC inner hadronic calorimeter being installed in the sPHENIX Detector.

From The European Space Agency [La Agencia Espacial Europea] [Agence spatiale européenne] [Europäische Weltraumorganization](EU): “Satellites detect methane plume in Nord Stream leak”

European Space Agency – United Space in Europe (EU)

From The European Space Agency [La Agencia Espacial Europea] [Agence spatiale européenne] [Europäische Weltraumorganization](EU)

10.6.22

Nord Stream leak as captured by Pléiades Neo.

Pléiades Neo. Airbus

Following unusual seismic disturbances in the Baltic Sea, several leaks were discovered last week in the underwater Nord Stream 1 and 2 gas pipelines near Denmark and Sweden. Neither pipeline was transporting gas at the time of the blasts, but they still contained pressurised methane – the main component of natural gas – which spewed out producing a wide stream of bubbles on the sea surface.

With the unexplained gas release posing a serious question about the incident’s environmental impact, a suite of complementary Earth observation satellites carrying optical and radar imaging instruments were called upon to characterize the gas leak bubbling in the Baltic.

Although methane partly dissolves in water, released later as carbon dioxide, it is not toxic, but it is the second most abundant anthropogenic greenhouse gas in our atmosphere causing climate change.

As the pressurized gas leaked through the broken pipe and travelled rapidly towards the sea surface, the size of the gas bubbles increased as the pressure reduced. On reaching the surface, the large gas bubbles disrupted the sea surface above the location of the pipeline rupture. The signature of the gas bubbling at the sea surface can be seen from space in several ways.

Owing to the persistent cloud cover over the area, image acquisitions from optical satellites proved extremely difficult. High-resolution images captured by Pléiades Neo and Planet, both part of ESA’s Third Party Mission Programme, showed the disturbance ranging from 500 to 700 m across the sea surface.

Several days later, a significant reduction in the estimated diameter of the methane disturbance was witnessed as the pipelines’ gas emptied. Images captured by Copernicus Sentinel-2 and US Landsat 8 mission confirmed this.

ESA Copernicus Sentinel-2.

NASA USGS Landsat 8.

As disturbances such as these cause a ‘roughening’ of the sea surface, this increases the backscatter observed by Synthetic Aperture Radar (SAR) instruments, which are extremely sensitive to changes in the sea surface at such a scale. These include instruments onboard the Copernicus Sentinel-1 and ICEYE constellation – the first New Space company to join the Copernicus Contributing Missions fleet.

The European Space Agency [La Agencia Espacial Europea] [Agence spatiale européenne][Europäische Weltraumorganization](EU) Copernicus Sentinel-1B radar satellite.

ESA ICEYE (FI) satellite

ESA’s Scientist for Ocean and Ice, Craig Donlon, said, “The power of active microwave radar instruments is that they can monitor the ocean surface signatures of bubbling methane through clouds over a wide swath and at a high spatial resolution overcoming one of the major limitations to optical instruments. This allows for a more complete picture of the disaster and its associated event-timing to be established.”

One of the ruptures occurred southeast of the Danish Island of Bornholm. Images from Sentinel-1 on 24 September showed no disturbance to the water. However, an ICEYE satellite passing over the area on the evening of 28 September acquired an image showing a disturbance to the sea surface above the rupture.

ICEYE image from 28 September.

What about the methane released?

Although optical satellites can provide us with the radius of the methane bubbling over water, they provide little information on how much methane has been released into the atmosphere.

Monitoring methane over water is extremely difficult as water absorbs most of the sunlight in the shortwave infrared wavelengths used for methane remote sensing. This limits the amount of light reaching the sensor, thus making it extremely difficult to measure methane concentrations over the sea at high latitudes.

Gas leak detected by GHGSat satellite.

GHGSat satellite.

GHGSat, a leader in methane emissions monitoring from space and also part of ESA’s Third Party Mission Programme, tasked its satellites to measure the Nord Stream 2 gas pipeline leak with its constellation of high-resolution (around 25 m) satellites. By tasking its satellites to obtain measurements at larger viewing angles, GHGSat were able to target the area where the sun’s light reflected the strongest off the sea surface – known as the ‘glint spot’.

On 30 September, the estimated emission rate derived from its first methane concentration measurement was 79 000 kg per hour – making it the largest methane leak ever detected by GHGSat from a single point-source. This rate is extremely high, especially considering its four days following the initial breach, and this is only one of four rupture points in the pipeline.

GHGSat Director for Europe, Adina Gillespie, said, “Predictably, the media and the world have turned to space to understand the scale of the Nord Stream industrial disaster. While we await further investigation on the cause, GHGSat responded quickly, measuring 79 000 kg per hour of methane coming from the leaks. We will continue tasking GHGSat satellites for the Nord Stream sites until we no longer detect emissions.”

Claus Zehner, Copernicus Sentinel-5P, Altius and Flex Missions Manager, mentions: “Besides GHGSat, the Copernicus Sentinel-2 satellite provided methane concentration measurements emitted by this pipeline leak which highlights the feasibility to use both public funded and commercial satellites in a synergistic way.”

Gas leak detected by Copernicus Sentinel-2.

Environmental impact

Although closed at the time, the two Nord Stream stems contained enough gas to release 300 000 tonnes of methane – more than twice the amount released by the Aliso Canyon leak in California over several months in 2015-16.

As large as it may be, the Nord Stream release pales in comparison with the 80 million tonnes emitted each year by the oil and gas industry. The latest release is roughly equivalent to one and a half days of global methane emissions.

Methane observations from the Sentinel-5P satellite can observe regions with enhanced methane concentrations from strong point sources all over the world.

The European Space Agency [La Agencia Espacial Europea][Agence spatiale européenn] [Europäische Weltraumorganization] (EU) Copernicus Sentinel-5P.

Satellite observations are a powerful tool for improving estimates of emission strength, seeing how they change over time and can also help detect previously unknown emission sources.

Looking ahead, the upcoming atmospheric Copernicus Anthropogenic Carbon Dioxide Monitoring mission (CO2M) will carry a near-infrared spectrometer to measure atmospheric carbon dioxide, but also methane, at a good spatial resolution. This mission will provide the EU with a unique and independent source of information to assess the effectiveness of policy measures, and to track their impact towards decarbonizing Europe and meeting national emission reduction targets.

Yasjka Meijer, ESA’s Scientist for Copernicus Atmospheric Missions, commented, “The CO2M Mission will provide global coverage and has a special mode above water to increase observed radiances by looking toward the sunglint spot, however it will be equally limited by clouds.”

See the full article here .

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Stem Education Coalition

The European Space Agency [La Agencia Espacial Europea] [Agence spatiale européenne][Europäische Weltraumorganization](EU), established in 1975, is an intergovernmental organization dedicated to the exploration of space, currently with 19 member states. Headquartered in Paris, ESA has a staff of more than 2,000. ESA’s space flight program includes human spaceflight, mainly through the participation in the International Space Station program, the launch and operations of unmanned exploration missions to other planets and the Moon, Earth observation, science, telecommunication as well as maintaining a major spaceport, the Guiana Space Centre at Kourou, French Guiana, and designing launch vehicles. ESA science missions are based at ESTEC (NL) in Noordwijk, Netherlands, Earth Observation missions at ESRIN in Frascati, Italy, ESA Mission Control (ESOC) is in Darmstadt, Germany, the European Astronaut Centre (EAC) that trains astronauts for future missions is situated in Cologne, Germany, and the
European Space Astronomy Centre is located in Villanueva de la Cañada, Spain.

The European Space Agency [La Agencia Espacial Europea] [Agence spatiale européenne][Europäische Weltraumorganization](EU) Estec, situated in Noordwijk, South Holland, in the western Netherlands.

ESA’s space flight programme includes human spaceflight (mainly through participation in the International Space Station program); the launch and operation of uncrewed exploration missions to other planets and the Moon; Earth observation, science and telecommunication; designing launch vehicles; and maintaining a major spaceport, the The Guiana Space Centre [Centre Spatial Guyanais; CSG also called Europe’s Spaceport) at Kourou, French Guiana. The main European launch vehicle Ariane 5 is operated through Arianespace with ESA sharing in the costs of launching and further developing this launch vehicle. The agency is also working with The National Aeronautics and Space Agency to manufacture the Orion Spacecraft service module that will fly on the Space Launch System.

The agency’s facilities are distributed among the following centres:

ESA European Space Research and Technology Centre (ESTEC) (NL) in Noordwijk, Netherlands;
ESA Centre for Earth Observation [ESRIN] (IT) in Frascati, Italy;
ESA Mission Control ESA European Space Operations Center [ESOC](DE) is in Darmstadt, Germany;
ESA -European Astronaut Centre [EAC] trains astronauts for future missions is situated in Cologne, Germany;
European Centre for Space Applications and Telecommunications (ECSAT) (UK), a research institute created in 2009, is located in Harwell, England;
ESA – European Space Astronomy Centre [ESAC] (ES) is located in Villanueva de la Cañada, Madrid, Spain.
European Space Agency Science Programme is a long-term programme of space science and space exploration missions.

Foundation

After World War II, many European scientists left Western Europe in order to work with the United States. Although the 1950s boom made it possible for Western European countries to invest in research and specifically in space-related activities, Western European scientists realized solely national projects would not be able to compete with the two main superpowers. In 1958, only months after the Sputnik shock, Edoardo Amaldi (Italy) and Pierre Auger (France), two prominent members of the Western European scientific community, met to discuss the foundation of a common Western European space agency. The meeting was attended by scientific representatives from eight countries, including Harrie Massey (United Kingdom).

The Western European nations decided to have two agencies: one concerned with developing a launch system, ELDO (European Launch Development Organization) , and the other the precursor of the European Space Agency, ESRO (European Space Research Organization) . The latter was established on 20 March 1964 by an agreement signed on 14 June 1962. From 1968 to 1972, ESRO launched seven research satellites.

ESA in its current form was founded with the ESA Convention in 1975, when ESRO was merged with ELDO. ESA had ten founding member states: Belgium, Denmark, France, West Germany, Italy, the Netherlands, Spain, Sweden, Switzerland, and the United Kingdom. These signed the ESA Convention in 1975 and deposited the instruments of ratification by 1980, when the convention came into force. During this interval the agency functioned in a de facto fashion. ESA launched its first major scientific mission in 1975, Cos-B, a space probe monitoring gamma-ray emissions in the universe, which was first worked on by ESRO.

Later activities

European Space Agency [La Agencia Espacial Europea] [Agence spatiale européenne][Europäische Weltraumorganization](EU) Swarm constellation

European Space Agency [La Agencia Espacial Europea] [Agence spatiale européenne][Europäische Weltraumorganization](EU) Swarm constellation

ESA’s Laser Ranging Station in Tenerife (ES)

ESA collaborated with National Aeronautics Space Agency on the International Ultraviolet Explorer (IUE), the world’s first high-orbit telescope, which was launched in 1978 and operated successfully for 18 years.

ESA Infrared Space Observatory.

European Space Agency [La Agencia Espacial Europea][Agence spatiale européenne][Europäische Weltraumorganization](EU)/National Aeronautics and Space AdministrationSolar Orbiter.

European Space Agency [La Agencia Espacial Europea] [Agence spatiale européenne][Europäische Weltraumorganization](EU)/National Aeronautics and Space Administration Solar Orbiter annotated.

Pléiades Neo. Airbus

A number of successful Earth-orbit projects followed, and in 1986 ESA began Giotto, its first deep-space mission, to study the comets Halley and Grigg–Skjellerup. Hipparcos, a star-mapping mission, was launched in 1989 and in the 1990s SOHO, Ulysses and the Hubble Space Telescope were all jointly carried out with NASA. Later scientific missions in cooperation with NASA include the Cassini–Huygens space probe, to which ESA contributed by building the Titan landing module Huygens.

ESA/Huygens Probe from Cassini landed on Titan.

As the successor of ELDO, ESA has also constructed rockets for scientific and commercial payloads. Ariane 1, launched in 1979, carried mostly commercial payloads into orbit from 1984 onward. The next two versions of the Ariane rocket were intermediate stages in the development of a more advanced launch system, the Ariane 4, which operated between 1988 and 2003 and established ESA as the world leader in commercial space launches in the 1990s. Although the succeeding Ariane 5 experienced a failure on its first flight, it has since firmly established itself within the heavily competitive commercial space launch market with 82 successful launches until 2018. The successor launch vehicle of Ariane 5, the Ariane 6, is under development and is envisioned to enter service in the 2020s.

The beginning of the new millennium saw ESA become, along with agencies like National Aeronautics Space Agency, Japan Aerospace Exploration Agency (JP), Indian Space Research Organization (IN), the Canadian Space Agency(CA) and Roscosmos (RU), one of the major participants in scientific space research. Although ESA had relied on co-operation with NASA in previous decades, especially the 1990s, changed circumstances (such as tough legal restrictions on information sharing by the United States military) led to decisions to rely more on itself and on co-operation with Russia. A 2011 press issue thus stated:

“Russia is ESA’s first partner in its efforts to ensure long-term access to space. There is a framework agreement between ESA and the government of the Russian Federation on cooperation and partnership in the exploration and use of outer space for peaceful purposes, and cooperation is already underway in two different areas of launcher activity that will bring benefits to both partners.”

Notable ESA programs include SMART-1, a probe testing cutting-edge space propulsion technology, the Mars Express and Venus Express missions, as well as the development of the Ariane 5 rocket and its role in the ISS partnership. ESA maintains its scientific and research projects mainly for astronomy-space missions such as Corot, launched on 27 December 2006, a milestone in the search for exoplanets.

On 21 January 2019, ArianeGroup and Arianespace announced a one-year contract with ESA to study and prepare for a mission to mine the Moon for lunar regolith.

Mission

The treaty establishing the European Space Agency reads:

The purpose of the Agency shall be to provide for and to promote, for exclusively peaceful purposes, cooperation among European States in space research and technology and their space applications, with a view to their being used for scientific purposes and for operational space applications systems…

ESA is responsible for setting a unified space and related industrial policy, recommending space objectives to the member states, and integrating national programs like satellite development, into the European program as much as possible.

Jean-Jacques Dordain – ESA’s Director General (2003–2015) – outlined the European Space Agency’s mission in a 2003 interview:

“Today space activities have pursued the benefit of citizens, and citizens are asking for a better quality of life on Earth. They want greater security and economic wealth, but they also want to pursue their dreams, to increase their knowledge, and they want younger people to be attracted to the pursuit of science and technology. I think that space can do all of this: it can produce a higher quality of life, better security, more economic wealth, and also fulfill our citizens’ dreams and thirst for knowledge, and attract the young generation. This is the reason space exploration is an integral part of overall space activities. It has always been so, and it will be even more important in the future.”

Activities

According to the ESA website, the activities are:

Observing the Earth
Human Spaceflight
Launchers
Navigation
Space Science
Space Engineering & Technology
Operations
Telecommunications & Integrated Applications
Preparing for the Future
Space for Climate

Programs

Copernicus Programme
Cosmic Vision
ExoMars
FAST20XX
Galileo
Horizon 2000
Living Planet Programme
Mandatory

Every member country must contribute to these programs:

Technology Development Element Program
Science Core Technology Program
General Study Program
European Component Initiative

Optional

Depending on their individual choices the countries can contribute to the following programs, listed according to:

Launchers
Earth Observation
Human Spaceflight and Exploration
Telecommunications
Navigation
Space Situational Awareness
Technology

ESA_LAB@

ESA has formed partnerships with universities. ESA_LAB@ refers to research laboratories at universities. Currently there are ESA_LAB@

Technische Universität Darmstadt (DE)
École des hautes études commerciales de Paris (HEC Paris) (FR)
Université de recherche Paris Sciences et Lettres (FR)
The University of Central Lancashire (UK)

Membership and contribution to ESA

By 2015, ESA was an intergovernmental organization of 22 member states. Member states participate to varying degrees in the mandatory (25% of total expenditures in 2008) and optional space programs (75% of total expenditures in 2008). The 2008 budget amounted to €3.0 billion whilst the 2009 budget amounted to €3.6 billion. The total budget amounted to about €3.7 billion in 2010, €3.99 billion in 2011, €4.02 billion in 2012, €4.28 billion in 2013, €4.10 billion in 2014 and €4.33 billion in 2015. English is the main language within ESA. Additionally, official documents are also provided in German and documents regarding the Spacelab are also provided in Italian. If found appropriate, the agency may conduct its correspondence in any language of a member state.

Non-full member states
Slovenia
Since 2016, Slovenia has been an associated member of the ESA.

Latvia
Latvia became the second current associated member on 30 June 2020, when the Association Agreement was signed by ESA Director Jan Wörner and the Minister of Education and Science of Latvia, Ilga Šuplinska in Riga. The Saeima ratified it on July 27. Previously associated members were Austria, Norway and Finland, all of which later joined ESA as full members.

Canada
Since 1 January 1979, Canada has had the special status of a Cooperating State within ESA. By virtue of this accord, The Canadian Space Agency [Agence spatiale canadienne, ASC] (CA) takes part in ESA’s deliberative bodies and decision-making and also in ESA’s programs and activities. Canadian firms can bid for and receive contracts to work on programs. The accord has a provision ensuring a fair industrial return to Canada. The most recent Cooperation Agreement was signed on 15 December 2010 with a term extending to 2020. For 2014, Canada’s annual assessed contribution to the ESA general budget was €6,059,449 (CAD$8,559,050). For 2017, Canada has increased its annual contribution to €21,600,000 (CAD$30,000,000).

Enlargement

After the decision of the ESA Council of 21/22 March 2001, the procedure for accession of the European states was detailed as described the document titled The Plan for European Co-operating States (PECS). Nations that want to become a full member of ESA do so in 3 stages. First a Cooperation Agreement is signed between the country and ESA. In this stage, the country has very limited financial responsibilities. If a country wants to co-operate more fully with ESA, it signs a European Cooperating State (ECS) Agreement. The ECS Agreement makes companies based in the country eligible for participation in ESA procurements. The country can also participate in all ESA programs, except for the Basic Technology Research Programme. While the financial contribution of the country concerned increases, it is still much lower than that of a full member state. The agreement is normally followed by a Plan For European Cooperating State (or PECS Charter). This is a 5-year programme of basic research and development activities aimed at improving the nation’s space industry capacity. At the end of the 5-year period, the country can either begin negotiations to become a full member state or an associated state or sign a new PECS Charter.

During the Ministerial Meeting in December 2014, ESA ministers approved a resolution calling for discussions to begin with Israel, Australia and South Africa on future association agreements. The ministers noted that “concrete cooperation is at an advanced stage” with these nations and that “prospects for mutual benefits are existing”.

A separate space exploration strategy resolution calls for further co-operation with the United States, Russia and China on “LEO” exploration, including a continuation of ISS cooperation and the development of a robust plan for the coordinated use of space transportation vehicles and systems for exploration purposes, participation in robotic missions for the exploration of the Moon, the robotic exploration of Mars, leading to a broad Mars Sample Return mission in which Europe should be involved as a full partner, and human missions beyond LEO in the longer term.”

Relationship with the European Union

The political perspective of the European Union (EU) was to make ESA an agency of the EU by 2014, although this date was not met. The EU member states provide most of ESA’s funding, and they are all either full ESA members or observers.

History

At the time ESA was formed, its main goals did not encompass human space flight; rather it considered itself to be primarily a scientific research organization for uncrewed space exploration in contrast to its American and Soviet counterparts. It is therefore not surprising that the first non-Soviet European in space was not an ESA astronaut on a European space craft; it was Czechoslovak Vladimír Remek who in 1978 became the first non-Soviet or American in space (the first man in space being Yuri Gagarin of the Soviet Union) – on a Soviet Soyuz spacecraft, followed by the Pole Mirosław Hermaszewski and East German Sigmund Jähn in the same year. This Soviet co-operation programme, known as Intercosmos, primarily involved the participation of Eastern bloc countries. In 1982, however, Jean-Loup Chrétien became the first non-Communist Bloc astronaut on a flight to the Soviet Salyut 7 space station.

Because Chrétien did not officially fly into space as an ESA astronaut, but rather as a member of the French CNES astronaut corps, the German Ulf Merbold is considered the first ESA astronaut to fly into space. He participated in the STS-9 Space Shuttle mission that included the first use of the European-built Spacelab in 1983. STS-9 marked the beginning of an extensive ESA/NASA joint partnership that included dozens of space flights of ESA astronauts in the following years. Some of these missions with Spacelab were fully funded and organizationally and scientifically controlled by ESA (such as two missions by Germany and one by Japan) with European astronauts as full crew members rather than guests on board. Beside paying for Spacelab flights and seats on the shuttles, ESA continued its human space flight co-operation with the Soviet Union and later Russia, including numerous visits to Mir.

During the latter half of the 1980s, European human space flights changed from being the exception to routine and therefore, in 1990, the European Astronaut Centre in Cologne, Germany was established. It selects and trains prospective astronauts and is responsible for the co-ordination with international partners, especially with regard to the International Space Station. As of 2006, the ESA astronaut corps officially included twelve members, including nationals from most large European countries except the United Kingdom.

In the summer of 2008, ESA started to recruit new astronauts so that final selection would be due in spring 2009. Almost 10,000 people registered as astronaut candidates before registration ended in June 2008. 8,413 fulfilled the initial application criteria. Of the applicants, 918 were chosen to take part in the first stage of psychological testing, which narrowed down the field to 192. After two-stage psychological tests and medical evaluation in early 2009, as well as formal interviews, six new members of the European Astronaut Corps were selected – five men and one woman.

Cooperation with other countries and organizations

ESA has signed co-operation agreements with the following states that currently neither plan to integrate as tightly with ESA institutions as Canada, nor envision future membership of ESA: Argentina, Brazil, China, India (for the Chandrayan mission), Russia and Turkey.

Additionally, ESA has joint projects with the European Union, NASA of the United States and is participating in the International Space Station together with the United States (NASA), Russia and Japan (JAXA).

European Union
ESA and EU member states
ESA-only members
EU-only members

ESA is not an agency or body of the European Union (EU), and has non-EU countries (Norway, Switzerland, and the United Kingdom) as members. There are however ties between the two, with various agreements in place and being worked on, to define the legal status of ESA with regard to the EU.

There are common goals between ESA and the EU. ESA has an EU liaison office in Brussels. On certain projects, the EU and ESA co-operate, such as the upcoming Galileo satellite navigation system. Space policy has since December 2009 been an area for voting in the European Council. Under the European Space Policy of 2007, the EU, ESA and its Member States committed themselves to increasing co-ordination of their activities and programs and to organizing their respective roles relating to space.

The Lisbon Treaty of 2009 reinforces the case for space in Europe and strengthens the role of ESA as an R&D space agency. Article 189 of the Treaty gives the EU a mandate to elaborate a European space policy and take related measures, and provides that the EU should establish appropriate relations with ESA.

Former Italian astronaut Umberto Guidoni, during his tenure as a Member of the European Parliament from 2004 to 2009, stressed the importance of the European Union as a driving force for space exploration, “…since other players are coming up such as India and China it is becoming ever more important that Europeans can have an independent access to space. We have to invest more into space research and technology in order to have an industry capable of competing with other international players.”

The first EU-ESA International Conference on Human Space Exploration took place in Prague on 22 and 23 October 2009. A road map which would lead to a common vision and strategic planning in the area of space exploration was discussed. Ministers from all 29 EU and ESA members as well as members of parliament were in attendance.

National space organizations of member states:

The Centre National d’Études Spatiales(FR) (CNES) (National Centre for Space Study) is the French government space agency (administratively, a “public establishment of industrial and commercial character”). Its headquarters are in central Paris. CNES is the main participant on the Ariane project. Indeed, CNES designed and tested all Ariane family rockets (mainly from its centre in Évry near Paris)
The UK Space Agency is a partnership of the UK government departments which are active in space. Through the UK Space Agency, the partners provide delegates to represent the UK on the various ESA governing bodies. Each partner funds its own programme.
The Italian Space Agency A.S.I. – Agenzia Spaziale Italiana was founded in 1988 to promote, co-ordinate and conduct space activities in Italy. Operating under the Ministry of the Universities and of Scientific and Technological Research, the agency cooperates with numerous entities active in space technology and with the president of the Council of Ministers. Internationally, the ASI provides Italy’s delegation to the Council of the European Space Agency and to its subordinate bodies.
The German Aerospace Center (DLR)[Deutsches Zentrum für Luft- und Raumfahrt e. V.] is the national research centre for aviation and space flight of the Federal Republic of Germany and of other member states in the Helmholtz Association. Its extensive research and development projects are included in national and international cooperative programs. In addition to its research projects, the centre is the assigned space agency of Germany bestowing headquarters of German space flight activities and its associates.
The Instituto Nacional de Técnica Aeroespacial (INTA)(ES) (National Institute for Aerospace Technique) is a Public Research Organization specialized in aerospace research and technology development in Spain. Among other functions, it serves as a platform for space research and acts as a significant testing facility for the aeronautic and space sector in the country.

National Aeronautics Space Agency

ESA has a long history of collaboration with NASA. Since ESA’s astronaut corps was formed, the Space Shuttle has been the primary launch vehicle used by ESA’s astronauts to get into space through partnership programs with NASA. In the 1980s and 1990s, the Spacelab programme was an ESA-NASA joint research programme that had ESA develop and manufacture orbital labs for the Space Shuttle for several flights on which ESA participate with astronauts in experiments.

In robotic science mission and exploration missions, NASA has been ESA’s main partner. Cassini–Huygens was a joint NASA-ESA mission, along with the Infrared Space Observatory, INTEGRAL, SOHO, and others.

National Aeronautics and Space Administration/European Space Agency [La Agencia Espacial Europea] [Agence spatiale européenne][Europäische Weltraumorganization](EU)/ASI Italian Space Agency [Agenzia Spaziale Italiana](IT) Cassini Spacecraft.

European Space Agency [La Agencia Espacial Europea] [Agence spatiale européenne][Europäische Weltraumorganization](EU) Integral spacecraft

European Space Agency [La Agencia Espacial Europea] [Agence spatiale européenne] [Europäische Weltraumorganization] (EU)/National Aeronautics and Space AdministrationSOHO satellite. Launched in 1995.

Also, the Hubble Space Telescope is a joint project of NASA and ESA.

National Aeronautics and Space Administration/European Space Agency[La Agencia Espacial Europea] [Agence spatiale européenne] [Europäische Weltraumorganization](EU) Hubble Space Telescope

ESA-NASA joint projects include the James Webb Space Telescope and the proposed Laser Interferometer Space Antenna.

National Aeronautics Space Agency/European Space Agency [La Agencia Espacial Europea] [Agence spatiale européenne] [Europäische Weltraumorganization]Canadian Space Agency [Agence Spatiale Canadienne](CA) James Webb Space Telescope annotated. Scheduled for launch in December 2021.

Gravity is talking. Lisa will listen. Dialogos of Eide.

The European Space Agency [La Agencia Espacial Europea] [Agence spatiale européenne][Europäische Weltraumorganization](EU)/National Aeronautics and Space Administration eLISA space based, the future of gravitational wave research.

NASA has committed to provide support to ESA’s proposed MarcoPolo-R mission to return an asteroid sample to Earth for further analysis. NASA and ESA will also likely join together for a Mars Sample Return Mission. In October 2020 the ESA entered into a memorandum of understanding (MOU) with NASA to work together on the Artemis program, which will provide an orbiting lunar gateway and also accomplish the first manned lunar landing in 50 years, whose team will include the first woman on the Moon.

NASA ARTEMIS spacecraft depiction.

The European Space Agency [La Agencia Espacial Europea] [Agence spatiale européenne][Europäische Weltraumorganization](EU) European Large Logistics Lander.

Cooperation with other space agencies

Since China has started to invest more money into space activities, the Chinese Space Agency[中国国家航天局] (CN) has sought international partnerships. ESA is, beside, The Russian Federal Space Agency Государственная корпорация по космической деятельности «Роскосмос»](RU) one of its most important partners. Two space agencies cooperated in the development of the Double Star Mission. In 2017, ESA sent two astronauts to China for two weeks sea survival training with Chinese astronauts in Yantai, Shandong.

ESA entered into a major joint venture with Russia in the form of the CSTS, the preparation of French Guiana spaceport for launches of Soyuz-2 rockets and other projects. With India, ESA agreed to send instruments into space aboard the ISRO’s Chandrayaan-1 in 2008. ESA is also co-operating with Japan, the most notable current project in collaboration with JAXA is the BepiColombo mission to Mercury.

European Space Agency [La Agencia Espacial Europea] [Agence spatiale européenne][Europäische Weltraumorganization](EU)/Japan Aerospace Exploration Agency [国立研究開発法人宇宙航空研究開発機構](JP) Bepicolumbo in flight illustration. Artist’s impression of BepiColombo – ESA’s first mission to Mercury. ESA’s Mercury Planetary Orbiter (MPO) will be operated from ESOC Germany.

ESA’s Mercury Planetary Orbiter (MPO) will be operated from ESOC Germany.

Speaking to reporters at an air show near Moscow in August 2011, ESA head Jean-Jacques Dordain said ESA and Russia’s Roskosmos space agency would “carry out the first flight to Mars together.”

From Michigan State University And Purdue University: “New ‘living’ wood could be an environmental superhero”

From Michigan State University

And

Purdue University

9.28.22
Matt Davenport

Michigan State University and Purdue University researchers team up to create a new type of strong sustainable self-healing timber infused with microbes.

Michigan State University and Purdue University are teaming up to create a new building material that sounds like something out of a comic book. It’ll be stronger than steel and have the power to heal itself while pulling greenhouse gases out of the atmosphere.

As fantastic — or amazing or uncanny — as that might sound, this new material won’t rely on alien technology or supernatural forces. It will, instead, leverage the very natural forces of microbes and timber.

The U.S. Department of Energy’s Advanced Research Projects Agency-Energy, or ARPA-E, has awarded the research team nearly $1 million to develop “living wood” – a first-of-its-kind concept using the natural activity of microbes implanted in wood. The grant is one of 18 awarded to institutions around the country as part of the competitive Harnessing Emissions into Structures Taking Inputs from the Atmosphere, or HESTIA, program.

“We know that, naturally, wood decomposes from microbial activity,” said Jinxing Li, an assistant professor in the College of Engineering and the Institute for Quantitative Health Science and Engineering, or IQ. Li is MSU’s lead investigator on the project.

“But on the other end, there are microbes that can make strong biomaterials,” he said. “So we started asking if we can engineer certain microbes into the wood that will make it stronger instead of degrading it.”

“We are harnessing the microbial properties that are already there in nature,” said Tian Li, an assistant professor of mechanical engineering at Purdue University and the project’s principal investigator.

Improving pore performance

Wood is a naturally porous material, and its pores often store things that don’t benefit timber as a building material. For instance, the pores can store air, which promotes flammability, or moisture, which can accelerate degradation.

Vittorio Mottini, a biomedical engineering doctoral student in Jinxing Li’s lab at Michigan State University, holds a stack of samples the team is using in their new “living wood” project. The team laser etched an image of Sparty, MSU’s mascot, in the top plank. Credit: Jinxing Li.

The team’s goal is to introduce microbes into the wood’s porous network, let them gobble up carbon dioxide from the environment and convert that into tough biomaterials that will plug the pores.

“By filling up this empty volume in wood, you’re going to have improved mechanical strength and flame resistance,” Tian Li said.

In addition to filling pores, the microbe-made materials could also help repair damage sustained by the wood over its lifetime.

“And the process itself consumes carbon dioxide, so we’ll be making stronger wood while reducing greenhouse gas emissions,” Jinxing Li said.

This project and others in the HESTIA program are helping the U.S. reach its zero emissions goal by 2050. Addressing climate change is also a key initiative of the Michigan State University 2030 strategic plan.

This new Michigan State University and Purdue University collaboration took root a couple of years ago, when Jinxing Li and Tian Li were both on the job market and crossing paths during interviews. They would bounce ideas off each other, and that practice continued after they secured their faculty positions. Building on earlier, unfunded ideas and connecting with new colleagues at their new universities, the researchers developed this successful ARPA-E proposal.

“Teamwork at its best”

The living wood will have three components: the wood itself and microbes in the form of bacteria and fungi. At Michigan State University, Jinxing Li connected with Gregory Bonito, an associate professor in the College of Agriculture and Natural Resources; Bige Deniz Unluturk, an assistant professor in the College of Engineering; and Gemma Reguera, a professor in the College of Natural Science.

“Gemma and Greg are the top brains in microbiology. Gemma focuses on screening and designing the best bacteria for carbon capture and wood enhancement, while Greg focuses on using the fungal network to guide the biological modification of the wood. Bige is an expert in using computer models to guide our design,” Jinxing Li said. “Then at Purdue University, we have experts in wood, building and life-cycle assessment.”

For his part, Jinxing Li will be developing “bio inks” containing microbes that will be infused into timber.

“My goal is to engineer a liquid or ink that has the best chemical and physical properties to penetrate the wood’s pores as deeply as we can,” he said. “We can also tune the nutrients in the ink and use synthetic biology to improve the output of the microbes.”

“The project is a perfect blend of biology and engineering disciplines to make something totally new and transformative,” said Reguera, who recently joined the College of Natural Science’s leadership team as an associate dean. “I am delighted to work with great colleagues at Michigan State University and Purdue University. We were all so excited to join forces — this is teamwork at its best.”

Both Reguera and Li acknowledged the idea of a “living” wood outperforming other established building materials may sound wild or farfetched. But it’s important to remember the team is trying to coordinate and optimize things nature already does in a way that better serves humanity’s needs.

Microbes already capture carbon dioxide and synthesize sturdy materials. There are even reports of them doing this naturally in some trees.

“The microbial activities generate biomaterials that harden the wood and protect the tree from mechanical stress,” Reguera said.

“They also turn the wood into a very elegant dark color because of the minerals inside. The wood is actually used in furniture and art, particularly in Japan and China,” Jinxing Li said. “We were excited to discover such a phenomenon does exist in nature, thus boosting our confidence of success.”

Other members of the Purdue University team are Fu Zhao, an associate professor in the School of Mechanical Engineering, and Eva Haviarova, a professor in the Department of Forestry and Natural Resources.

“Coming together as a team has been a joy,” said Reguera. “We are truly excited about the proposition and the possibilities to advance knowledge in such an innovative way.”

See the full article here .

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Please help promote STEM in your local schools.

Stem Education Coalition

Purdue University is a public land-grant research university in West Lafayette, Indiana, and the flagship campus of the Purdue University system. The university was founded in 1869 after Lafayette businessman John Purdue donated land and money to establish a college of science, technology, and agriculture in his name. The first classes were held on September 16, 1874, with six instructors and 39 students.

The main campus in West Lafayette offers more than 200 majors for undergraduates, over 69 masters and doctoral programs, and professional degrees in pharmacy and veterinary medicine. In addition, Purdue has 18 intercollegiate sports teams and more than 900 student organizations. Purdue is a member of the Big Ten Conference and enrolls the second largest student body of any university in Indiana, as well as the fourth largest foreign student population of any university in the United States.

Purdue University is a member of the Association of American Universities and is classified among “R1: Doctoral Universities – Very high research activity”. Purdue has 25 American astronauts as alumni and as of April 2019, the university has been associated with 13 Nobel Prizes.

In 1865, the Indiana General Assembly voted to take advantage of the Morrill Land-Grant Colleges Act of 1862 and began plans to establish an institution with a focus on agriculture and engineering. Communities throughout the state offered facilities and funding in bids for the location of the new college. Popular proposals included the addition of an agriculture department at Indiana State University, at what is now Butler University. By 1869, Tippecanoe County’s offer included $150,000 (equivalent to $2.9 million in 2019) from Lafayette business leader and philanthropist John Purdue; $50,000 from the county; and 100 acres (0.4 km^2) of land from local residents.

On May 6, 1869, the General Assembly established the institution in Tippecanoe County as Purdue University, in the name of the principal benefactor. Classes began at Purdue on September 16, 1874, with six instructors and 39 students. Professor John S. Hougham was Purdue’s first faculty member and served as acting president between the administrations of presidents Shortridge and White. A campus of five buildings was completed by the end of 1874. In 1875, Sarah A. Oren, the State Librarian of Indiana, was appointed Professor of Botany.

Purdue issued its first degree, a Bachelor of Science in chemistry, in 1875, and admitted its first female students that autumn.

Emerson E. White, the university’s president, from 1876 to 1883, followed a strict interpretation of the Morrill Act. Rather than emulate the classical universities, White believed Purdue should be an “industrial college” and devote its resources toward providing a broad, liberal education with an emphasis on science, technology, and agriculture. He intended not only to prepare students for industrial work, but also to prepare them to be good citizens and family members.

Part of White’s plan to distinguish Purdue from classical universities included a controversial attempt to ban fraternities, which was ultimately overturned by the Indiana Supreme Court, leading to White’s resignation. The next president, James H. Smart, is remembered for his call in 1894 to rebuild the original Heavilon Hall “one brick higher” after it had been destroyed by a fire.

By the end of the nineteenth century, the university was organized into schools of agriculture, engineering (mechanical, civil, and electrical), and pharmacy; former U.S. President Benjamin Harrison served on the board of trustees. Purdue’s engineering laboratories included testing facilities for a locomotive, and for a Corliss steam engine—one of the most efficient engines of the time. The School of Agriculture shared its research with farmers throughout the state, with its cooperative extension services, and would undergo a period of growth over the following two decades. Programs in education and home economics were soon established, as well as a short-lived school of medicine. By 1925, Purdue had the largest undergraduate engineering enrollment in the country, a status it would keep for half a century.

President Edward C. Elliott oversaw a campus building program between the world wars. Inventor, alumnus, and trustee David E. Ross coordinated several fundraisers, donated lands to the university, and was instrumental in establishing the Purdue Research Foundation. Ross’s gifts and fundraisers supported such projects as Ross–Ade Stadium, the Memorial Union, a civil engineering surveying camp, and Purdue University Airport. Purdue Airport was the country’s first university-owned airport and the site of the country’s first college-credit flight training courses.

Amelia Earhart joined the Purdue faculty in 1935 as a consultant for these flight courses and as a counselor on women’s careers. In 1937, the Purdue Research Foundation provided the funds for the Lockheed Electra 10-E Earhart flew on her attempted round-the-world flight.

Every school and department at the university was involved in some type of military research or training during World War II. During a project on radar receivers, Purdue physicists discovered properties of germanium that led to the making of the first transistor. The Army and the Navy conducted training programs at Purdue and more than 17,500 students, staff, and alumni served in the armed forces. Purdue set up about a hundred centers throughout Indiana to train skilled workers for defense industries. As veterans returned to the university under the G.I. Bill, first-year classes were taught at some of these sites to alleviate the demand for campus space. Four of these sites are now degree-granting regional campuses of the Purdue University system. On-campus housing became racially desegregated in 1947, following pressure from Purdue President Frederick L. Hovde and Indiana Governor Ralph F. Gates.

After the war, Hovde worked to expand the academic opportunities at the university. A decade-long construction program emphasized science and research. In the late 1950s and early 1960s the university established programs in veterinary medicine, industrial management, and nursing, as well as the first computer science department in the United States. Undergraduate humanities courses were strengthened, although Hovde only reluctantly approved of graduate-level study in these areas. Purdue awarded its first Bachelor of Arts degrees in 1960. The programs in liberal arts and education, formerly administered by the School of Science, were soon split into an independent school.

The official seal of Purdue was officially inaugurated during the university’s centennial in 1969.

Consisting of elements from emblems that had been used unofficially for 73 years, the current seal depicts a griffin, symbolizing strength, and a three-part shield, representing education, research, and service.

In recent years, Purdue’s leaders have continued to support high-tech research and international programs. In 1987, U.S. President Ronald Reagan visited the West Lafayette campus to give a speech about the influence of technological progress on job creation.

In the 1990s, the university added more opportunities to study abroad and expanded its course offerings in world languages and cultures. The first buildings of the Discovery Park interdisciplinary research center were dedicated in 2004.

Purdue launched a Global Policy Research Institute in 2010 to explore the potential impact of technical knowledge on public policy decisions.

On April 27, 2017, Purdue University announced plans to acquire for-profit college Kaplan University and convert it to a public university in the state of Indiana, subject to multiple levels of approval. That school now operates as Purdue University Global, and aims to serve adult learners.

Campuses

Purdue’s campus is situated in the small city of West Lafayette, near the western bank of the Wabash River, across which sits the larger city of Lafayette. State Street, which is concurrent with State Road 26, divides the northern and southern portions of campus. Academic buildings are mostly concentrated on the eastern and southern parts of campus, with residence halls and intramural fields to the west, and athletic facilities to the north. The Greater Lafayette Public Transportation Corporation (CityBus) operates eight campus loop bus routes on which students, faculty, and staff can ride free of charge with Purdue Identification.

Organization and administration

The university president, appointed by the board of trustees, is the chief administrative officer of the university. The office of the president oversees admission and registration, student conduct and counseling, the administration and scheduling of classes and space, the administration of student athletics and organized extracurricular activities, the libraries, the appointment of the faculty and conditions of their employment, the appointment of all non-faculty employees and the conditions of employment, the general organization of the university, and the planning and administration of the university budget.

The Board of Trustees directly appoints other major officers of the university including a provost who serves as the chief academic officer for the university, several vice presidents with oversight over specific university operations, and the regional campus chancellors.

Academic divisions

Purdue is organized into thirteen major academic divisions.

College of Agriculture

The university’s College of Agriculture supports the university’s agricultural, food, life, and natural resource science programs. The college also supports the university’s charge as a land-grant university to support agriculture throughout the state; its agricultural extension program plays a key role in this.

College of Education

The College of Education offers undergraduate degrees in elementary education, social studies education, and special education, and graduate degrees in these and many other specialty areas of education. It has two departments: (a) Curriculum and Instruction and (b) Educational Studies.

College of Engineering

The Purdue University College of Engineering was established in 1874 with programs in Civil and Mechanical Engineering. The college now offers B.S., M.S., and Ph.D. degrees in more than a dozen disciplines. Purdue’s engineering program has also educated 24 of America’s astronauts, including Neil Armstrong and Eugene Cernan who were the first and last astronauts to have walked on the Moon, respectively. Many of Purdue’s engineering disciplines are recognized as top-ten programs in the U.S. The college as a whole is currently ranked 7th in the U.S. of all doctorate-granting engineering schools by U.S. News & World Report.

Exploratory Studies

The university’s Exploratory Studies program supports undergraduate students who enter the university without having a declared major. It was founded as a pilot program in 1995 and made a permanent program in 1999.

College of Health and Human Sciences

The College of Health and Human Sciences was established in 2010 and is the newest college. It offers B.S., M.S. and Ph.D. degrees in all 10 of its academic units.

College of Liberal Arts

Purdue’s College of Liberal Arts contains the arts, social sciences and humanities programs at the university. Liberal arts courses have been taught at Purdue since its founding in 1874. The School of Science, Education, and Humanities was formed in 1953. In 1963, the School of Humanities, Social Sciences, and Education was established, although Bachelor of Arts degrees had begun to be conferred as early as 1959. In 1989, the School of Liberal Arts was created to encompass Purdue’s arts, humanities, and social sciences programs, while education programs were split off into the newly formed School of Education. The School of Liberal Arts was renamed the College of Liberal Arts in 2005.

Krannert School of Management

The Krannert School of Management offers management courses and programs at the undergraduate, master’s, and doctoral levels.

College of Pharmacy

The university’s College of Pharmacy was established in 1884 and is the 3rd oldest state-funded school of pharmacy in the United States. The school offers two undergraduate programs leading to the B.S. in Pharmaceutical Sciences (BSPS) and the Doctor of Pharmacy (Pharm.D.) professional degree. Graduate programs leading to M.S. and Ph.D. degrees are offered in three departments (Industrial and Physical Pharmacy, Medicinal Chemistry and Molecular Pharmacology, and Pharmacy Practice). Additionally, the school offers several non-degree certificate programs and post-graduate continuing education activities.

Purdue Polytechnic Institute

The Purdue Polytechnic Institute offers bachelor’s, master’s and Ph.D. degrees in a wide range of technology-related disciplines. With over 30,000 living alumni, it is one of the largest technology schools in the United States.

College of Science

The university’s College of Science houses the university’s science departments: Biological Sciences; Chemistry; Computer Science; Earth, Atmospheric, & Planetary Sciences; Mathematics; Physics & Astronomy; and Statistics. The science courses offered by the college account for about one-fourth of Purdue’s one million student credit hours.

College of Veterinary Medicine

The College of Veterinary Medicine is accredited by the AVMA to offer the Doctor of Veterinary Medicine degree, associate’s and bachelor’s degrees in veterinary technology, master’s and Ph.D. degrees, and residency programs leading to specialty board certification. Within the state of Indiana, the Purdue University College of Veterinary Medicine is the only veterinary school, while the Indiana University School of Medicine is one of only two medical schools (the other being Marian University College of Osteopathic Medicine). The two schools frequently collaborate on medical research projects.

Honors College

Purdue’s Honors College supports an honors program for undergraduate students at the university.

The Graduate School

The university’s Graduate School supports graduate students at the university.

Research

The university expended $622.814 million in support of research system-wide in 2017, using funds received from the state and federal governments, industry, foundations, and individual donors. The faculty and more than 400 research laboratories put Purdue University among the leading research institutions. Purdue University is considered by the Carnegie Classification of Institutions of Higher Education to have “very high research activity”. Purdue also was rated the nation’s fourth best place to work in academia, according to rankings released in November 2007 by The Scientist magazine. Purdue’s researchers provide insight, knowledge, assistance, and solutions in many crucial areas. These include, but are not limited to Agriculture; Business and Economy; Education; Engineering; Environment; Healthcare; Individuals, Society, Culture; Manufacturing; Science; Technology; Veterinary Medicine. The Global Trade Analysis Project (GTAP), a global research consortium focused on global economic governance challenges (trade, climate, resource use) is also coordinated by the University. Purdue University generated a record $438 million in sponsored research funding during the 2009–10 fiscal year with participation from National Science Foundation, National Aeronautics and Space Administration, and the Department of Agriculture, Department of Defense, Department of Energy, and Department of Health and Human Services. Purdue University was ranked fourth in Engineering research expenditures amongst all the colleges in the United States in 2017, with a research expenditure budget of 244.8 million. Purdue University established the Discovery Park to bring innovation through multidisciplinary action. In all of the eleven centers of Discovery Park, ranging from entrepreneurship to energy and advanced manufacturing, research projects reflect a large economic impact and address global challenges. Purdue University’s nanotechnology research program, built around the new Birck Nanotechnology Center in Discovery Park, ranks among the best in the nation.

The Purdue Research Park which opened in 1961 was developed by Purdue Research Foundation which is a private, nonprofit foundation created to assist Purdue. The park is focused on companies operating in the arenas of life sciences, homeland security, engineering, advanced manufacturing and information technology. It provides an interactive environment for experienced Purdue researchers and for private business and high-tech industry. It currently employs more than 3,000 people in 155 companies, including 90 technology-based firms. The Purdue Research Park was ranked first by the Association of University Research Parks in 2004.

Purdue’s library system consists of fifteen locations throughout the campus, including an archives and special collections research center, an undergraduate library, and several subject-specific libraries. More than three million volumes, including one million electronic books, are held at these locations. The Library houses the Amelia Earhart Collection, a collection of notes and letters belonging to Earhart and her husband George Putnam along with records related to her disappearance and subsequent search efforts. An administrative unit of Purdue University Libraries, Purdue University Press has its roots in the 1960 founding of Purdue University Studies by President Frederick Hovde on a $12,000 grant from the Purdue Research Foundation. This was the result of a committee appointed by President Hovde after the Department of English lamented the lack of publishing venues in the humanities. Since the 1990s, the range of books published by the Press has grown to reflect the work from other colleges at Purdue University especially in the areas of agriculture, health, and engineering. Purdue University Press publishes print and ebook monograph series in a range of subject areas from literary and cultural studies to the study of the human-animal bond. In 1993 Purdue University Press was admitted to membership of the Association of American University Presses. Purdue University Press publishes around 25 books a year and 20 learned journals in print, in print & online, and online-only formats in collaboration with Purdue University Libraries.

Sustainability

Purdue’s Sustainability Council, composed of University administrators and professors, meets monthly to discuss environmental issues and sustainability initiatives at Purdue. The University’s first LEED Certified building was an addition to the Mechanical Engineering Building, which was completed in Fall 2011. The school is also in the process of developing an arboretum on campus. In addition, a system has been set up to display live data detailing current energy production at the campus utility plant. The school holds an annual “Green Week” each fall, an effort to engage the Purdue community with issues relating to environmental sustainability.

Rankings

In its 2021 edition, U.S. News & World Report ranked Purdue University the 5th most innovative national university, tied for the 17th best public university in the United States, tied for 53rd overall, and 114th best globally. U.S. News & World Report also rated Purdue tied for 36th in “Best Undergraduate Teaching, 83rd in “Best Value Schools”, tied for 284th in “Top Performers on Social Mobility”, and the undergraduate engineering program tied for 9th at schools whose highest degree is a doctorate.

Michigan State University is a public research university located in East Lansing, Michigan, United States. Michigan State University was founded in 1855 and became the nation’s first land-grant institution under the Morrill Act of 1862, serving as a model for future land-grant universities.

The university was founded as the Agricultural College of the State of Michigan, one of the country’s first institutions of higher education to teach scientific agriculture. After the introduction of the Morrill Act, the college became coeducational and expanded its curriculum beyond agriculture. Today, Michigan State University is one of the largest universities in the United States (in terms of enrollment) and has approximately 634,300 living alumni worldwide.

U.S. News & World Report ranks its graduate programs the best in the U.S. in elementary teacher’s education, secondary teacher’s education, industrial and organizational psychology, rehabilitation counseling, African history (tied), supply chain logistics and nuclear physics in 2019. Michigan State University pioneered the studies of packaging, hospitality business, supply chain management, and communication sciences. Michigan State University is a member of the Association of American Universities and is classified among “R1: Doctoral Universities – Very high research activity”. The university’s campus houses the National Superconducting Cyclotron Laboratory, the W. J. Beal Botanical Garden, the Abrams Planetarium, the Wharton Center for Performing Arts, the Eli and Edythe Broad Art Museum, the Facility for Rare Isotope Beams, and the country’s largest residence hall system.

Research

The university has a long history of academic research and innovation. In 1877, botany professor William J. Beal performed the first documented genetic crosses to produce hybrid corn, which led to increased yields. Michigan State University dairy professor G. Malcolm Trout improved the process for the homogenization of milk in the 1930s, making it more commercially viable. In the 1960s, Michigan State University scientists developed cisplatin, a leading cancer fighting drug, and followed that work with the derivative, carboplatin. Albert Fert, an Adjunct professor at Michigan State University, was awarded the 2007 Nobel Prize in Physics together with Peter Grünberg.

Today Michigan State University continues its research with facilities such as the Department of Energy -sponsored Plant Research Laboratory and a particle accelerator called the National Superconducting Cyclotron Laboratory [below]. The Department of Energy Office of Science named Michigan State University as the site for the Facility for Rare Isotope Beams (FRIB). The $730 million facility will attract top researchers from around the world to conduct experiments in basic nuclear science, astrophysics, and applications of isotopes to other fields.

Michigan State University FRIB [Facility for Rare Isotope Beams] .

In 2004, scientists at the Cyclotron produced and observed a new isotope of the element germanium, called Ge-60 In that same year, Michigan State University, in consortium with the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill and the government of Brazil, broke ground on the 4.1-meter Southern Astrophysical Research Telescope (SOAR) in the Andes Mountains of Chile.

NSF NOIRLab NOAO Southern Astrophysical Research [SOAR] telescope, operated by a consortium including the countries of Brazil and Chile, Michigan State University, the Cerro Tololo Inter-American Observatory (CTIO) (part of the National Optical Astronomy Observatory, NOAO), and the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill situated on Cerro Pachón, just to the southeast of Cerro Tololo, on the NOIRLab NOAO AURA site at an altitude of 2,700 meters (8,775 feet) above sea level.

The consortium telescope will allow the Physics & Astronomy department to study galaxy formation and origins. Since 1999, Michigan State University has been part of a consortium called the Michigan Life Sciences Corridor, which aims to develop biotechnology research in the State of Michigan. Finally, the College of Communication Arts and Sciences’ Quello Center researches issues of information and communication management.

NSCL Nuclear research at Michigan State University National Superconducting Cyclotron Laboratory S800 Spectrograph schematic.

The Michigan State University Spartans compete in the NCAA Division I Big Ten Conference. Michigan State Spartans football won the Rose Bowl Game in 1954, 1956, 1988 and 2014, and the university claims a total of six national football championships. Spartans men’s basketball won the NCAA National Championship in 1979 and 2000 and has attained the Final Four eight times since the 1998–1999 season. Spartans ice hockey won NCAA national titles in 1966, 1986 and 2007. The women’s cross country team was named Big Ten champions in 2019. In the fall of 2019, MSU student-athletes posted all-time highs for graduation success rates and federal graduation rates, according to NCAA statistics.

From The University of Washington : “Study suggests La Niña winters could keep on coming”

From The University of Washington

10.3.22
Hannah Hickey

In the Pacific Northwest, La Niña winters tend to be colder and wetter than average. The past two winters have fit that description, including this February 2021 snowfall in Seattle’s Volunteer Park. Credit: Seattle Parks and Recreation/Flickr.

Forecasters are predicting a “three-peat La Niña” this year. This will be the third winter in a row that the Pacific Ocean has been in a La Niña cycle, something that’s happened only twice before in records going back to 1950.

New research led by the University of Washington offers a possible explanation. The study, recently published in Geophysical Research Letters [below], suggests that climate change is, in the short term, favoring La Niñas.

“The Pacific Ocean naturally cycles between El Niño and La Niña conditions, but our work suggests that climate change could currently be weighing the dice toward La Niña,” said lead author Robert Jnglin Wills, a UW research scientist in atmospheric sciences. “At some point, we expect anthropogenic, or human-caused, influences to reverse these trends and give El Niño the upper hand.”

Scientists hope to predict the direction of these longer-term El Niño-like or La Niña-like climate trends in order to protect human life and property.

“This is an important question over the next century for regions that are strongly influenced by El Niño, which includes western North America, South America, East and Southeast Asia and Australia,” Wills said.

El Niño and La Niña events have wide-ranging impacts, affecting patterns of rainfall, flooding and drought around the Pacific Rim. A La Niña winter tends to be cooler and wetter in the Pacific Northwest and hotter and drier in the U.S. Southwest. Other worldwide effects include drier conditions in East Africa, and rainier weather in Australia, Indonesia, Malaysia and the Philippines.

Knowing what to expect in the future helps communities prepare for potential weather in the coming season and in years to come.

Global warming is widely expected to favor El Niños. The reason is that the cold, deep water rising to the sea surface off South America will meet warmer air. Anyone who’s sweated knows that evaporation has a cooling effect, so the chillier ocean off South America, which has less evaporation, will warm faster than the warmer ocean off Asia. This decreases the temperature difference across the tropical Pacific and lightens the surface winds blowing toward Indonesia, the same as occurs during El Niño. Past climate records confirm that the climate was more El Niño-like during warmer periods.

But while Earth’s atmosphere has warmed in recent decades, the new study shows a surprising trend in the tropical ocean. The authors looked at temperatures at the surface of the ocean recorded by ship-based measurements and ocean buoys from 1979 to 2020. The Pacific Ocean off South America has actually cooled slightly, along with ocean regions farther south. Meanwhile, the western Pacific Ocean and nearby eastern Indian Ocean have warmed more than elsewhere. Neither phenomenon can be explained by the natural cycles simulated by climate models. This suggests that some process missing in current models could be responsible.

Sea-surface temperature observations from 1979 to 2020 show that the surface of the Pacific Ocean has cooled off of South America and warmed off of Asia. This regional pattern is opposite to what’s expected long term with global warming. A new study suggests that in the short term, climate change could be favoring La Niñas, though it is still expected to favor El Niños in the long term. Credit: Wills et al./Geophysical Research Letters.

The upshot of these changes on either side of the tropical Pacific is that the temperature difference between the eastern and western Pacific has grown, surface winds blowing toward Indonesia have strengthened, and people are experiencing conditions typical of La Niña winters. The study focuses on temperature patterns at the ocean’s surface. Thirty years of data is too short to study the frequency of El Niño and La Niña events.

“The climate models are still getting reasonable answers for the average warming, but there’s something about the regional variation, the spatial pattern of warming in the tropical oceans, that is off,” Wills said.

The researchers aren’t sure why this pattern is happening. Their current work is exploring tropical climate processes and possible links to the ocean around Antarctica. Once they know what’s responsible, they may be able to predict when it will eventually switch to favor El Niños.

“If it turns out to be natural long-term cycles, maybe we can expect it to switch in the next five to 10 years, but if it is a long-term trend due to some processes that are not well represented in the climate models, then it would be longer. Some mechanisms have a switch that would happen over the next few decades, but others could be a century or longer,” Wills said.

The study was conducted before this year’s potential triple La Niña was announced. But Wills is cautious about declaring victory.

“These year-to-year changes are very unpredictable and it’s important not to get too hung up on any individual year — it doesn’t add a lot of statistical weight,” Wills said. “But I think it’s something that we should watch for in the next few years.”

Co-authors of the study are Kyle Armour and David Battisti at the UW; Yue Dong, a postdoctoral researcher at the Lamont-Doherty Earth Observatory who did the work as part of her UW doctoral research; and Cristian Proistosescu at the University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign. The study was funded by the National Science Foundation, the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration and the Alfred P. Sloan Foundation.

Science paper:
Geophysical Research Letters

See the full article here .

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The University of Washington is one of the world’s preeminent public universities. Our impact on individuals, on our region, and on the world is profound — whether we are launching young people into a boundless future or confronting the grand challenges of our time through undaunted research and scholarship. Ranked number 10 in the world in Shanghai Jiao Tong University rankings and educating more than 54,000 students annually, our students and faculty work together to turn ideas into impact and in the process transform lives and our world. For more about our impact on the world, every day.

So what defines us —the students, faculty and community members at the University of Washington? Above all, it’s our belief in possibility and our unshakable optimism. It’s a connection to others, both near and far. It’s a hunger that pushes us to tackle challenges and pursue progress. It’s the conviction that together we can create a world of good. Join us on the journey.

The University of Washington is a public research university in Seattle, Washington, United States. Founded in 1861, University of Washington is one of the oldest universities on the West Coast; it was established in downtown Seattle approximately a decade after the city’s founding to aid its economic development. Today, the university’s 703-acre main Seattle campus is in the University District above the Montlake Cut, within the urban Puget Sound region of the Pacific Northwest. The university has additional campuses in Tacoma and Bothell. Overall, University of Washington encompasses over 500 buildings and over 20 million gross square footage of space, including one of the largest library systems in the world with more than 26 university libraries, as well as the UW Tower, lecture halls, art centers, museums, laboratories, stadiums, and conference centers. The university offers bachelor’s, master’s, and doctoral degrees through 140 departments in various colleges and schools, sees a total student enrollment of roughly 46,000 annually, and functions on a quarter system.

University of Washington is a member of the Association of American Universities and is classified among “R1: Doctoral Universities – Very high research activity”. According to the National Science Foundation, UW spent $1.41 billion on research and development in 2018, ranking it 5th in the nation. As the flagship institution of the six public universities in Washington state, it is known for its medical, engineering and scientific research as well as its highly competitive computer science and engineering programs. Additionally, University of Washington continues to benefit from its deep historic ties and major collaborations with numerous technology giants in the region, such as Amazon, Boeing, Nintendo, and particularly Microsoft. Paul G. Allen, Bill Gates and others spent significant time at Washington computer labs for a startup venture before founding Microsoft and other ventures. The University of Washington’s 22 varsity sports teams are also highly competitive, competing as the Huskies in the Pac-12 Conference of the NCAA Division I, representing the United States at the Olympic Games, and other major competitions.

The university has been affiliated with many notable alumni and faculty, including 21 Nobel Prize laureates and numerous Pulitzer Prize winners, Fulbright Scholars, Rhodes Scholars and Marshall Scholars.

In 1854, territorial governor Isaac Stevens recommended the establishment of a university in the Washington Territory. Prominent Seattle-area residents, including Methodist preacher Daniel Bagley, saw this as a chance to add to the city’s potential and prestige. Bagley learned of a law that allowed United States territories to sell land to raise money in support of public schools. At the time, Arthur A. Denny, one of the founders of Seattle and a member of the territorial legislature, aimed to increase the city’s importance by moving the territory’s capital from Olympia to Seattle. However, Bagley eventually convinced Denny that the establishment of a university would assist more in the development of Seattle’s economy. Two universities were initially chartered, but later the decision was repealed in favor of a single university in Lewis County provided that locally donated land was available. When no site emerged, Denny successfully petitioned the legislature to reconsider Seattle as a location in 1858.

In 1861, scouting began for an appropriate 10 acres (4 ha) site in Seattle to serve as a new university campus. Arthur and Mary Denny donated eight acres, while fellow pioneers Edward Lander, and Charlie and Mary Terry, donated two acres on Denny’s Knoll in downtown Seattle. More specifically, this tract was bounded by 4th Avenue to the west, 6th Avenue to the east, Union Street to the north, and Seneca Streets to the south.

John Pike, for whom Pike Street is named, was the university’s architect and builder. It was opened on November 4, 1861, as the Territorial University of Washington. The legislature passed articles incorporating the University, and establishing its Board of Regents in 1862. The school initially struggled, closing three times: in 1863 for low enrollment, and again in 1867 and 1876 due to funds shortage. University of Washington awarded its first graduate Clara Antoinette McCarty Wilt in 1876, with a bachelor’s degree in science.

19th century relocation

By the time Washington state entered the Union in 1889, both Seattle and the University had grown substantially. University of Washington’s total undergraduate enrollment increased from 30 to nearly 300 students, and the campus’s relative isolation in downtown Seattle faced encroaching development. A special legislative committee, headed by University of Washington graduate Edmond Meany, was created to find a new campus to better serve the growing student population and faculty. The committee eventually selected a site on the northeast of downtown Seattle called Union Bay, which was the land of the Duwamish, and the legislature appropriated funds for its purchase and construction. In 1895, the University relocated to the new campus by moving into the newly built Denny Hall. The University Regents tried and failed to sell the old campus, eventually settling with leasing the area. This would later become one of the University’s most valuable pieces of real estate in modern-day Seattle, generating millions in annual revenue with what is now called the Metropolitan Tract. The original Territorial University building was torn down in 1908, and its former site now houses the Fairmont Olympic Hotel.

The sole-surviving remnants of Washington’s first building are four 24-foot (7.3 m), white, hand-fluted cedar, Ionic columns. They were salvaged by Edmond S. Meany, one of the University’s first graduates and former head of its history department. Meany and his colleague, Dean Herbert T. Condon, dubbed the columns as “Loyalty,” “Industry,” “Faith”, and “Efficiency”, or “LIFE.” The columns now stand in the Sylvan Grove Theater.

20th century expansion

Organizers of the 1909 Alaska-Yukon-Pacific Exposition eyed the still largely undeveloped campus as a prime setting for their world’s fair. They came to an agreement with Washington’s Board of Regents that allowed them to use the campus grounds for the exposition, surrounding today’s Drumheller Fountain facing towards Mount Rainier. In exchange, organizers agreed Washington would take over the campus and its development after the fair’s conclusion. This arrangement led to a detailed site plan and several new buildings, prepared in part by John Charles Olmsted. The plan was later incorporated into the overall University of Washington campus master plan, permanently affecting the campus layout.

Both World Wars brought the military to campus, with certain facilities temporarily lent to the federal government. In spite of this, subsequent post-war periods were times of dramatic growth for the University. The period between the wars saw a significant expansion of the upper campus. Construction of the Liberal Arts Quadrangle, known to students as “The Quad,” began in 1916 and continued to 1939. The University’s architectural centerpiece, Suzzallo Library, was built in 1926 and expanded in 1935.

After World War II, further growth came with the G.I. Bill. Among the most important developments of this period was the opening of the School of Medicine in 1946, which is now consistently ranked as the top medical school in the United States. It would eventually lead to the University of Washington Medical Center, ranked by U.S. News and World Report as one of the top ten hospitals in the nation.

In 1942, all persons of Japanese ancestry in the Seattle area were forced into inland internment camps as part of Executive Order 9066 following the attack on Pearl Harbor. During this difficult time, university president Lee Paul Sieg took an active and sympathetic leadership role in advocating for and facilitating the transfer of Japanese American students to universities and colleges away from the Pacific Coast to help them avoid the mass incarceration. Nevertheless, many Japanese American students and “soon-to-be” graduates were unable to transfer successfully in the short time window or receive diplomas before being incarcerated. It was only many years later that they would be recognized for their accomplishments during the University of Washington’s Long Journey Home ceremonial event that was held in May 2008.

From 1958 to 1973, the University of Washington saw a tremendous growth in student enrollment, its faculties and operating budget, and also its prestige under the leadership of Charles Odegaard. University of Washington student enrollment had more than doubled to 34,000 as the baby boom generation came of age. However, this era was also marked by high levels of student activism, as was the case at many American universities. Much of the unrest focused around civil rights and opposition to the Vietnam War. In response to anti-Vietnam War protests by the late 1960s, the University Safety and Security Division became the University of Washington Police Department.

Odegaard instituted a vision of building a “community of scholars”, convincing the Washington State legislatures to increase investment in the University. Washington senators, such as Henry M. Jackson and Warren G. Magnuson, also used their political clout to gather research funds for the University of Washington. The results included an increase in the operating budget from $37 million in 1958 to over $400 million in 1973, solidifying University of Washington as a top recipient of federal research funds in the United States. The establishment of technology giants such as Microsoft, Boeing and Amazon in the local area also proved to be highly influential in the University of Washington’s fortunes, not only improving graduate prospects but also helping to attract millions of dollars in university and research funding through its distinguished faculty and extensive alumni network.

21st century

In 1990, the University of Washington opened its additional campuses in Bothell and Tacoma. Although originally intended for students who have already completed two years of higher education, both schools have since become four-year universities with the authority to grant degrees. The first freshman classes at these campuses started in fall 2006. Today both Bothell and Tacoma also offer a selection of master’s degree programs.

In 2012, the University began exploring plans and governmental approval to expand the main Seattle campus, including significant increases in student housing, teaching facilities for the growing student body and faculty, as well as expanded public transit options. The University of Washington light rail station was completed in March 2015, connecting Seattle’s Capitol Hill neighborhood to the University of Washington Husky Stadium within five minutes of rail travel time. It offers a previously unavailable option of transportation into and out of the campus, designed specifically to reduce dependence on private vehicles, bicycles and local King County buses.

University of Washington has been listed as a “Public Ivy” in Greene’s Guides since 2001, and is an elected member of the American Association of Universities. Among the faculty by 2012, there have been 151 members of American Association for the Advancement of Science, 68 members of the National Academy of Sciences, 67 members of the American Academy of Arts and Sciences, 53 members of the National Academy of Medicine, 29 winners of the Presidential Early Career Award for Scientists and Engineers, 21 members of the National Academy of Engineering, 15 Howard Hughes Medical Institute Investigators, 15 MacArthur Fellows, 9 winners of the Gairdner Foundation International Award, 5 winners of the National Medal of Science, 7 Nobel Prize laureates, 5 winners of Albert Lasker Award for Clinical Medical Research, 4 members of the American Philosophical Society, 2 winners of the National Book Award, 2 winners of the National Medal of Arts, 2 Pulitzer Prize winners, 1 winner of the Fields Medal, and 1 member of the National Academy of Public Administration. Among UW students by 2012, there were 136 Fulbright Scholars, 35 Rhodes Scholars, 7 Marshall Scholars and 4 Gates Cambridge Scholars. UW is recognized as a top producer of Fulbright Scholars, ranking 2nd in the US in 2017.

The Academic Ranking of World Universities (ARWU) has consistently ranked University of Washington as one of the top 20 universities worldwide every year since its first release. In 2019, University of Washington ranked 14th worldwide out of 500 by the ARWU, 26th worldwide out of 981 in the Times Higher Education World University Rankings, and 28th worldwide out of 101 in the Times World Reputation Rankings. Meanwhile, QS World University Rankings ranked it 68th worldwide, out of over 900.

U.S. News & World Report ranked University of Washington 8th out of nearly 1,500 universities worldwide for 2021, with University of Washington’s undergraduate program tied for 58th among 389 national universities in the U.S. and tied for 19th among 209 public universities.

In 2019, it ranked 10th among the universities around the world by SCImago Institutions Rankings. In 2017, the Leiden Ranking, which focuses on science and the impact of scientific publications among the world’s 500 major universities, ranked University of Washington 12th globally and 5th in the U.S.

In 2019, Kiplinger Magazine’s review of “top college values” named University of Washington 5th for in-state students and 10th for out-of-state students among U.S. public colleges, and 84th overall out of 500 schools. In the Washington Monthly National University Rankings University of Washington was ranked 15th domestically in 2018, based on its contribution to the public good as measured by social mobility, research, and promoting public service.

From CSIRO (AU)-Commonwealth Scientific and Industrial Research Organization: “DNA reference library a game-changer for environmental monitoring”

From CSIRO (AU)-Commonwealth Scientific and Industrial Research Organization

10.5.22
Ms Andrea Wild
Communication Advisor, National Research Collections Australia
+61415199434

CSIRO is building a National Biodiversity DNA Library which aims to deliver a complete collection of DNA reference sequences for all known Australian animal and plant species.

A new DNA reference library which is set to transform how Australia monitors biodiversity was announced today by CSIRO, Australia’s national science agency, along with the library’s first campaign which is supported by founding partner, Minderoo Foundation.

The National Biodiversity DNA Library (NBDL) aims to create a complete collection of DNA reference sequences for all known Australian animal and plant species. Just like COVID wastewater testing, it will enable DNA detected in the environment to be assigned to the species to which it belongs.

CSIRO Director of the NBDL Jenny Giles said environmental DNA (eDNA) analysis has the potential to create a revolution in biodiversity monitoring.

“Monitoring biodiversity and detecting pests is extremely important, but it’s hard to do and is expensive in a country as large as Australia. eDNA surveys could change that by allowing us to detect animals, plants and other organisms from traces of DNA left behind in the environment, but only if we can reliably assign this DNA to species,” Dr Giles said.

“People may be surprised to realize that there are tiny pieces of DNA shed by animals, plants, and other life forms left in the air, soil, and water around us.

“eDNA surveys are increasingly being used to detect and monitor species, but only a tiny fraction of Australian species have sufficient reference data available to support this approach. This means most eDNA we collect can’t currently be assigned to a species.

“Our National Biodiversity DNA Library aims to provide this missing data through an open access online portal, that will allow Australian state and federal governments, industry, researchers and citizen scientists to take full advantage of this powerful technique to describe and detect changes in our environment,” she said.

Minderoo Foundation is partnering with CSIRO to fund the first part of this DNA reference library, focusing on all species of Australian marine vertebrates, including fishes, whales, dolphins, seals, turtles, sea snakes and inshore sea and aquatic birds.

Minderoo Foundation Director of the OceanOmics program Steve Burnell said eDNA approaches will transform how we monitor marine biodiversity and help manage and conserve marine species.

“The NBDL will help our program and other researchers to detect and map marine vertebrate species around Australia, improving the speed, scale and precision at which we can provide information to resource managers,” Dr Burnell said.

“We’re proud to support this powerful conservation tool – the surveillance of marine ecosystems using eDNA provides an exciting and non-invasive means to measure biodiversity and monitor the health of our oceans.”

Dr Giles said the library will be built using unique laboratory techniques developed by CSIRO.

“This technology enables the large-scale generation of DNA reference sequences from preserved specimens of any organism. This miniaturized, high-throughput approach can unlock genetic information from the millions of scientific specimens preserved in Australian research collections,” she said.

CSIRO will work with Bioplatforms Australia, enabled by the Commonwealth Government National Collaborative Research Infrastructure Strategy, and Australian natural history collections to rapidly increase the DNA reference sequences available for Australian marine vertebrates. These data will be generated from expertly identified specimens held in collections including CSIRO’s Australian National Fish Collection and Australian National Wildlife Collection.

The NBDL collaboration between CSIRO, its partners, and our nation’s vast research collections will result in greater understanding of Australia’s animal and plant species and will support industries across fisheries, agriculture, environmental management and tourism.

The library’s first online data release is expected to occur by early 2024.

Stag and Plate coral. PHOTO: Minderoo OceanOmics Centre

Sea lion (Neophoca cinerea). PHOTO: Minderoo OceanOmics Centre

See the full article here .

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Please help promote STEM in your local schools.

Stem Education Coalition

CSIRO (AU)-Commonwealth Scientific and Industrial Research Organization, is Australia’s national science agency and one of the largest and most diverse research agencies in the world.

CSIRO works with leading organizations around the world. From its headquarters in Canberra, CSIRO maintains more than 50 sites across Australia and in France, Chile and the United States, employing about 5,500 people.

Federally funded scientific research began in Australia 104 years ago. The Advisory Council of Science and Industry was established in 1916 but was hampered by insufficient available finance. In 1926 the research effort was reinvigorated by establishment of the Council for Scientific and Industrial Research (CSIR), which strengthened national science leadership and increased research funding. CSIR grew rapidly and achieved significant early successes. In 1949 further legislated changes included renaming the organization as CSIRO.

Notable developments by CSIRO have included the invention of atomic absorption spectroscopy; essential components of Wi-Fi technology; development of the first commercially successful polymer banknote; the invention of the insect repellent in Aerogard and the introduction of a series of biological controls into Australia, such as the introduction of myxomatosis and rabbit calicivirus for the control of rabbit populations.

Research and focus areas

Research Business Units

As at 2019, CSIRO’s research areas are identified as “Impact science” and organized into the following Business Units:

Agriculture and Food
Health and Biosecurity
Data 61
Energy
Land and Water
Manufacturing
Mineral Resources
Oceans and Atmosphere

National Facilities
CSIRO manages national research facilities and scientific infrastructure on behalf of the nation to assist with the delivery of research. The national facilities and specialized laboratories are available to both international and Australian users from industry and research. As at 2019, the following National Facilities are listed:

Australian Animal Health Laboratory (AAHL)
Australia Telescope National Facility – radio telescopes included in the Facility include the Australia Telescope Compact Array, the Parkes Observatory, Mopra Radio Telescope Observatory and the Australian Square Kilometre Array Pathfinder.

CSIRO Australia Compact Array (AU), six radio telescopes at the Paul Wild Observatory, is an array of six 22-m antennas located about twenty five kilometres (16 mi) west of the town of Narrabri in Australia.

CSIRO-Commonwealth Scientific and Industrial Research Organization (AU) Parkes Observatory [Murriyang, the traditional Indigenous name], located 20 kilometres north of the town of Parkes, New South Wales, Australia, 414.80m above sea level.

CSIRO-Commonwealth Scientific and Industrial Research Organisation (AU) Mopra Radio Telescope

NASA Canberra Deep Space Communication Complex, AU, Deep Space Network. Credit: NASA.

CSIRO Canberra campus.

ESA DSA 1, hosts a 35-metre deep-space antenna with transmission and reception in both S- and X-band and is located 140 kilometres north of Perth, Western Australia, near the town of New Norcia.

CSIRO-Commonwealth Scientific and Industrial Research Organisation (AU) CSIRO R/V Investigator.

UK Space NovaSAR-1 satellite (UK) synthetic aperture radar satellite.

CSIRO Pawsey Supercomputing Centre AU)

Magnus Cray XC40 supercomputer at Pawsey Supercomputer Centre Perth Australia.

Galaxy Cray XC30 Series Supercomputer at at Pawsey Supercomputer Centre Perth Australia.

Pausey Supercomputer CSIRO Zeus SGI Linux cluster.

Pawsey Cray EX Supercomputer – Setonix

Others not shown

SKA

SKA- Square Kilometer Array.

SKA Murchison Widefield Array (AU), Boolardy station in outback Western Australia, at the Murchison Radio-astronomy Observatory (MRO), on the traditional lands of the Wajarri peoples.

SKA ASKAP Pathfinder Radio Telescope at the Murchison Radio-astronomy Observatory (MRO), on the traditional lands of the Wajarri peoples

SKA Square Kilometre Array low frequency at Murchison Widefield Array, Boolardy station in outback Western Australia on the traditional lands of the Wajarri peoples.

Testing EDGES at MIT Haystack Observatory

EDGES telescope in a radio quiet zone at the Murchison Radio-astronomy Observatory in Western Australia, on the traditional lands of the Wajarri peoples.

From The University of New South Wales (AU) : “Oil and gas exploration and production threaten great desert river systems”

From The University of New South Wales (AU)

10.4.22

A new study identifies major environmental concerns for the Lake Eyre Basin rivers-among the most pristine in the world.

The Gidgealpa floodplain is within the Coongie Lakes Ramsar site, identified at a state, national and international level as of significant conservation importance. Photo: Doug Gimesy, courtesy of The Pew Charitable Trusts.

The Lake Eyre Basin rivers, including the iconic Georgina and Diamantina rivers and Cooper Creek, flow through southwestern Queensland and the Northern Territory into Kati Thanda-Lake Eyre. Along the way, the rivers – among the most pristine in the world – fill more than 32 million hectares of floodplain wetlands-a massive part of Australia (almost a sixth). The floodplains of the Lake Eyre Basin are magnificent hotspots for biodiversity, such as waterbirds and frogs, and have some of the best native fish species habitat in inland Australia.

A new study published in the international journal Marine and Freshwater Research [below], has for the first time investigated the distribution of oil and gas production across the Lake Eyre Basin rivers’ floodplains, identifying major environmental concerns and poor assessment. Using publicly available data from South Australia, Queensland and the Northern Territory, the study identified 831 existing oil and gas production and exploration wells on the floodplains. Most (98.6 per cent) are on the floodplains of Cooper Creek, including 296 wells in the Coongie Lakes Ramsar site, an area identified at a state, national and international level as of significant conservation importance.

“Even with my long history of involvement in protecting and researching the rivers of the Lake Eyre Basin, I was astounded at the scale of the current development, let alone what is planned in our so-called ‘gas-led energy phase’ in South Australia and Queensland,” lead author Professor Richard Kingsford, Director of the Centre for Ecosystem Science, UNSW Sydney, said. Much of the early development occurred in South Australia but now Queensland has more wells, developed at respective rates of eight and 11 wells per year.

The Australian government’s recent CSIRO-led Bioregional Assessment examined scenarios that assumed that 1000-1500 wells would be drilled over the next 50 years in the Cooper Basin to extract unconventional gas, shale, tight and deep coal, requiring hydraulic fracturing or fracking. Many of them overlie the Cooper Creek floodplain, with multiple wells (six to eight wells, depths of 500-3000m drilled laterally) on a single large well pad, only 3.5-4km apart and storages and roads, affecting 586-7,350km^2 of the catchment.

There is already a substantial cumulative footprint on the floodplains. In addition, new areas are being explored for future oil and gas petroleum development, with oil and gas licenses, or titles, now covering more than 4.5 million hectares of floodplain across the Lake Eyre Basin rivers. This includes 2.9 million hectares of floodplain on Cooper Creek and 600,000ha of the Diamantina River, and another more than 1 million hectares of floodplain on the Georgina River. These areas all include the iconic channel country of the Lake Eyre Basin, which is sometimes up to 60km wide.

Mapping the distribution of wells

The researchers mapped the distribution of wells across the floodplains of the rivers of the Lake Eyre Basin. They also focused on the highest density areas. Two of these – Tirrawarra Swamp and the Gidgealpa floodplain – were inside the Coongie Lakes Ramsar Site. The third area was at the junction of Wilson River and Cooper Creek floodplain in Queensland, a wetland of national importance.

“We then used Google Earth imagery to track the expansion in numbers of oil and gas production wells and also the storages for wastewater, roads and well pads in these three areas on the floodplains over time,” researcher and co-author Amy Walburn said.

The 296 wells identified in the floodplain areas of the Coongie Lakes Ramsar site included 281 well pads, 870km of roads and 440 storages. Two hundred of these wells were established within the floodplain area after the site became a wetland of international importance-supposedly protecting its conservation values.

Interruption of natural flow and flooding

The researchers used Sentinel satellite imagery to show that roads were interrupting natural flooding regimes and they raised concerns about the co-produced water in storages on the floodplains intermingling with natural flood waters. This fragmenting of the floodplain and pollution locally and downstream during major floods will become an increasing problem, particularly with expected increases in unconventional gas production and fracking, with polluted co-produced waste waters. Recent photographs of Tirrawarra Swamp obtained in the last few weeks show that the current large flood has cut roads, overtopped well pads, leaving wells under water. Water from wastewater storages has clearly mixed with natural flood waters, showing the impossibility of stopping pollution impacts.

Recent photos of Tirrawarra Swamp show wells under water. Photo: Doug Gimesy, courtesy of The Pew Charitable Trusts.

There is increasing evidence of disruption of natural flow and flooding patterns due to roads and well pads and wells and waste water storages. The floods are also increasingly likely to flow over the walls of the storages on the floodplains, increasing pollution impacts. These structures are changing flooding patterns and water quality and impacting environmental and cultural values as well as potentially affecting industries such as organic beef production.

Further oil and gas developments

Recent and projected developments of oil and gas across the floodplains of the Lake Eyre Basin rivers are not consistent with the Lake Eyre Basin Agreement, a multi-jurisdictional agreement between the Australian, Northern Territory, Queensland and South Australian governments focused on protecting the natural flows of these rivers. It is supported by legislation and the Lake Eyre Basin Community Advisory Committee and Lake Eyre Basin Scientific Panel. The members support a Ministerial Forum for respective ministers to sustainably manage this important part of Australia’s heritage.

Given there is a requirement to refer developments in Ramsar-listed wetlands to the Australian government, the researchers also investigated how much of this development had been referred and assessed under the Environment Protection and Biodiversity Act 1999. They identified only eight referrals in the time the national legislation was operational.

Prof. Kingsford said he was surprised given the potential impacts relevant at national and international levels.

“This clearly shows a major flaw in the current national legislation – the inability to deal with lots of cumulative impacts, where each well pad, its polluted water and the road network across the floodplains have increasing consequences for this magnificent river system and yet, are not assessed.”

He said these areas are so remote that “there seems to be an ‘out of sight, out of mind’ approach by regulators to this burgeoning problem for the rivers and their floodplains”.

Prof. Kingsford expressed concern about the significant impacts of this industry now and in the future on the rivers of the Lake Eyre Basin, particularly as there is so much momentum to develop gas resources.

“We seem to be hell-bent on exporting our gas at the cost of the incredible environmental and cultural values of the rivers of the Lake Eyre Basin. It is high time we adequately assessed not only the contribution of these industries to climate change but their destruction of our pristine rivers and their floodplains.”

Science paper:
Marine and Freshwater Research

See the full article here .

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Please help promote STEM in your local schools.

Stem Education Coalition

The University of New South Wales is an Australian public university with its largest campus in the Sydney suburb of Kensington.

Established in 1949, UNSW is a research university, ranked 44th in the world in the 2021 QS World University Rankings and 67th in the world in the 2021 Times Higher Education World University Rankings. UNSW is one of the founding members of the Group of Eight, a coalition of Australian research-intensive universities, and of Universitas 21, a global network of research universities. It has international exchange and research partnerships with over 200 universities around the world.

According to the 2021 QS World University Rankings by Subject, UNSW is ranked top 20 in the world for Law, Accounting and Finance, and 1st in Australia for Mathematics, Engineering and Technology. UNSW also leads Australia in Medicine, where the median ATAR (Australian university entrance examination results) of its Medical School students is higher than any other Australian medical school. UNSW enrolls the highest number of Australia’s top 500 high school students academically, and produces more millionaire graduates than any other Australian university.

The university comprises seven faculties, through which it offers bachelor’s, master’s and doctoral degrees. The main campus is in the Sydney suburb of Kensington, 7 kilometres (4.3 mi) from the Sydney CBD. The creative arts faculty, UNSW Art & Design, is located in Paddington, and subcampuses are located in the Sydney CBD as well as several other suburbs, including Randwick and Coogee. Research stations are located throughout the state of New South Wales.

The university’s second largest campus, known as UNSW Canberra at ADFA (formerly known as UNSW at ADFA), is situated in Canberra, in the Australian Capital Territory (ACT). ADFA is the military academy of the Australian Defense Force, and UNSW Canberra is the only national academic institution with a defense focus.

Research centres

The university has a number of purpose-built research facilities, including:

UNSW Lowy Cancer Research Centre is Australia’s first facility bringing together researchers in childhood and adult cancers, as well as one of the country’s largest cancer-research facilities, housing up to 400 researchers.
The Mark Wainwright Analytical Centre is a centre for the faculties of science, medicine, and engineering. It is used to study the structure and composition of biological, chemical, and physical materials.
UNSW Canberra Cyber is a cyber-security research and teaching centre.
The Sino-Australian Research Centre for Coastal Management (SARCCM) has a multidisciplinary focus, and works collaboratively with the Ocean University of China [中國海洋大學](CN) in coastal management research.

From Binghampton University-SUNY: “Ancient New York:: Research gives a snapshot of the oldest forest in the world”

From Binghampton University-SUNY

10.2.22
Jennifer Micale

Archaeopteris root system at the Cairo fossil forest site at first discovery. Image Credit: Charles Ver Straeten.

Under the gray stone of a municipal highway department quarry, the oldest trees in the world left traces of their roots beneath a ridge and forest pool 385 million years ago.

Khudadad, a Binghamton University doctoral candidate in biological sciences, reconstructed this primeval world in a recent paper, published in the journal PLOS One [below]. (Khudadad uses a single name.)

Khudadad’s research centered on an ancient ecosystem in what is today the Town of Cairo in Greene County. New York state was home to some of the oldest forests in the world; a similar site in Gilboa in Schoharie County, N.Y., first made headlines a century ago. Emeritus Professor of Biological Sciences William Stein has also published several academic papers about the ancient trees, which have received renewed interest since a root system was discovered at the Gilboa site in 2012.

New York looked far different during the Middle Devonian period, when trees first began colonizing the land. Located in the Southern Hemisphere, it had a semi-arid climate, although most of the landscape was still barren. Even the skies were different in character: the atmosphere had three to five times the level of carbon dioxide that it does today.

So what did those early forests look like? Illustrators typically draw on the example of the Gilboa forest, which was dominated by the fern-like trees known as Eospermatopteris; the trees’ bulbous bases and roots were preserved in a sand cast, which gave the impression of trees adapted to river deltas, similar to mangroves. As a result, drawings depicting the Middle Devonian often show environments similar to modern rainforests, Khudadad explained.

When he researched the Cairo site, however, he found something different. This ancient forest, even older than the one in Gilboa, lay along an abandoned river-channel and low spot that filled seasonally with water, creating a vernal pool in an otherwise arid climate. And unlike Gilboa, it had a mix of trees: Eospermatopteris and the conifer-like Archaeopteris together, and even a possible lycopsid tree, related to today’s club moss.

“This finding suggested that the earliest trees could colonize a range of environments and weren’t limited to the wet environments,” Khudadad said. “Not only could trees tolerate drier environments, but also the harsh environments of the expansive clays that dominated Catskill plains.”

Mountains and rivers

Over the course of hundreds of millions of years, New York’s Catskill mountain range has eroded, and it lacks the lofty heights of the Himalayas. But 385 million years ago, the range was still young and growing taller.

Those ancient mountains were the source of the Catskill river and associated delta systems that once irrigated New York’s plains during the Middle Devonian period. In much the same way, today’s Himalayas are the source of the Indus, Ganges and Brahmaputra river systems that irrigate the plains of Pakistan, India and Bangladesh.

The Catskill river system played an important role in establishing early forests such as the ones in Gilboa and Cairo. As it snaked along the plains and eventually widened, it formed deltaic environments that supported Eospermatopteris, Khudadad said.

These early fern-like trees weren’t much like the oaks and willows of today. They lacked the branched roots of modern trees and had relatively small amounts of wood in their structure. Because they reproduced by spores rather than seeds, scholars believe they were unable to move out of the wet delta areas into drier environments.

Enter the Archaeopteris, which are similar to today’s conifers with woody roots that reached deep into the ground and branched out. Because of its advanced features, researchers believed that Archaeopteris trees colonized the drier upper sections of river systems, while Eospermatopteris dominated the wetter deltas. But ancient ecosystems were more diverse than previously thought.

In Cairo, the young Catskill mountains provided minerals that created clay soils, which expanded and shrank in the vernal pool during seasonal wet and dry cycles. The soil churned and developed permanent hardened surfaces that tree roots had to navigate around. Researchers also theorize that the evolution of early trees changed river systems by stabilizing their banks.

“While there were young opportunistic forests, the mature forest was established on stable landscapes such as distal floodplains. By learning about the roles of abandoned channels and seasonal pools in distal floodplains, we now have a better understanding of how rivers played a key role in shaping the forest ecosystems,” Khudadad said.

The diverse, early forests that grew up around ancient river systems in places such as the Catskills played a major role in greening the Earth. Just as the roots of more complex trees branch off in different directions, the current findings may also inspire new avenues of research on the sedimentary, pedological and ecological processes connected with this period.

“Since the earliest trees had diverse morphologies, there is a need for better understanding of the selective pressures that drove the evolution of such morphologies,” Khudadad said.

Science paper:
PLOS One

See the full article here .

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The State University of New York at Binghamton (Binghamton University or SUNY- Binghamton) is a public research university with campuses in Binghamton, Vestal, and Johnson City, New York. It is one of the four university centers in the State University of New York (SUNY) system.

As of Fall 2020, 18,128 undergraduate and graduate students attend the university. The 4-year graduation rate is 72%.

Since its establishment in 1946, the school has evolved from a small liberal arts college to a large research university. It is classified among “R1: Doctoral Universities – Very high research activity”.

Binghamton’s athletic teams are the Bearcats and they compete in Division I of the National Collegiate Athletic Association (NCAA). The Bearcats are members of the America East Conference.

Binghamton University was established in 1946 in Endicott, New York, as Triple Cities College to serve the needs of local veterans returning from World War II. Thomas J. Watson, a founding member of IBM in Broome County, viewed the Triple Cities region as an area of great potential. In the early 1940s he collaborated with local leaders to begin establishing Triple Cities College as a two-year junior college operating as a satellite of private Syracuse University. Watson also donated land that would become the school’s early home.

Originally, Triple Cities College students finished their bachelor’s degrees at Syracuse. By the 1948–1949 academic year, the degrees could be completed entirely in Binghamton. In 1950, it split from Syracuse and became incorporated into the public State University of New York-SUNY (National Science Foundation) system as Harpur College, named in honor of Robert Harpur, a colonial teacher and pioneer who settled in the Binghamton area. At that time, Harpur and Champlain College in Plattsburgh were the only two liberal arts schools in the New York state system. When Champlain closed in 1952 to make way for the Plattsburgh Air Force Base, the records and some students and faculty were transferred to Harpur College in Binghamton. Harpur also received 16,000 non-duplicate volumes and the complete contents of the Champlain College library.

In 1955, Harpur began to plan its current location in Vestal, a town next to Binghamton. A site large enough to anticipate future growth was purchased, with the school’s move to its new 387-acre (1.57 km^2) campus being completed by 1961. Colonial Hall, Triple Cities College’s original building in Endicott, stands today as the village’s Visitor’s Center.

In 1965, Harpur College was selected to join New York state schools at SUNY Stony Brook University, Albany, and Buffalo as one of the four new SUNY university centers. Redesignated the State University of New York at Binghamton, the school’s new name reflected its status as an advanced degree granting institution. In a nod to tradition, its undergraduate college of arts and sciences remained “Harpur College”. With more than 60% of undergraduate and graduate students enrolled in Harpur’s degree programs, it is the largest of Binghamton’s constituent schools. In 1967, the School of Advanced Technology was established, the precursor to the Thomas J. Watson School of Engineering and Applied Science, which was founded in 1983. In 2020, the school became the Thomas J. Watson College of Engineering and Applied Science.

Since 1992, the school has made an effort to distinguish itself from the SUNY system, rebranding itself as “Binghamton University,” or “Binghamton University-SUNY”. Both names are accepted as first reference in news stories. While the school’s legal and official name, “The State University of New York at Binghamton”, still appears on official documents such as diplomas, the administration discourages using the full name unless absolutely necessary.

Colleges and schools

Binghamton is composed of the following colleges and schools:

Harpur College of Arts and Sciences is the oldest and largest of Binghamton’s schools. It has more than 9,400 undergraduates and more than 1,100 graduate students in 26 departments and 14 interdisciplinary degree programs in the fine arts, humanities, natural and social sciences, and mathematics.
The College of Community and Public Affairs offers an undergraduate major in human development as well as graduate programs in social work; public administration; student affairs administration; human rights; and teaching, learning and educational leadership. It was formed in July 2006, after a reorganization of its predecessor, the School of Education and Human Development, when it was split off along with the Graduate School of Education. In 2017, the Graduate School of Education merged back into the College of Community and Public Affairs as the Department of Teaching, Learning and Educational Leadership. The department continues to offer master’s of science and doctoral degrees.
The Decker College of Nursing and Health Sciences was established in 1969. The school offers undergraduate, master’s and doctoral degrees in nursing. The school is accredited by the Commission of Collegiate Nursing Education (CCNE).
The School of Management was established in 1970. It offers bachelor’s, master’s and doctoral degrees in management, finance, information science, marketing, accounting, and operations and business analytics. It is accredited by the American Assembly of Collegiate Schools of Business (AACSB).
The Thomas J. Watson College of Engineering and Applied Science offers undergraduate and graduate degrees in mechanical engineering, electrical engineering, computer engineering, biomedical engineering, systems science and industrial engineering, materials science and engineering, and computer science. All of the school’s departments have been accredited by the Accreditation Board for Engineering and Technology.
The Graduate School administers advanced-degree programs and awards degrees through the seven component colleges above. Graduate students will find almost 70 areas of study. Undergraduate and graduate students are taught and advised by a single faculty.

Rankings and reputation

Binghamton is ranked tied for 83rd among national universities, tied for 33rd among public schools, ranked as the best SUNY school, and tied for 877th among global universities for 2022 by U.S. News & World Report.
In 2021, Forbes magazine rated Binghamton No. 77 out of the 600 best private and public colleges, universities and service academies in America.
Money magazine ranked Binghamton 73rd in the country out of 739 schools evaluated for its 2020 Best Colleges for Your Money edition, and 48th in its list of the 50 best public schools in the U.S.
The university is ranked 653rd in the world, 162nd in the nation in the 2021-22 Center for University World Rankings.
Binghamton University is ranked the 18th best public college in the U.S. by The Business Journals in 2015.
In 2016 Binghamton was ranked as the 10th best public college in the United States by Business Insider.
In 2018, the university was ranked 401-500 by Times Higher Education World Ranking.
In its inaugural college rankings, based upon “… the economic value of a university…,” The Economist ranked Binghamton University 74th overall in the nation.
The university was called a Public Ivy by Howard and Matthew Greene in a book titled The Public Ivies: America’s Flagship Public Universities (2001). It was a runner-up for the original Public Ivy list in 1985.
Binghamton was ranked 93rd in the 2020 National Universities category of the Washington Monthly college rankings in the U.S., based on its contribution to the public good, as measured by social mobility, research, and promoting public service.
According to the 2014 BusinessWeek rankings, the undergraduate business school was ranked 57th among Public Schools in the nation. In 2010 it was ranked as having the second-best accounting program.
Binghamton’s QS World University Rankings have decreased annually from 501 in 2008, to 601 in 2012 and 701+ in 2013 with higher numbers reflecting worse performance.

Research

The university is designated as an advanced research institution, with a division of research, an independent research foundation, several research centers including a New York State Center of Excellence, and partnerships with other institutions. Binghamton University was ranked 163rd nationally in research and development expenditures by the National Science Foundation. In fiscal year 2013, the university had research expenditures of $76 million.

Division of Research

The office of the vice president for research is in charge of the university’s Division of Research. The Office of Sponsored Programs supports the Binghamton University community in its efforts to seek and obtain external awards to support research, training, and other scholarly and creative activities. It provides support to faculty and staff in all aspects of proposal preparation, submission and grant administration. The Office of Research Compliance ensures the protection of human subjects, the welfare of animals, safe use of select agents pathogens and toxins, and to enhance the ethical conduct in research programs. The Office of Research Advancement facilitates the growth of research and scholarship, and helps build awareness of the work being done on campus. The Office of Entrepreneurship and Innovation Partnerships supports entrepreneurship, commercialization of technologies, start-ups and business incubation, and facilitates partnerships with the community and industry.

SUNY Research Foundation

The Research Foundation for the State University of New York is a private, nonprofit educational corporation that administers externally funded contracts and grants for and on behalf of SUNY. The foundation carries out its responsibilities pursuant to a 1977 agreement with the university. It is separate from the university and does not receive services provided to New York State agencies or state appropriation to support corporate functions. Sponsored program functions delegated to the campuses are conducted under the supervision of foundation operations managers. The Office of Sponsored Funds Administration, often referred to as “post-award administration,” is the fiscal and operational office for the foundation. It provides sponsored project personnel with comprehensive financial, project accounting, human resources, procurement, accounts payable and reporting services, as well as support for projects administered through the Research Foundation.

Centers and institutes

33 organized research centers and institutes for advanced studies facilitate interdisciplinary and specialized research at the university. The university is home to the New York State Center of Excellence in Small Scale Systems Integration and Packaging (S3IP). S3IP conducts research in areas such as microelectronics manufacturing and packaging, data center energy management, and solar energy. Other research centers and institutes include the Center for Development and Behavioural Neuroscience (CDBN), Center for Interdisciplinary Studies in Philosophy, Interpretation, and Culture (CPIC), Institute for Materials Research (IMR), and the Fernand Braudel Center for the Study of Economies, Historical Systems, and Civilizations (FBC).[81]
Partnerships

The university’s Office of Entrepreneurship and Innovation Partnerships can connect people to resources available through programs such as STARTUP NY, the Small Business Development Center, the region’s Trade Adjustment Assistance Center, campus Start-Up Suites and the Koffman Southern Tier Incubator.

From CSIRO (AU)-Commonwealth Scientific and Industrial Research Organization: “Voyage to the unknown”

From CSIRO (AU)-Commonwealth Scientific and Industrial Research Organization

9.26.22
Mr Matt Marrison
Communication Advisor
Tel +61 3 6232 5197
Mob +61 4 3878 5399

A team of scientists led by Museums Victoria Research Institute will embark on a deep sea research voyage exploring vast, prehistoric undersea mountains and undiscovered animal inhabitants in the remote waters of Christmas and Cocos (Keeling) Islands.

Investigating the Indian Ocean Territories (IOT) is a 35 day, 13,000km voyage on CSIRO research vessel (RV) Investigator [below] which will depart from Darwin today (30 September 2022). Operated by Australia’s national science agency, CSIRO, R/V Investigator will voyage through the remote waters of Christmas Island and the Cocos (Keeling) Islands to conduct deep-ocean surveys of life at abyssal depths more than 5500 metres below the surface.

Christmas Island. Credit: David Stanley on Flickr.

Cocos (Keeling) Islands. Credit: Istockphoto.

Led by Museums Victoria Research Institute, in collaboration with CSIRO, Parks Australia, Bush Blitz and a team of partner museums and universities, this voyage completes a research project that commenced in 2021 with the first biodiversity survey of these remote waters by R/V Investigator.

Scientists expect to discover many new deep-sea species, and outcomes of the voyage will provide scientific data and information to support the management of new marine parks in Australia’s Indian Ocean Territories. Announced last year, these parks will help protect an area of up to 740,000 square kilometres.

Voyage Chief Scientist Dr Tim O’Hara, Museums Victoria Research Institute’s senior curator of marine invertebrates, is a veteran deep-sea researcher. He explains that while there are not too many places in Australia that are totally unexplored, we know almost nothing about the vast underwater mountains and ridges surrounding the Christmas and Cocos (Keeling) Islands.

“We know the region is covered with massive seamounts formed during the dinosaur era and we know the region sits at a critical juncture between the Pacific and Indian Oceans. We are really excited about the prospect of discovering new species, perhaps even new branches of the tree of life, which until now have remained hidden beneath the waves in this unexplored region,” explains Dr O’Hara.

“Surrounding the islands of Christmas and Cocos (Keeling) are a series of ancient underwater mountains and ridges – extinct volcanos which formed 140-50 million years ago. No one has seen these isolated areas before, we have no maps of them and no knowledge of what lives there, and this voyage will provide world-first baseline data of these unknown marine environments and their inhabitants.”

The research team will use high-tech multi-beam sonar to map the structure of the seafloor, and cameras, nets and sleds to sample habitats from 60 metres all the way down to 5500 metre depths. The voyage will result in the description of new species from specimens added to the Museums Victoria State Collection and other national biological collections.

Director and CEO of Museums Victoria, Lynley Crosswell, said that the undersea world of the Indian Ocean Territories holds immense value to island communities and the Australian public.

“The research outcomes from this voyage will be invaluable to our understanding of Australia’s deep-sea environments and the impact humans are having on them. This type of field activity by Museums Victoria Research Institute, delivered in collaboration with our partner organizations, is enormously important to protecting our unique biodiversity and creating sustainable futures.”

Director of the CSIRO Marine National Facility, Toni Moate, said the voyage demonstrates the important research that R/V Investigator delivers to help Australia better manage its marine resources and environment.

“The important collaborative research we help deliver continues on this epic voyage to study marine life around these remote tropical islands, with untold discoveries to be made in this ancient deep sea environment, information vital for managing the IOT marine parks,” said Ms Moate.

Parks Australia Acting Director of National Parks, Jody Swirepik, said the voyage includes an outreach team from Bush Blitz.

“Known for biodiversity surveys on land, Bush Blitz will be onboard to conduct their completely underwater survey. They will share discoveries with school groups and the general public along the way,” Ms Swirepik said.

The voyage will involve collaboration between some of Australia’s most renowned deep-sea scientists and research institutions including Museums Victoria Research Institute, CSIRO, Australian National Fish Collection, Australian Museum and Western Australian Museum. The research has been made possible through a grant of sea time on R/V Investigator from the CSIRO Marine National Facility.

R/V Investigator will set sail from Darwin on 30 September 2022 to travel to Christmas and Cocos (Keeling) Island Territories before returning to Fremantle (Western Australia) on 3 November 2022.

See the full article here .

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Please help promote STEM in your local schools.

Stem Education Coalition

CSIRO (AU)-Commonwealth Scientific and Industrial Research Organization, is Australia’s national science agency and one of the largest and most diverse research agencies in the world.

CSIRO works with leading organizations around the world. From its headquarters in Canberra, CSIRO maintains more than 50 sites across Australia and in France, Chile and the United States, employing about 5,500 people.

Federally funded scientific research began in Australia 104 years ago. The Advisory Council of Science and Industry was established in 1916 but was hampered by insufficient available finance. In 1926 the research effort was reinvigorated by establishment of the Council for Scientific and Industrial Research (CSIR), which strengthened national science leadership and increased research funding. CSIR grew rapidly and achieved significant early successes. In 1949 further legislated changes included renaming the organization as CSIRO.

Notable developments by CSIRO have included the invention of atomic absorption spectroscopy; essential components of Wi-Fi technology; development of the first commercially successful polymer banknote; the invention of the insect repellent in Aerogard and the introduction of a series of biological controls into Australia, such as the introduction of myxomatosis and rabbit calicivirus for the control of rabbit populations.

Research and focus areas

Research Business Units

As at 2019, CSIRO’s research areas are identified as “Impact science” and organized into the following Business Units:

Agriculture and Food
Health and Biosecurity
Data 61
Energy
Land and Water
Manufacturing
Mineral Resources
Oceans and Atmosphere

National Facilities
CSIRO manages national research facilities and scientific infrastructure on behalf of the nation to assist with the delivery of research. The national facilities and specialized laboratories are available to both international and Australian users from industry and research. As at 2019, the following National Facilities are listed:

Australian Animal Health Laboratory (AAHL)
Australia Telescope National Facility – radio telescopes included in the Facility include the Australia Telescope Compact Array, the Parkes Observatory, Mopra Radio Telescope Observatory and the Australian Square Kilometre Array Pathfinder.

CSIRO Australia Compact Array (AU), six radio telescopes at the Paul Wild Observatory, is an array of six 22-m antennas located about twenty five kilometres (16 mi) west of the town of Narrabri in Australia.

CSIRO-Commonwealth Scientific and Industrial Research Organization (AU) Parkes Observatory [Murriyang, the traditional Indigenous name], located 20 kilometres north of the town of Parkes, New South Wales, Australia, 414.80m above sea level.

CSIRO-Commonwealth Scientific and Industrial Research Organisation (AU) Mopra Radio Telescope

NASA Canberra Deep Space Communication Complex, AU, Deep Space Network. Credit: NASA.

CSIRO Canberra campus.

ESA DSA 1, hosts a 35-metre deep-space antenna with transmission and reception in both S- and X-band and is located 140 kilometres north of Perth, Western Australia, near the town of New Norcia.

CSIRO-Commonwealth Scientific and Industrial Research Organisation (AU) CSIRO R/V Investigator.

UK Space NovaSAR-1 satellite (UK) synthetic aperture radar satellite.

CSIRO Pawsey Supercomputing Centre AU)

Magnus Cray XC40 supercomputer at Pawsey Supercomputer Centre Perth Australia.

Galaxy Cray XC30 Series Supercomputer at at Pawsey Supercomputer Centre Perth Australia.

Pausey Supercomputer CSIRO Zeus SGI Linux cluster.

Pawsey Cray EX Supercomputer – Setonix

Others not shown

SKA

SKA- Square Kilometer Array.

SKA Murchison Widefield Array (AU), Boolardy station in outback Western Australia, at the Murchison Radio-astronomy Observatory (MRO), on the traditional lands of the Wajarri peoples.

SKA ASKAP Pathfinder Radio Telescope at the Murchison Radio-astronomy Observatory (MRO), on the traditional lands of the Wajarri peoples

SKA Square Kilometre Array low frequency at Murchison Widefield Array, Boolardy station in outback Western Australia on the traditional lands of the Wajarri peoples.

Testing EDGES at MIT Haystack Observatory

EDGES telescope in a radio quiet zone at the Murchison Radio-astronomy Observatory in Western Australia, on the traditional lands of the Wajarri peoples.

From The Yale School of the Environment: “Can Gold Mining Be More Sustainable?”

From The Yale School of the Environment

at

Yale University

9.28.22

Josh Anusewicz
Assistant Editor
joshua.anusewicz@yale.edu
+1 203-436-8994

Credit: The Yale School of the Environment.

FIGURE 1

Left—A large gold mining pit in Guyana (image by Michelle Kalamandeen). Right—An aerial photo of a large-scale opencast gold mine in Namibia. In large-scale gold mining operations, vast areas of land are converted to construct access roads, mining pits, overburden heaps, and tailings storage facilities (Image by Hanspeter Baumeler)

FIGURE 2

Left—an isolated ASGM site in the Amazon (image by Sue Palminteri/Mongabay). Right—an aerial photo depicting the considerable extent of ASGM operations in the Peruvian Amazon (image by Rhett A. Butler/Mongabay)

More instructive images are available in the science paper.

A YSE-led study details the severe degradation and deforestation caused by gold mining in tropical forests, as well as the biophysical challenges associated with effectively restoring these landscapes.

Every other year, Mark Ashton, Morris K. Jesup Professor of Silviculture and Forest Ecology, teaches a popular course at the Yale School of the Environment on tropical forest restoration, which highlights tropical forest degradation and deforestation and strategies for restoring these landscapes.

It was this course that inspired Shrabya Timsina ’20 MF and Nora Hardy ’22 MESc to investigate one of the most severe forms of environmental degradation in the tropics —surface mining — to understand the ways in which surface mining affects ecosystems and potential strategies for restoring mining sites.

In a review paper recently published in the journal Land Degradation and Development [below], Timsina and Hardy focused on the effects of surface gold mining in tropical regions, a growing environmental concern in recent years. According to a 2012 study, mining accounts for 7% of deforestation in developing nations and large-scale and artisanal, small-scale gold mining techniques such as open-pit mining and dredging are becoming more prevalent in the Amazon and West Africa.

The authors, who include Ashton and YSE doctoral student David Woodbury, focused particularly on gold mining — a topic “relevant for this particular moment,” says Timsina. Gold mining is becoming more prevalent, he explains, both because it is important for manufacturing electronics and alternative energy production, and persistently rising gold costs make previously unfeasible mining projects more lucrative.

Environmentally, however, the results are costly. “You can imagine what surface mining can do to surrounding areas,” says Hardy. “It completely reshapes the topography. It also depletes and disturbs the topsoil that contains nutrients and seeds necessary for plant growth, and tropical regions often have nutrient-poor soils already.”

Surface mining can also impact local hydrology. Numerous pollutants, including mercury and cyanide, are used in gold refining processes and can contaminate the soil and nearby water sources. Timsina says effective containment strategies against these pollutants must be used in concert with land restoration techniques to help the regrowth of plants and ensure the health of nearby human communities.

The researchers also investigated possible restoration strategies for mined areas, most notably the conservation of topsoil. Because recovering soil health following mining is a lengthy and costly process, they emphasize the importance of topsoil conservation practices – moving topsoil prior to mining and storing it separately to conserve the nutrients and seeds — so it can then be returned to the mining site when the operations are complete.

“Soil health becomes a major challenge to reforestation following mining,” says Hardy. “By saving the topsoil, you at least have some base to start with and are not starting at zero.”

The researchers also found that there are certain plant species that are better suited for surviving soil conditions that result from mining. When possible, integrating natural regeneration strategies with the purposeful reintroduction of these hardy plants, they say, makes it more likely that degraded areas can be restored to forest.

As surface mining continues to rise throughout the tropics, the authors highlight a need for continued on-the-ground restoration research to help ensure the recovery of tropical forests.

Science paper:
Land Degradation and Development

See the full article here .

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The Yale School of the Environment

Yale School of the Environment Vision and Mission

We are leading the world toward a sustainable future with cutting-edge research, teaching, and public engagement on society’s evolving and urgent environmental challenges.

Core Values

Our Mission and Vision are grounded in seven fundamental values:

Excellence: We promote and engage in path-breaking science, policy, and business models that build on a fundamental commitment to analytic rigor, data, intellectual integrity, and excellence.
Leadership: We attract outstanding students nationally and internationally and offer a pioneering curriculum that defines the knowledge and skills needed to be a 21st century environmental leader in a range of professions.
Sustainability: We generate knowledge that will advance thinking and understanding across the various dimensions of sustainability.
Community: We offer a community that finds strength in its collegiality, diversity, independence, commitment to excellence, and lifelong learning.
Diversity: We celebrate our differences and identify pathways to a sustainable future that respects diverse values including equity, liberty, and civil discourse.
Collaboration: We foster collaborative learning, professional skill development, and problem-solving — and we strengthen our scholarship, teaching, policy work, and outreach through partnerships across the university and beyond.
Responsibility: We encourage environmental stewardship and responsible behavior on campus and beyond.

Guiding Principles

In pursuit of our Mission and Vision, we:

Build on more than a century of work bringing science-based strategies, ethical considerations, and conservation practices to natural resource management.
Approach problems on a systems basis and from interdisciplinary perspectives.
Integrate theory and practice, providing innovative solutions to society’s most pressing environmental problems.
Address environmental challenges at multiple scales and settings — from local to global, urban to rural, managed to wild.
Draw on the depth of resources at Yale University and our network of alumni who extend across the world.
Create opportunities for research, policy application, and professional development through our unique centers and programs.
Provide a diverse forum to convene conversations on difficult issues that are critical to progress on sustainability.
Bring special focus on the most significant threats to a sustainable future including climate change, the corresponding need for clean energy, and the increasing stresses on our natural resources.

Statement of Environmental Policy

As faculty, staff, and students of the Yale School of the Environment, we affirm our commitment to responsible stewardship of the environment of our School, our University, the city of New Haven, and the other sites of our teaching, research, professional, and social activities.

In the course of these activities, we shall strive to:

reduce our use of natural resources;
support the sustainable production of the resources we must use by purchasing renewable, reusable, recyclable, and recycled materials;
minimize our use of toxic substances and ensure that unavoidable use is in full compliance with federal, state, and local environmental regulations;
reduce the amount of waste we generate and promote strategies to reuse and recycle those wastes that cannot be avoided;
restore the environment where possible.

Each member of the School community is encouraged to set an example for others by serving as an active steward of our environment.

Yale University is a private Ivy League research university in New Haven, Connecticut. Founded in 1701 as the Collegiate School, it is the third-oldest institution of higher education in the United States and one of the nine Colonial Colleges chartered before the American Revolution. The Collegiate School was renamed Yale College in 1718 to honor the school’s largest private benefactor for the first century of its existence, Elihu Yale. Yale University is consistently ranked as one of the top universities and is considered one of the most prestigious in the nation.

Chartered by Connecticut Colony, the Collegiate School was established in 1701 by clergy to educate Congregational ministers before moving to New Haven in 1716. Originally restricted to theology and sacred languages, the curriculum began to incorporate humanities and sciences by the time of the American Revolution. In the 19th century, the college expanded into graduate and professional instruction, awarding the first PhD in the United States in 1861 and organizing as a university in 1887. Yale’s faculty and student populations grew after 1890 with rapid expansion of the physical campus and scientific research.

Yale is organized into fourteen constituent schools: the original undergraduate college, the Yale Graduate School of Arts and Sciences and twelve professional schools. While the university is governed by the Yale Corporation, each school’s faculty oversees its curriculum and degree programs. In addition to a central campus in downtown New Haven, the university owns athletic facilities in western New Haven, a campus in West Haven, Connecticut, and forests and nature preserves throughout New England. As of June 2020, the university’s endowment was valued at $31.1 billion, the second largest of any educational institution. The Yale University Library, serving all constituent schools, holds more than 15 million volumes and is the third-largest academic library in the United States. Students compete in intercollegiate sports as the Yale Bulldogs in the NCAA Division I – Ivy League.

As of October 2020, 65 Nobel laureates, five Fields Medalists, four Abel Prize laureates, and three Turing award winners have been affiliated with Yale University. In addition, Yale has graduated many notable alumni, including five U.S. Presidents, 19 U.S. Supreme Court Justices, 31 living billionaires, and many heads of state. Hundreds of members of Congress and many U.S. diplomats, 78 MacArthur Fellows, 252 Rhodes Scholars, 123 Marshall Scholars, and nine Mitchell Scholars have been affiliated with the university.

Research

Yale is a member of the Association of American Universities and is classified among “R1: Doctoral Universities – Very high research activity”. According to the National Science Foundation , Yale spent $990 million on research and development in 2018, ranking it 15th in the nation.

Yale’s faculty include 61 members of the National Academy of Sciences , 7 members of the National Academy of Engineering and 49 members of the American Academy of Arts and Sciences . The college is, after normalization for institution size, the tenth-largest baccalaureate source of doctoral degree recipients in the United States, and the largest such source within the Ivy League.

Yale’s English and Comparative Literature departments were part of the New Criticism movement. Of the New Critics, Robert Penn Warren, W.K. Wimsatt, and Cleanth Brooks were all Yale faculty. Later, the Yale Comparative literature department became a center of American deconstruction. Jacques Derrida, the father of deconstruction, taught at the Department of Comparative Literature from the late seventies to mid-1980s. Several other Yale faculty members were also associated with deconstruction, forming the so-called “Yale School”. These included Paul de Man who taught in the Departments of Comparative Literature and French, J. Hillis Miller, Geoffrey Hartman (both taught in the Departments of English and Comparative Literature), and Harold Bloom (English), whose theoretical position was always somewhat specific, and who ultimately took a very different path from the rest of this group. Yale’s history department has also originated important intellectual trends. Historians C. Vann Woodward and David Brion Davis are credited with beginning in the 1960s and 1970s an important stream of southern historians; likewise, David Montgomery, a labor historian, advised many of the current generation of labor historians in the country. Yale’s Music School and Department fostered the growth of Music Theory in the latter half of the 20th century. The Journal of Music Theory was founded there in 1957; Allen Forte and David Lewin were influential teachers and scholars.

In addition to eminent faculty members, Yale research relies heavily on the presence of roughly 1200 Postdocs from various national and international origin working in the multiple laboratories in the sciences, social sciences, humanities, and professional schools of the university. The university progressively recognized this working force with the recent creation of the Office for Postdoctoral Affairs and the Yale Postdoctoral Association.

Notable alumni

Over its history, Yale has produced many distinguished alumni in a variety of fields, ranging from the public to private sector. According to 2020 data, around 71% of undergraduates join the workforce, while the next largest majority of 16.6% go on to attend graduate or professional schools. Yale graduates have been recipients of 252 Rhodes Scholarships, 123 Marshall Scholarships, 67 Truman Scholarships, 21 Churchill Scholarships, and 9 Mitchell Scholarships. The university is also the second largest producer of Fulbright Scholars, with a total of 1,199 in its history and has produced 89 MacArthur Fellows. The U.S. Department of State Bureau of Educational and Cultural Affairs ranked Yale fifth among research institutions producing the most 2020–2021 Fulbright Scholars. Additionally, 31 living billionaires are Yale alumni.

At Yale, one of the most popular undergraduate majors among Juniors and Seniors is political science, with many students going on to serve careers in government and politics. Former presidents who attended Yale for undergrad include William Howard Taft, George H. W. Bush, and George W. Bush while former presidents Gerald Ford and Bill Clinton attended Yale Law School. Former vice-president and influential antebellum era politician John C. Calhoun also graduated from Yale. Former world leaders include Italian prime minister Mario Monti, Turkish prime minister Tansu Çiller, Mexican president Ernesto Zedillo, German president Karl Carstens, Philippine president José Paciano Laurel, Latvian president Valdis Zatlers, Taiwanese premier Jiang Yi-huah, and Malawian president Peter Mutharika, among others. Prominent royals who graduated are Crown Princess Victoria of Sweden, and Olympia Bonaparte, Princess Napoléon.

Yale alumni have had considerable presence in U.S. government in all three branches. On the U.S. Supreme Court, 19 justices have been Yale alumni, including current Associate Justices Sonia Sotomayor, Samuel Alito, Clarence Thomas, and Brett Kavanaugh. Numerous Yale alumni have been U.S. Senators, including current Senators Michael Bennet, Richard Blumenthal, Cory Booker, Sherrod Brown, Chris Coons, Amy Klobuchar, Ben Sasse, and Sheldon Whitehouse. Current and former cabinet members include Secretaries of State John Kerry, Hillary Clinton, Cyrus Vance, and Dean Acheson; U.S. Secretaries of the Treasury Oliver Wolcott, Robert Rubin, Nicholas F. Brady, Steven Mnuchin, and Janet Yellen; U.S. Attorneys General Nicholas Katzenbach, John Ashcroft, and Edward H. Levi; and many others. Peace Corps founder and American diplomat Sargent Shriver and public official and urban planner Robert Moses are Yale alumni.

Yale has produced numerous award-winning authors and influential writers, like Nobel Prize in Literature laureate Sinclair Lewis and Pulitzer Prize winners Stephen Vincent Benét, Thornton Wilder, Doug Wright, and David McCullough. Academy Award winning actors, actresses, and directors include Jodie Foster, Paul Newman, Meryl Streep, Elia Kazan, George Roy Hill, Lupita Nyong’o, Oliver Stone, and Frances McDormand. Alumni from Yale have also made notable contributions to both music and the arts. Leading American composer from the 20th century Charles Ives, Broadway composer Cole Porter, Grammy award winner David Lang, and award-winning jazz pianist and composer Vijay Iyer all hail from Yale. Hugo Boss Prize winner Matthew Barney, famed American sculptor Richard Serra, President Barack Obama presidential portrait painter Kehinde Wiley, MacArthur Fellow and contemporary artist Sarah Sze, Pulitzer Prize winning cartoonist Garry Trudeau, and National Medal of Arts photorealist painter Chuck Close all graduated from Yale. Additional alumni include architect and Presidential Medal of Freedom winner Maya Lin, Pritzker Prize winner Norman Foster, and Gateway Arch designer Eero Saarinen. Journalists and pundits include Dick Cavett, Chris Cuomo, Anderson Cooper, William F. Buckley, Jr., and Fareed Zakaria.

In business, Yale has had numerous alumni and former students go on to become founders of influential business, like William Boeing (Boeing, United Airlines), Briton Hadden and Henry Luce (Time Magazine), Stephen A. Schwarzman (Blackstone Group), Frederick W. Smith (FedEx), Juan Trippe (Pan Am), Harold Stanley (Morgan Stanley), Bing Gordon (Electronic Arts), and Ben Silbermann (Pinterest). Other business people from Yale include former chairman and CEO of Sears Holdings Edward Lampert, former Time Warner president Jeffrey Bewkes, former PepsiCo chairperson and CEO Indra Nooyi, sports agent Donald Dell, and investor/philanthropist Sir John Templeton.

Yale alumni distinguished in academia include literary critic and historian Henry Louis Gates, economists Irving Fischer, Mahbub ul Haq, and Nobel Prize laureate Paul Krugman; Nobel Prize in Physics laureates Ernest Lawrence and Murray Gell-Mann; Fields Medalist John G. Thompson; Human Genome Project leader and National Institutes of Health director Francis S. Collins; brain surgery pioneer Harvey Cushing; pioneering computer scientist Grace Hopper; influential mathematician and chemist Josiah Willard Gibbs; National Women’s Hall of Fame inductee and biochemist Florence B. Seibert; Turing Award recipient Ron Rivest; inventors Samuel F.B. Morse and Eli Whitney; Nobel Prize in Chemistry laureate John B. Goodenough; lexicographer Noah Webster; and theologians Jonathan Edwards and Reinhold Niebuhr.

In the sporting arena, Yale alumni include baseball players Ron Darling and Craig Breslow and baseball executives Theo Epstein and George Weiss; football players Calvin Hill, Gary Fenick, Amos Alonzo Stagg, and “the Father of American Football” Walter Camp; ice hockey players Chris Higgins and Olympian Helen Resor; Olympic figure skaters Sarah Hughes and Nathan Chen; nine-time U.S. Squash men’s champion Julian Illingworth; Olympic swimmer Don Schollander; Olympic rowers Josh West and Rusty Wailes; Olympic sailor Stuart McNay; Olympic runner Frank Shorter; and others.