From Rutgers University: “Rutgers Scientists Identify Substance That May Have Sparked Life on Earth”

Our Great Seal.

From Rutgers University

3.10.23
Kitta Macpherson
kitta.macpherson@rutgers.edu

A computer rendering of the Nickelback peptide shows the backbone nitrogen atoms (blue) that bond two critical nickel atoms (orange). Rutgers scientists who identified this piece of a protein believe it may provide clues to detecting planets on the verge of producing life. Nanda Laboratory.

Research could provide clues to extraterrestrial life.

A team of Rutgers scientists dedicated to pinpointing the primordial origins of metabolism – a set of core chemical reactions that first powered life on Earth – has identified part of a protein that could provide scientists clues to detecting planets on the verge of producing life.

The research, published in Science Advances [below], has important implications in the search for extraterrestrial life because it gives researchers a new clue to look for, said Vikas Nanda, a researcher at the Center for Advanced Biotechnology and Medicine (CABM) at Rutgers.

Based on laboratory studies, Rutgers scientists say one of the most likely chemical candidates that kickstarted life was a simple peptide with two nickel atoms they are calling “Nickelback,” not because it has anything to do with the Canadian rock band, but because its backbone nitrogen atoms bond two critical nickel atoms. A peptide is a constituent of a protein made up of a few elemental building blocks known as amino acids.

“Scientists believe that sometime between 3.5 and 3.8 billion years ago there was a tipping point, something that kickstarted the change from prebiotic chemistry – molecules before life – to­ living, biological systems,” said Nanda, a professor of biochemistry and molecular biology at Robert Wood Johnson Medical School. “We believe the change was sparked by a few small precursor proteins that performed key steps in an ancient metabolic reaction. And we think we’ve found one of these ‘pioneer peptides.’”

The scientists conducting the study are part of a Rutgers-led team called Evolution of Nanomachines in Geospheres and Microbial Ancestors (ENIGMA), which is part of the Astrobiology Program at NASA. The researchers are seeking to understand how proteins evolved to become the predominant catalyst of life on Earth.

When scouring the universe with telescopes and probes for signs of past, present or emerging life, NASA scientists look for specific “biosignatures” known to be harbingers of life. Peptides like nickelback could become the latest biosignature employed by NASA to detect planets on the verge of producing life, Nanda said.

An original instigating chemical, the researchers reasoned, would need to be simple enough to be able to assemble spontaneously in a prebiotic soup. But it would have to be sufficiently chemically active to possess the potential to take energy from the environment to drive a biochemical process.

To do so, the researchers adopted a “reductionist” approach: They started by examining existing contemporary proteins known to be associated with metabolic processes. Knowing the proteins were too complex to have emerged early on, they pared them down to their basic structure.

After sequences of experiments, researchers concluded the best candidate was Nickelback. The peptide is made of 13 amino acids and binds two nickel ions.

Nickel, they reasoned, was an abundant metal in early oceans. When bound to the peptide, the nickel atoms become potent catalysts, attracting additional protons and electrons and producing hydrogen gas. Hydrogen, the researchers reasoned, was also more abundant on early Earth and would have been a critical source of energy to power metabolism.

“This is important because, while there are many theories about the origins of life, there are very few actual laboratory tests of these ideas,” Nanda said. “This work shows that, not only are simple protein metabolic enzymes possible, but that they are very stable and very active – making them a plausible starting point for life.”

Other Rutgers researchers on the study include: Distinguished Professor Paul Falkowski and Jennifer Timm, a postdoctoral associate, in the Environmental Biophysics and Molecular Ecology Program, Department of Marine and Coastal Sciences at the School of Environmental and Biological Sciences; Joshua Mancini, Douglas Pike, Saroj Poudel and Alexei Tyryshkin, postdoctoral associates, and doctoral student Jan Siess at the Center for Advanced Biotechnology and Medicine and in the Department of Biochemistry and Molecular Biology at Robert Wood Johnson Medical School; and Kate Waldie, an assistant professor of the Department of Chemistry and Chemical Biology at the School of Arts and Sciences.

Researchers from the City College of New York also participated in the study.

Science Advances

Fig. 1. Model structure of NB and comparison to natural enzymes.

[Ni-Fe] hydrogenase (left) (PDB ID: 5XLE) and ACS (right) (PDB ID: 1RU3) are large, complex proteins with active di-metal sites coordinated by a few ligands. The model structure of NB (middle) combines elements of both active sites in a 13-residue polypeptide.

Fig. 2. Assembly and activity of NB.

(A) CD spectra of NB as a function of added Ni: [NB] = 750 μM (pH 7.5), temperature = 50°C. The peak at 340 nm (assigned to 2NB-1Ni) at first grows, reaching the maximum at [Ni] = 450 μM (solid purple line), and then declines at even higher [Ni] concentrations. The peak at 430 nm (assigned to NB-2Ni) starts to develop only at [Ni] > 500 μM, and it grows monotonously to saturate around [Ni] = 1650 μM (solid blue line). Black arrows show isosbestic points. (B) Fractional concentrations of 2NB-1Ni and NB-2Ni as extracted from the two-component spectral decomposition of the CD spectra from (A), as demonstrated in figs. S5 and S6. The dashed lines are the fits using a two-step reconstitution model: apo-NB → 2NB-1Ni → NB-2Ni (fig. S6). The upper bounds for Ni2+ binding constants were estimated from the fit to be around 1 μM in both 2NB-1Ni and NB-2Ni. Replications of this titration confirmed metal saturation beyond a 1:2 peptide-nickel stoichiometry (fig. S7). (C) Absorption spectra of pure 2NB-1Ni and NB-2Ni with characteristic bands labeled. (D) Reduction waves in bulk solution CV experiments at different stages of Ni reconstitution in NB: [NB] = 750 μM (pH 7.5), added [Ni] is indicated for each trace (full traces in figs. S14 to S16). NHE – normal hydrogen electrode. The catalytic current at −850 mV (vertical dashed line) starts to develop only at [Ni] > 500 μM, and it grows linearly with the NB-2Ni fraction as demonstrated in (E). (F) Photochemical H2 evolution by NB-2Ni (10 μM) with EosinY (500 μM) and TEOA (500 mM), 540-nm illumination (pH 8) at 37°C.

See the full article here .

Comments are invited and will be appreciated, especially if the reader finds any errors which I can correct. Use “Reply”.

five-ways-keep-your-child-safe-school-shootings

Please help promote STEM in your local schools.

Stem Education Coalition

Rutgers-The State University of New Jersey, is a leading national research university and the state’s preeminent, comprehensive public institution of higher education. Rutgers is dedicated to teaching that meets the highest standards of excellence; to conducting research that breaks new ground; and to providing services, solutions, and clinical care that help individuals and the local, national, and global communities where they live.

Founded in 1766, Rutgers teaches across the full educational spectrum: preschool to precollege; undergraduate to graduate; postdoctoral fellowships to residencies; and continuing education for professional and personal advancement.

Rutgers University is a public land-grant research university based in New Brunswick, New Jersey. Chartered in 1766, Rutgers was originally called Queen’s College, and today it is the eighth-oldest college in the United States, the second-oldest in New Jersey (after Princeton University), and one of the nine U.S. colonial colleges that were chartered before the American War of Independence. In 1825, Queen’s College was renamed Rutgers College in honor of Colonel Henry Rutgers, whose substantial gift to the school had stabilized its finances during a period of uncertainty. For most of its existence, Rutgers was a private liberal arts college but it has evolved into a coeducational public research university after being designated The State University of New Jersey by the New Jersey Legislature via laws enacted in 1945 and 1956.

Rutgers today has three distinct campuses, located in New Brunswick (including grounds in adjacent Piscataway), Newark, and Camden. The university has additional facilities elsewhere in the state, including oceanographic research facilities at the New Jersey shore. Rutgers is also a land-grant university, a sea-grant university, and the largest university in the state. Instruction is offered by 9,000 faculty members in 175 academic departments to over 45,000 undergraduate students and more than 20,000 graduate and professional students. The university is accredited by the Middle States Association of Colleges and Schools and is a member of the Big Ten Academic Alliance, the Association of American Universities and the Universities Research Association. Over the years, Rutgers has been considered a Public Ivy.

Research

Rutgers is home to the Rutgers University Center for Cognitive Science, also known as RUCCS. This research center hosts researchers in psychology, linguistics, computer science, philosophy, electrical engineering, and anthropology.

It was at Rutgers that Selman Waksman (1888–1973) discovered several antibiotics, including actinomycin, clavacin, streptothricin, grisein, neomycin, fradicin, candicidin, candidin, and others. Waksman, along with graduate student Albert Schatz (1920–2005), discovered streptomycin—a versatile antibiotic that was to be the first applied to cure tuberculosis. For this discovery, Waksman received the Nobel Prize for Medicine in 1952.

Rutgers developed water-soluble sustained release polymers, tetraploids, robotic hands, artificial bovine insemination, and the ceramic tiles for the heat shield on the Space Shuttle. In health related field, Rutgers has the Environmental & Occupational Health Science Institute (EOHSI).

Rutgers is also home to the RCSB Protein Data bank, “…an information portal to Biological Macromolecular Structures’ cohosted with the San Diego Supercomputer Center. This database is the authoritative research tool for bioinformaticists using protein primary, secondary and tertiary structures worldwide….”

Rutgers is home to the Rutgers Cooperative Research & Extension office, which is run by the Agricultural and Experiment Station with the support of local government. The institution provides research & education to the local farming and agro industrial community in 19 of the 21 counties of the state and educational outreach programs offered through the New Jersey Agricultural Experiment Station Office of Continuing Professional Education.

Rutgers University Cell and DNA Repository (RUCDR) is the largest university based repository in the world and has received awards worth more than $57.8 million from the National Institutes of Health. One will fund genetic studies of mental disorders and the other will support investigations into the causes of digestive, liver and kidney diseases, and diabetes. RUCDR activities will enable gene discovery leading to diagnoses, treatments and, eventually, cures for these diseases. RUCDR assists researchers throughout the world by providing the highest quality biomaterials, technical consultation, and logistical support.

Rutgers–Camden is home to the nation’s PhD granting Department of Childhood Studies. This department, in conjunction with the Center for Children and Childhood Studies, also on the Camden campus, conducts interdisciplinary research which combines methodologies and research practices of sociology, psychology, literature, anthropology and other disciplines into the study of childhoods internationally.

Rutgers is home to several National Science Foundation IGERT fellowships that support interdisciplinary scientific research at the graduate-level. Highly selective fellowships are available in the following areas: Perceptual Science, Stem Cell Science and Engineering, Nanotechnology for Clean Energy, Renewable and Sustainable Fuels Solutions, and Nanopharmaceutical Engineering.

Rutgers also maintains the Office of Research Alliances that focuses on working with companies to increase engagement with the university’s faculty members, staff and extensive resources on the four campuses.

As a ’67 graduate of University College, second in my class, I am proud to be a member of

Alpha Sigma Lamda, National Honor Society of non-tradional students.

From Rutgers University: “Rutgers–New Brunswick Is Named a Top Producer of Fulbright Recipients”

Our Great Seal.

From Rutgers University

3.2.23

Rutgers University–New Brunswick has been named a top producer for the Fulbright U.S. Student Program, as announced by the U.S. Department of State’s Bureau of Educational and Cultural Affairs and recognized in the Chronicle of Higher Education.

The university has 19 grant recipients this year, one from SEBS and including six from the School of Graduate Studies, two of which are affiliated with SEBS Ecology and Evolution and Entomology Programs. The recognition is given to colleges and universities in the United States that received the highest number of applicants selected for the Fulbright U.S. Student Program and requires schools to have at least 10 students offered Fulbright grants.

The distinction is shared by some of the nation’s most elite institutions, including Princeton University, Brown University, Georgetown University and Harvard University.

“I am very proud Rutgers has once again joined our esteemed peers in being among the top producers of Fulbright recipients,” said Rutgers President Jonathan Holloway. “More importantly, I am thrilled for our newest talented Fulbright students and excited for them to embark on these life-changing opportunities.”

Our winners include:

Gabrielle Jacob – (SEBS’20), Public Health, (SGS’22) Public Health – was profiled in this 2020 Newsroom article for her work in helping to found True Inclusion. Gabrielle is currently in South Korea.

Andrew Aldercotte, a student in the School of Graduate Studies in the SEBS Ecology and Evolution Program, is currently doing pollinator research at a Rutgers-affiliated field station in Indonesia. Read more about his Fulbright-Funded Research.

Michael Monzon, who was a graduate student in George Hamilton’s laboratory at SEBS Department of Entomology was recognized in this 2020 Newsroom article, for winning a prestigious award at the Virtual Entomology Society of America’s National Meeting. Michael is currently doing research in Sweden.

Read more about the Fulbright winners at Rutgers Today.

2.15.23

Megan Schumann
848-445-1907
megan.schumann@rutgers.edu

The university has 19 winners of the prestigious international program this year, including six from the School of Graduate Studies

Rutgers University–New Brunswick has been named a top producer for the Fulbright U.S. Student Program, as announced by the U.S. Department of State’s Bureau of Educational and Cultural Affairs and recognized in the Chronicle of Higher Education.

The university has 19 grant recipients this year, including six from the School of Graduate Studies. The recognition is given to colleges and universities in the United States that received the highest number of applicants selected for the Fulbright U.S. Student Program and requires schools to have at least 10 students offered Fulbright grants.

The distinction is shared by some of the nation’s most elite institutions, including Princeton University, Brown University, Georgetown University and Harvard University.

“I am very proud Rutgers has once again joined our esteemed peers in being among the top producers of Fulbright recipients,” said Rutgers President Jonathan Holloway. “More importantly, I am thrilled for our newest talented Fulbright students and excited for them to embark on these life-changing opportunities.”

The Fulbright program is the U.S. government’s flagship international educational exchange program. Under this year’s awards, Rutgers-New Brunswick students conduct research, teach English and advance their education at host institutions in Austria, Kazakhstan, Taiwan, Indonesia, Spain, Colombia, Portugal, Turkey, Spain, Sweden, Zambia and South Korea.

The university’s newest Fulbright recipients include Columbus, N.J., native Amna Ahmed, a 2022 graduate of the School of Arts and Sciences and the School of Management and Labor Relations. Ahmed is pursuing a master’s degree in international relations and political science at Koç University in Istanbul.

Her work studying migration and displacement feels even more relevant to her now following the devastating earthquakes in Turkey and Syria that claimed more than 20,000 lives. Although she is based miles away, she said the impact of the destruction is inescapable.

Before the pandemic, Ahmed, a first-generation student, worked with Palestinian and Syrian refugees in Jordan, an experience that inspired her to apply to the Fulbright program.

“Studying in Turkey was an opportunity to further understand the refugee experience,” Ahmed said. “The pain that people go through here shouldn’t be normalized. Before war, displacement and now climate change, these people lived in beautiful countries and homes. Hearing the stories from the earthquake breaks my heart, but I hold on to hope that by raising awareness and working together, we can make a difference. The support we can provide through donations and direct aid is essential right now, especially after the earthquake.”

Administered by the Institute of International Education, each of the roughly 2,000 grants issued annually cover the cost of a student’s travel, housing and living expenses for a year in the nation where they will be teaching or studying.

“The Fulbright scholarship has propelled approximately 300 outstanding Rutgers-New Brunswick students to success, and we have been a top Fulbright producer for the better part of the past two decades. This speaks to the brilliance and dedication of our students, the quality of a Rutgers-New Brunswick education, and the integrity of our culture of elevating the common good through scholarship and service,” said Rutgers-New Brunswick Chancellor-Provost Francine Conway.

Rutgers has a history of success in the Fulbright competition, which is a direct result of the impressive accomplishments of so many students and the support that exists at the university to prepare recipients, said Anne Wallen, director of the Office of Distinguished Fellowships, which guides undergraduates through the scholarship and grant application process.

The university has been a top-producing Fulbright school nine times in the past decade, with about 300 Rutgers-New Brunswick students honored since the scholarship began more than 75 years ago. Of 19 awards offered to Rutgers students this year, 16 were accepted.

“The Fulbright program itself carries the weight of being the state department’s flagship cultural exchange program,” Wallen said. “Scarlet Knights are competing at a national and international level to be recognized with this honor.”

Wallen attributes the university’s commitment to student representation and student success. Both the Office of Distinguished Fellowships and GradFund—a service offered by the School of Graduate Studies that helps graduate students apply for research fellowships and grants—partner with dedicated campus community members to recruit students, provide feedback and support on essays and applications and write letters of recommendation.

“The Fulbright application process itself is beneficial for students regardless of whether they win,” said Chuck Keeton, academic dean of the School of Arts and Sciences Honors Program, who has helped students with their applications for more than a decade. “Students learn something about themselves, how to articulate their goals and express them in writing and how to advocate on their own.”

As part of efforts to encourage students to pursue the Fulbright, the office has developed a course – new this year and launching in April – through the online learning system Canvas to further guide them through the application process.

Another Rutgers Fulbright recipient, Eleanor Meli, graduated in May 2022 with a major in history from the School of Arts and Sciences and earned a master’s degree in social studies education from the Graduate School of Education.

At Rutgers, Meli taught a first-year interest group seminar and tutored student-athletes, preparing her to teach English in Cambodia. Each day she learns something new, she said.

“Everything is completely different from what I am used to,” said the Morristown, N.J., native, whose free time is spent bicycling around her local town and taking Khmer language classes. “It’s the experience that I wanted.”

Nearly 5,000 miles away from her California home, Serena Lückhoff is a grant recipient in Austria who graduated in 2022 with a double major in cognitive science and German. As a combined award winner, she gains a unique experience teaching English while pursuing research and taking university courses.

“It was a life-changing experience moving across the country to attend Rutgers,” the 22-year-old said. “I had independence and came into my own through personal growth for the first time. I am applying those learned skills now.”

At Rutgers, the former Aresty scholar had opportunities to work on multiple research projects, which helped her figure out her passions.

Now, philosophy of language, philosophy of science and phenomenology are among Lückhoff’s research interests. She is tackling an ambitious research topic: “Quantum Mechanics as a Linking Theory between Science, Philosophy, and Literature,” and spends time alongside her international classmates she now calls friends by studying in various cafes throughout Graz.

“We’ve seen remarkable impact from Rutgers Fulbright recipients both on campus and around the world,” Wallen said. “Seeing what this cohort accomplishes in the future is going to be incredible.”

Students or alumni interested in applying for any fellowships at Rutgers can contact the Office of Distinguished Fellowships. Graduate students or graduate alumni interested in applying for fellowships can contact GradFund.

Rutgers-New Brunswick Undergraduate Recipients

Amna Ahmed, International Studies and Human Resources Management, School of Arts and Sciences Honors Program, School of Management & and Labor Relations, 2022 (Turkey)
Assata Davis, Political Science, School of Arts and Sciences, 2022 (Colombia)
Gabrielle Jacob, Public Health, Rutgers School of Environmental and Biological Sciences; Master of Public Health, School of Public Health, 2022 (South Korea)
Clare Kelly, Political Science, School of Arts and Sciences; Social Studies Education, Graduate School of Education, 2022 (Taiwan)
Aditi Kiron, Mathematics, School of Arts and Sciences, 2022 (South Korea)
Caleb Kuberiet, English and Political Science, School of Arts and Sciences Honors Program, 2022 (Spain)
Serena Lückhoff, Cognitive Science and German, School of Arts and Sciences Honors Program, 2022 (Austria)
Eleanor Meli, History, School of Arts and Sciences; Social Studies Education, Graduate School of Education, 2022 (Cambodia)
Jake Rattigan, Psychology and Economics, School of Arts and Sciences, 2022 (Spain)
Sofia Ribeiro, Education, Graduate School of Education, 2022 (Portugal)

School of Graduate Studies Recipients

Andrew Aldercotte, Ecology and Evolution, Study/Research Award, Open Study/Research Award (Indonesia)
Stephanie Dvareckas, Art History, Study/Research Award, Open Study/Research Award (Kazakhstan)
Arielle Friend, German Literature, Study/Research Award, Fulbright-IFK Junior Fellowship (Austria)
Eva Mann, Anthropology, Study/Research Award, Open Study/Research Award (Indonesia)
Michael Monzon, Entomology, Study/Research Award, Open Study/Research Award (Sweden)
Anissa Speakman, Anthropology, Study/Research Award, Open Study/Research Award (Zambia)

See the full articles here and here.

Comments are invited and will be appreciated, especially if the reader finds any errors which I can correct. Use “Reply”.

five-ways-keep-your-child-safe-school-shootings

Please help promote STEM in your local schools.

Stem Education Coalition

Rutgers-The State University of New Jersey, is a leading national research university and the state’s preeminent, comprehensive public institution of higher education. Rutgers is dedicated to teaching that meets the highest standards of excellence; to conducting research that breaks new ground; and to providing services, solutions, and clinical care that help individuals and the local, national, and global communities where they live.

Founded in 1766, Rutgers teaches across the full educational spectrum: preschool to precollege; undergraduate to graduate; postdoctoral fellowships to residencies; and continuing education for professional and personal advancement.

Rutgers University is a public land-grant research university based in New Brunswick, New Jersey. Chartered in 1766, Rutgers was originally called Queen’s College, and today it is the eighth-oldest college in the United States, the second-oldest in New Jersey (after Princeton University), and one of the nine U.S. colonial colleges that were chartered before the American War of Independence. In 1825, Queen’s College was renamed Rutgers College in honor of Colonel Henry Rutgers, whose substantial gift to the school had stabilized its finances during a period of uncertainty. For most of its existence, Rutgers was a private liberal arts college but it has evolved into a coeducational public research university after being designated The State University of New Jersey by the New Jersey Legislature via laws enacted in 1945 and 1956.

Rutgers today has three distinct campuses, located in New Brunswick (including grounds in adjacent Piscataway), Newark, and Camden. The university has additional facilities elsewhere in the state, including oceanographic research facilities at the New Jersey shore. Rutgers is also a land-grant university, a sea-grant university, and the largest university in the state. Instruction is offered by 9,000 faculty members in 175 academic departments to over 45,000 undergraduate students and more than 20,000 graduate and professional students. The university is accredited by the Middle States Association of Colleges and Schools and is a member of the Big Ten Academic Alliance, the Association of American Universities and the Universities Research Association. Over the years, Rutgers has been considered a Public Ivy.

Research

Rutgers is home to the Rutgers University Center for Cognitive Science, also known as RUCCS. This research center hosts researchers in psychology, linguistics, computer science, philosophy, electrical engineering, and anthropology.

It was at Rutgers that Selman Waksman (1888–1973) discovered several antibiotics, including actinomycin, clavacin, streptothricin, grisein, neomycin, fradicin, candicidin, candidin, and others. Waksman, along with graduate student Albert Schatz (1920–2005), discovered streptomycin—a versatile antibiotic that was to be the first applied to cure tuberculosis. For this discovery, Waksman received the Nobel Prize for Medicine in 1952.

Rutgers developed water-soluble sustained release polymers, tetraploids, robotic hands, artificial bovine insemination, and the ceramic tiles for the heat shield on the Space Shuttle. In health related field, Rutgers has the Environmental & Occupational Health Science Institute (EOHSI).

Rutgers is also home to the RCSB Protein Data bank, “…an information portal to Biological Macromolecular Structures’ cohosted with the San Diego Supercomputer Center. This database is the authoritative research tool for bioinformaticists using protein primary, secondary and tertiary structures worldwide….”

Rutgers is home to the Rutgers Cooperative Research & Extension office, which is run by the Agricultural and Experiment Station with the support of local government. The institution provides research & education to the local farming and agro industrial community in 19 of the 21 counties of the state and educational outreach programs offered through the New Jersey Agricultural Experiment Station Office of Continuing Professional Education.

Rutgers University Cell and DNA Repository (RUCDR) is the largest university based repository in the world and has received awards worth more than $57.8 million from the National Institutes of Health. One will fund genetic studies of mental disorders and the other will support investigations into the causes of digestive, liver and kidney diseases, and diabetes. RUCDR activities will enable gene discovery leading to diagnoses, treatments and, eventually, cures for these diseases. RUCDR assists researchers throughout the world by providing the highest quality biomaterials, technical consultation, and logistical support.

Rutgers–Camden is home to the nation’s PhD granting Department of Childhood Studies. This department, in conjunction with the Center for Children and Childhood Studies, also on the Camden campus, conducts interdisciplinary research which combines methodologies and research practices of sociology, psychology, literature, anthropology and other disciplines into the study of childhoods internationally.

Rutgers is home to several National Science Foundation IGERT fellowships that support interdisciplinary scientific research at the graduate-level. Highly selective fellowships are available in the following areas: Perceptual Science, Stem Cell Science and Engineering, Nanotechnology for Clean Energy, Renewable and Sustainable Fuels Solutions, and Nanopharmaceutical Engineering.

Rutgers also maintains the Office of Research Alliances that focuses on working with companies to increase engagement with the university’s faculty members, staff and extensive resources on the four campuses.

As a ’67 graduate of University College, second in my class, I am proud to be a member of

Alpha Sigma Lamda, National Honor Society of non-tradional students.

From Rutgers University: “Rutgers Powers Up for Offshore Wind Energy Research”

Our Great Seal.

From Rutgers University

1.26.23
Margaret McHugh

While there are 10,000 offshore wind turbines operating between Europe and Asia, the U.S. currently has only seven, said Kris Ohleth, the keynote speaker at the symposium and director of the Special Initiative on Offshore Wind. Credit: Jeff Arban/Rutgers University.

Rutgers researchers recently shared their expertise in offshore wind energy with each other and those expected to play a key role in New Jersey’s effort to help the nation fight global warming by shifting to offshore wind energy.

“We’re well positioned to support needs of the offshore wind industry,” said Denise Hien, vice provost for research at Rutgers-New Brunswick at the Rutgers University Offshore Wind Energy Symposium.

Organized by the Rutgers Offshore Wind Collaborative, the symposium attracted nearly 200 registrants – from academics at Rutgers and other state universities, to fishermen, environmentalists, nonprofit leaders, industry representatives and government officials. Gov. Phil Murphy has set a goal for the Garden State to generate 11 gigawatts of electricity from offshore wind energy by 2040.

“The collaborative brings together the tremendous expertise at Rutgers, creating an opportunity for sharing the broad diversity of capabilities needed to achieve the governor’s goals for offshore wind energy,” said Peggy Brennan-Tonetta, senior associate director of Rutgers New Jersey Agricultural Experiment Station (NJAES) and one of the collaborative’s three leaders.

More than 40 Rutgers faculty – including experts in marine and environmental sciences, engineering, business, economics, public policy and psychology at Rutgers–Camden, Rutgers–Newark, Rutgers–New Brunswick, NJAES and Rutgers Cooperative Extension – have joined the collaborative, and participation is growing, Brennan-Tonetta said.

The symposium included five-minute “lightening talks” from 20 professors about their research. Topics included turbine technology, power storage, ocean and marine life monitoring, wind speed forecasting, supply chain development, the psychology behind acceptance of recent technology and regulations for ensuring diversity and inclusion in the offshore wind energy economy.

State Sen. Bob Smith, chair of the Senate Environment and Energy Committee, said it is imperative that New Jersey lead the offshore wind energy charge to reduce greenhouse gases and save the planet. “We don’t have that many years left to get our act together,” Smith said, telling the gathering, “You’ve got to help us make wind energy viable across the country!”

Offshore wind is a limitless, renewable energy source that can reduce reliance on natural gas and coal, as well as nuclear power. The Biden administration reported the industry can slash carbon emissions and create 77,000 jobs by 2030.

New Jersey is well suited for offshore wind farms because of high winds off the coastline, a relatively shallow ocean depth that can accommodate ocean floor-based turbines, and a dense population in need of energy, Ohleth said.

The Rutgers alumna likened power distribution in the U.S. to the cardiovascular system. Fossil fuels are largely produced in the west and sent east, with New Jersey shore towns functioning as the capillaries of the system. Offshore wind energy would put a “heart” in the ocean, and reverse the flow, Ohleth said.

Symposium participants considered the technical, economic and social pros and cons of offshore wind energy development and discussed the effects on the fishing industry, tourism and marine wildlife. There is a need, they said, to build the industry workforce, get students interested in careers and provide training for minority communities and fossil fuel industry employees in order to make the transition to offshore wind energy jobs. These and other recommendations will be incorporated into a white paper for Rutgers faculty and will also be shared with the New Jersey Economic Development Authority (NJEDA).

Tolu Omodara, one of 13 Rutgers students to receive a NJ Wind Institute Fellowship, said she felt energized by the symposium. “This has been instructional, insightful and inspiring,” said Omodara, who is pursuing a master’s in public administration at Rutgers–Camden. “We need to create a pipeline of leaders.”

Sharonda Allen, founder and executive director of Operation Grow, Inc., a social advocacy nonprofit training young adults from marginalized communities for good-paying jobs in the solar energy field, is interested in finding out more about the job opportunities for communities that are most affected by pollution. “My question is, what are you doing to train and prepare them for jobs in this field?” she said.

Frank Florio, a retired fisherman and firefighter, said the symposium provided him a better understanding of the industry and its impacts. “Down deep, I think offshore wind energy is a good thing, but there’s so much that’s uncertain,” he said.

Eileen Murphy, vice president of government relations at New Jersey Audubon, said there are a number of factors involved in developing this renewable energy resource. “I’m focused on the environmental impacts of this, that I forget about the engineering challenges involved in getting offshore wind successfully implemented,” Murphy said.

Rutgers Oceanography Professor Josh Kohut, one of the leaders of the Rutgers Offshore Wind Collaborative, said he was fascinated to learn about social science research “on how communities and individuals are responding to the introduction of renewable energy as a response to the climate crisis.” Rutgers NJAES Cooperative Extension coastal county offices will play a key role in answering communities’ questions and concerns about offshore wind energy environmental impacts.

“The symposium catalyzed networking opportunities across the Rutgers community,” as well as with external partners, he said. Kohut said he also has been inspired to spread the word to Rutgers students about the expansive career opportunities offered by off shore wind.While there are 10,000 offshore wind turbines operating between Europe and Asia, the U.S. currently has only seven The event “was an awesome chance for the Rutgers University community to come together and learn about all these different aspects of offshore wind energy, and make important connections,” he said.

See the full article here .

Comments are invited and will be appreciated, especially if the reader finds any errors which I can correct. Use “Reply”.

five-ways-keep-your-child-safe-school-shootings

Please help promote STEM in your local schools.

Stem Education Coalition

Rutgers-The State University of New Jersey, is a leading national research university and the state’s preeminent, comprehensive public institution of higher education. Rutgers is dedicated to teaching that meets the highest standards of excellence; to conducting research that breaks new ground; and to providing services, solutions, and clinical care that help individuals and the local, national, and global communities where they live.

Founded in 1766, Rutgers teaches across the full educational spectrum: preschool to precollege; undergraduate to graduate; postdoctoral fellowships to residencies; and continuing education for professional and personal advancement.

Rutgers University is a public land-grant research university based in New Brunswick, New Jersey. Chartered in 1766, Rutgers was originally called Queen’s College, and today it is the eighth-oldest college in the United States, the second-oldest in New Jersey (after Princeton University), and one of the nine U.S. colonial colleges that were chartered before the American War of Independence. In 1825, Queen’s College was renamed Rutgers College in honor of Colonel Henry Rutgers, whose substantial gift to the school had stabilized its finances during a period of uncertainty. For most of its existence, Rutgers was a private liberal arts college but it has evolved into a coeducational public research university after being designated The State University of New Jersey by the New Jersey Legislature via laws enacted in 1945 and 1956.

Rutgers today has three distinct campuses, located in New Brunswick (including grounds in adjacent Piscataway), Newark, and Camden. The university has additional facilities elsewhere in the state, including oceanographic research facilities at the New Jersey shore. Rutgers is also a land-grant university, a sea-grant university, and the largest university in the state. Instruction is offered by 9,000 faculty members in 175 academic departments to over 45,000 undergraduate students and more than 20,000 graduate and professional students. The university is accredited by the Middle States Association of Colleges and Schools and is a member of the Big Ten Academic Alliance, the Association of American Universities and the Universities Research Association. Over the years, Rutgers has been considered a Public Ivy.

Research

Rutgers is home to the Rutgers University Center for Cognitive Science, also known as RUCCS. This research center hosts researchers in psychology, linguistics, computer science, philosophy, electrical engineering, and anthropology.

It was at Rutgers that Selman Waksman (1888–1973) discovered several antibiotics, including actinomycin, clavacin, streptothricin, grisein, neomycin, fradicin, candicidin, candidin, and others. Waksman, along with graduate student Albert Schatz (1920–2005), discovered streptomycin—a versatile antibiotic that was to be the first applied to cure tuberculosis. For this discovery, Waksman received the Nobel Prize for Medicine in 1952.

Rutgers developed water-soluble sustained release polymers, tetraploids, robotic hands, artificial bovine insemination, and the ceramic tiles for the heat shield on the Space Shuttle. In health related field, Rutgers has the Environmental & Occupational Health Science Institute (EOHSI).

Rutgers is also home to the RCSB Protein Data bank, “…an information portal to Biological Macromolecular Structures’ cohosted with the San Diego Supercomputer Center. This database is the authoritative research tool for bioinformaticists using protein primary, secondary and tertiary structures worldwide….”

Rutgers is home to the Rutgers Cooperative Research & Extension office, which is run by the Agricultural and Experiment Station with the support of local government. The institution provides research & education to the local farming and agro industrial community in 19 of the 21 counties of the state and educational outreach programs offered through the New Jersey Agricultural Experiment Station Office of Continuing Professional Education.

Rutgers University Cell and DNA Repository (RUCDR) is the largest university based repository in the world and has received awards worth more than $57.8 million from the National Institutes of Health. One will fund genetic studies of mental disorders and the other will support investigations into the causes of digestive, liver and kidney diseases, and diabetes. RUCDR activities will enable gene discovery leading to diagnoses, treatments and, eventually, cures for these diseases. RUCDR assists researchers throughout the world by providing the highest quality biomaterials, technical consultation, and logistical support.

Rutgers–Camden is home to the nation’s PhD granting Department of Childhood Studies. This department, in conjunction with the Center for Children and Childhood Studies, also on the Camden campus, conducts interdisciplinary research which combines methodologies and research practices of sociology, psychology, literature, anthropology and other disciplines into the study of childhoods internationally.

Rutgers is home to several National Science Foundation IGERT fellowships that support interdisciplinary scientific research at the graduate-level. Highly selective fellowships are available in the following areas: Perceptual Science, Stem Cell Science and Engineering, Nanotechnology for Clean Energy, Renewable and Sustainable Fuels Solutions, and Nanopharmaceutical Engineering.

Rutgers also maintains the Office of Research Alliances that focuses on working with companies to increase engagement with the university’s faculty members, staff and extensive resources on the four campuses.

As a ’67 graduate of University College, second in my class, I am proud to be a member of

Alpha Sigma Lamda, National Honor Society of non-tradional students.

From Rutgers University Via “The Washington Post” : “Warm weather pushes Northern Hemisphere snow cover to near record lows”

Our Great Seal.

From Rutgers University

Via

The Washington Post

1.6.23
Ian Livingston

There are no clear signs that the pattern will support a near-term change to colder weather and more snow.

A man Nordic skis Thursday despite a lack of snow in La Féclaz, near Chambéry, in the French Alps. (Laurent Cipriani/AP)

Following a spike in Northern Hemisphere snow cover in November, many long-range forecasters sounded the alarm that it could foreshadow a cold and snow-filled winter. But pulses of record warmth in North America and Europe have thwarted snow accumulation and, in some cases, depleted what’s on the ground.

Now, Northern Hemisphere snow cover is near historical lows for midwinter.

The lack of snow has forced some ski resorts in Europe to close, while many areas in the Northeast and Mid-Atlantic United States have far less terrain open than they typically do at this time of year.

Snow cover isn’t down everywhere. California and the intermountain West are having one of their best snow seasons in memory because of a parade of storms from the Pacific Ocean. But, overall, the snow situation is more famine than feast.

What the data shows

Data from various snow cover trackers have highlighted the rapid decline in Northern Hemisphere snow in recent weeks following a mid-December peak.

A multi-sensor system that has tracked snow cover for nearly two decades shows current levels at a record low:

Automated Northern Hemisphere snow cover analysis. (NOAA/NESDIS)

A separate weekly snow cover analysis from the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration and Rutgers University — with 57 years of data — also shows a sharp decline in the past several weeks. Early in the winter, levels were well above the long-term average but have dropped well below:

(NOAA/Rutgers)

Much of the recent dip is because of recent melting in Europe from the record-breaking warm spell to start 2023.

The Northeast United States has also lost much of the snow during a similar spell of record warmth earlier this week. As one example, the snow depth in Buffalo fell from 28 inches on Dec. 27 to zero inches on Wednesday.

Normal swings in weather take a big toll in a warming world.

Some of these snow cover swings are a normal part of winter, but climate change is making them more significant.

“Snow cover is pretty volatile … and large swings occur all the time,” Judah Cohen, visiting scientist at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology and forecaster with Atmospheric and Environmental Research, wrote in a text message to The Washington Post.

Where snow cover is below (red) and above (blue) average. (Rutgers)

But a warming climate makes it harder for places that are losing snow because of natural swings in the weather to bounce back from such thaws, Cohen said.

That’s the case in parts of the French Alps. Take the small ski resort of Le Praz de Lys-Sommand. It’s a lower-elevation resort where temperatures are frequently only marginally cold enough for snow. Warm spells like the present are devastating.

Christine Harrison, a vacationer to Le Praz de Lys-Sommand for the past 25 years, told PRX’s “The World” she’s never seen it like this. “You can’t ski. Literally there is no snow,” she said. “There’s just grass.”

The managing director for the national body representing ski resorts in France said half of the 7,500 ski slopes in the country were closed, according to CNN.

At the moment, it’s a similar story across large portions of Europe. Mountainous countries like Austria and Switzerland have been among those seeing record warmth and not enough snow. While the highest elevation resorts still have snow, and in some cases a good deal, people residing in areas that rely on winter tourism are concerned, as are those watching for snowmelt to keep rivers like the Rhine in Germany and Po in Italy running during spring and summer.

Not doom and gloom everywhere

The situation is dire in places, but it is not doom and gloom across the entire hemisphere.

The western half of the United States has seen round after round of stormy conditions that have delivered an abundance of mountain snow. Following a survey early this week, California officials stated that the “snowpack is actually off to one of its best starts in the past 40 years.”

Snow water equivalents — a measure of the water contained in the snowpack — were as high as 203 percent of normal in the southern Sierra Nevada.

Most of the Western United States is seeing above-normal snowfall this winter so far. (USDA/NRCS)

Snow cover is also quite healthy in the Rockies and surrounding ranges. Other than parts of southern New Mexico, snow water equivalents are above average across the entire Intermountain West.

Steamboat Springs in Colorado has seen more than 200 inches of snow and just had its snowiest December in a decade. Western cities such as Reno, Nev., and Flagstaff, Ariz., are also running a surplus.

Swaths of the central United States, including the northern Plains and Great Lakes region, have also had a banner winter for snowfall because of multiple blizzards.

Seasonal snowfall through Friday morning. (Pivotal Weather)

Behind the lack of snow: Missing cold air

Snow, of course, requires cold air. Outside of a few brief outbreaks of Arctic air, the cold has been seriously lacking.

Forecasters attribute the absence of sustained cold to the polar vortex, which has been very stable. For cold air outbreaks in the mid-latitudes of the Northern Hemisphere, the vortex needs to be disturbed and weakened.

Looking ahead, a phenomenon that could destabilize the vortex is known as a sudden stratospheric warming event. It can lead to disruption and weakening of the vortex, allowing cold air that resides near the North Pole to shift southward.

Without a sudden stratospheric warming event, Cohen said, this will be a “pretty forgettable winter” in the eastern United States.

Once in a while, however, cold can manage to escape the Arctic even without such an event. This was the case with the recent Arctic outbreak that blasted much of the contiguous United States in the lead-up to Christmas. It brought some of the coldest December weather in decades and was not in response to sudden stratospheric warming (SSW).

“It is always worth remembering a month like December 2010 in the UK (coldest since records began in 1884) and a winter like 2013-14 in the U.S. occurred in the absence of SSWs,” Simon Lee, an atmospheric scientist at Columbia University, wrote in a text message.

Lee pointed out that, while data is limited, it appears that these events are more common in El Niño compared with La Niña. This winter’s La Niña may then mean odds for such an event are lower than normal.

Super-long-range models are hinting at cold weather for February, but that’s too far out for it to mean much. (weatherbell.com)

Lee says signals for a sudden stratospheric warming are still too distant to have much confidence in any forecast. Some computer models hint that the polar vortex could weaken a bit by February, allowing more cold air to spill south.

But for now, Lee said, no sudden stratospheric warming event “is expected yet in a reliable time frame.”

See the full article here .

Comments are invited and will be appreciated, especially if the reader finds any errors which I can correct. Use “Reply”.

five-ways-keep-your-child-safe-school-shootings

Please help promote STEM in your local schools.

Stem Education Coalition

Rutgers-The State University of New Jersey, is a leading national research university and the state’s preeminent, comprehensive public institution of higher education. Rutgers is dedicated to teaching that meets the highest standards of excellence; to conducting research that breaks new ground; and to providing services, solutions, and clinical care that help individuals and the local, national, and global communities where they live.

Founded in 1766, Rutgers teaches across the full educational spectrum: preschool to precollege; undergraduate to graduate; postdoctoral fellowships to residencies; and continuing education for professional and personal advancement.

Rutgers University is a public land-grant research university based in New Brunswick, New Jersey. Chartered in 1766, Rutgers was originally called Queen’s College, and today it is the eighth-oldest college in the United States, the second-oldest in New Jersey (after Princeton University), and one of the nine U.S. colonial colleges that were chartered before the American War of Independence. In 1825, Queen’s College was renamed Rutgers College in honor of Colonel Henry Rutgers, whose substantial gift to the school had stabilized its finances during a period of uncertainty. For most of its existence, Rutgers was a private liberal arts college but it has evolved into a coeducational public research university after being designated The State University of New Jersey by the New Jersey Legislature via laws enacted in 1945 and 1956.

Rutgers today has three distinct campuses, located in New Brunswick (including grounds in adjacent Piscataway), Newark, and Camden. The university has additional facilities elsewhere in the state, including oceanographic research facilities at the New Jersey shore. Rutgers is also a land-grant university, a sea-grant university, and the largest university in the state. Instruction is offered by 9,000 faculty members in 175 academic departments to over 45,000 undergraduate students and more than 20,000 graduate and professional students. The university is accredited by the Middle States Association of Colleges and Schools and is a member of the Big Ten Academic Alliance, the Association of American Universities and the Universities Research Association. Over the years, Rutgers has been considered a Public Ivy.

Research

Rutgers is home to the Rutgers University Center for Cognitive Science, also known as RUCCS. This research center hosts researchers in psychology, linguistics, computer science, philosophy, electrical engineering, and anthropology.

It was at Rutgers that Selman Waksman (1888–1973) discovered several antibiotics, including actinomycin, clavacin, streptothricin, grisein, neomycin, fradicin, candicidin, candidin, and others. Waksman, along with graduate student Albert Schatz (1920–2005), discovered streptomycin—a versatile antibiotic that was to be the first applied to cure tuberculosis. For this discovery, Waksman received the Nobel Prize for Medicine in 1952.

Rutgers developed water-soluble sustained release polymers, tetraploids, robotic hands, artificial bovine insemination, and the ceramic tiles for the heat shield on the Space Shuttle. In health related field, Rutgers has the Environmental & Occupational Health Science Institute (EOHSI).

Rutgers is also home to the RCSB Protein Data bank, “…an information portal to Biological Macromolecular Structures’ cohosted with the San Diego Supercomputer Center. This database is the authoritative research tool for bioinformaticists using protein primary, secondary and tertiary structures worldwide….”

Rutgers is home to the Rutgers Cooperative Research & Extension office, which is run by the Agricultural and Experiment Station with the support of local government. The institution provides research & education to the local farming and agro industrial community in 19 of the 21 counties of the state and educational outreach programs offered through the New Jersey Agricultural Experiment Station Office of Continuing Professional Education.

Rutgers University Cell and DNA Repository (RUCDR) is the largest university based repository in the world and has received awards worth more than $57.8 million from the National Institutes of Health. One will fund genetic studies of mental disorders and the other will support investigations into the causes of digestive, liver and kidney diseases, and diabetes. RUCDR activities will enable gene discovery leading to diagnoses, treatments and, eventually, cures for these diseases. RUCDR assists researchers throughout the world by providing the highest quality biomaterials, technical consultation, and logistical support.

Rutgers–Camden is home to the nation’s PhD granting Department of Childhood Studies. This department, in conjunction with the Center for Children and Childhood Studies, also on the Camden campus, conducts interdisciplinary research which combines methodologies and research practices of sociology, psychology, literature, anthropology and other disciplines into the study of childhoods internationally.

Rutgers is home to several National Science Foundation IGERT fellowships that support interdisciplinary scientific research at the graduate-level. Highly selective fellowships are available in the following areas: Perceptual Science, Stem Cell Science and Engineering, Nanotechnology for Clean Energy, Renewable and Sustainable Fuels Solutions, and Nanopharmaceutical Engineering.

Rutgers also maintains the Office of Research Alliances that focuses on working with companies to increase engagement with the university’s faculty members, staff and extensive resources on the four campuses.

As a ’67 graduate of University College, second in my class, I am proud to be a member of

Alpha Sigma Lamda, National Honor Society of non-tradional students.

From Rutgers University: “Rutgers Launches Collaborative to Harness University Expertise to Support Offshore Wind Energy Development”

Our Great Seal.

From Rutgers University

12.20.22

Shutterstock.

Rutgers has launched the Offshore Wind Collaborative to coordinate and build expertise in offshore wind research across the university community and to support workforce development pathways to employment in this industry.

Leading the establishment of the collaborative is Margaret Brennan-Tonetta, director of the Office of Resource and Economic Development at Rutgers New Jersey Agricultural Experiment Station, along with Josh Kohut, professor, Department of Marine and Coastal Sciences, School of Environmental Biological Sciences, and Wade Trappe, professor and Associate Dean for Academics, School of Engineering.

More than 40 faculty members from across Rutgers’s campuses in New Brunswick, Camden and Newark have committed to the Offshore Wind Collaborative, bringing a wide range of disciplines and expertise including marine sciences, environmental science, engineering, materials science, supply-chain, and public policy, as well as economics, psychology and other social sciences. Rutgers is well positioned to establish the collaborative environment and knowledge-sharing needed to foster the growth of a wind-based economy in New Jersey.

New Jersey is poised to be a strong player in the emerging sector in the Northeast and Mid-Atlantic regions of the U.S. The state’s Offshore Wind Strategic Plan, approved in 2020, guides the establishment of the offshore wind industry to benefit New Jersey residents. It is a core strategy of the state’s Energy Master Plan, which identifies the most ambitious and cost-effective ways of reaching 100 percent clean energy by 2050.

The New Jersey Economic Development Authority (NJEDA) Wind Institute awarded the Rutgers OffShore Wind Collaborative a one-year, $125,000 grant as part of the University Initiatives to Advance Offshore Wind program. Brennan-Tonetta, Trappe and Kohut serve as co-investigators University Initiatives program, which includes three projects:

Offshore Wind Energy Symposium, a free event on Jan. 12 that will bring together industry, government and academic leaders to discuss challenges and opportunities, as well as build community engagement in offshore wind. A summary report based on information from the symposium will be used by NJEDA to develop recommendations on the government’s role in development of the offshore wind sector.
Educational Initiatives for a Resilient Offshore Wind Economy in New Jersey, will develop and deliver modular curricula across various technical, business, environmental, engineering and policy topics related to offshore wind. The modules will be designed to be integrated into a wide range of current Rutgers courses and for presentation as standalone programs.
Community Events and Shared Learning opportunities via three in-person community-building events at Rutgers-Camden, Rutgers-Newark and Rutgers-New Brunswick, with the primary goal of exploring opportunities in the offshore wind sector.

NJEDA also provided a $282,000 grant to Rutgers to create the New Jersey Wind Institute Fellowship Program to support student research in topics that further the growth of offshore wind as well as build student and faculty advisor expertise in offshore wind research and innovation in the state. Chelsie Riche, assistant director for research and experiential education in the Office of Academic Affairs, serves as the principal investigator for the Rutgers Fellowship Program.

Rutgers is one of four higher education institutions in the state, including Rowan University, Montclair State University and New Jersey Institute of Technology, to offer its undergraduate and graduate students the opportunity to conduct paid, independent research related to offshore wind. Open to students across all fields of study, the yearlong fellowship program was launched in Fall 2022 and includes 13 undergraduate and graduate student fellows at Rutgers.

Learn more about the Offshore Wind Collaborative and the Wind Institute Fellowship Program.

See the full article here .

Comments are invited and will be appreciated, especially if the reader finds any errors which I can correct. Use “Reply”.

five-ways-keep-your-child-safe-school-shootings

Please help promote STEM in your local schools.

Stem Education Coalition

Rutgers-The State University of New Jersey, is a leading national research university and the state’s preeminent, comprehensive public institution of higher education. Rutgers is dedicated to teaching that meets the highest standards of excellence; to conducting research that breaks new ground; and to providing services, solutions, and clinical care that help individuals and the local, national, and global communities where they live.

Founded in 1766, Rutgers teaches across the full educational spectrum: preschool to precollege; undergraduate to graduate; postdoctoral fellowships to residencies; and continuing education for professional and personal advancement.

Rutgers University is a public land-grant research university based in New Brunswick, New Jersey. Chartered in 1766, Rutgers was originally called Queen’s College, and today it is the eighth-oldest college in the United States, the second-oldest in New Jersey (after Princeton University), and one of the nine U.S. colonial colleges that were chartered before the American War of Independence. In 1825, Queen’s College was renamed Rutgers College in honor of Colonel Henry Rutgers, whose substantial gift to the school had stabilized its finances during a period of uncertainty. For most of its existence, Rutgers was a private liberal arts college but it has evolved into a coeducational public research university after being designated The State University of New Jersey by the New Jersey Legislature via laws enacted in 1945 and 1956.

Rutgers today has three distinct campuses, located in New Brunswick (including grounds in adjacent Piscataway), Newark, and Camden. The university has additional facilities elsewhere in the state, including oceanographic research facilities at the New Jersey shore. Rutgers is also a land-grant university, a sea-grant university, and the largest university in the state. Instruction is offered by 9,000 faculty members in 175 academic departments to over 45,000 undergraduate students and more than 20,000 graduate and professional students. The university is accredited by the Middle States Association of Colleges and Schools and is a member of the Big Ten Academic Alliance, the Association of American Universities and the Universities Research Association. Over the years, Rutgers has been considered a Public Ivy.

Research

Rutgers is home to the Rutgers University Center for Cognitive Science, also known as RUCCS. This research center hosts researchers in psychology, linguistics, computer science, philosophy, electrical engineering, and anthropology.

It was at Rutgers that Selman Waksman (1888–1973) discovered several antibiotics, including actinomycin, clavacin, streptothricin, grisein, neomycin, fradicin, candicidin, candidin, and others. Waksman, along with graduate student Albert Schatz (1920–2005), discovered streptomycin—a versatile antibiotic that was to be the first applied to cure tuberculosis. For this discovery, Waksman received the Nobel Prize for Medicine in 1952.

Rutgers developed water-soluble sustained release polymers, tetraploids, robotic hands, artificial bovine insemination, and the ceramic tiles for the heat shield on the Space Shuttle. In health related field, Rutgers has the Environmental & Occupational Health Science Institute (EOHSI).

Rutgers is also home to the RCSB Protein Data bank, “…an information portal to Biological Macromolecular Structures’ cohosted with the San Diego Supercomputer Center. This database is the authoritative research tool for bioinformaticists using protein primary, secondary and tertiary structures worldwide….”

Rutgers is home to the Rutgers Cooperative Research & Extension office, which is run by the Agricultural and Experiment Station with the support of local government. The institution provides research & education to the local farming and agro industrial community in 19 of the 21 counties of the state and educational outreach programs offered through the New Jersey Agricultural Experiment Station Office of Continuing Professional Education.

Rutgers University Cell and DNA Repository (RUCDR) is the largest university based repository in the world and has received awards worth more than $57.8 million from the National Institutes of Health. One will fund genetic studies of mental disorders and the other will support investigations into the causes of digestive, liver and kidney diseases, and diabetes. RUCDR activities will enable gene discovery leading to diagnoses, treatments and, eventually, cures for these diseases. RUCDR assists researchers throughout the world by providing the highest quality biomaterials, technical consultation, and logistical support.

Rutgers–Camden is home to the nation’s PhD granting Department of Childhood Studies. This department, in conjunction with the Center for Children and Childhood Studies, also on the Camden campus, conducts interdisciplinary research which combines methodologies and research practices of sociology, psychology, literature, anthropology and other disciplines into the study of childhoods internationally.

Rutgers is home to several National Science Foundation IGERT fellowships that support interdisciplinary scientific research at the graduate-level. Highly selective fellowships are available in the following areas: Perceptual Science, Stem Cell Science and Engineering, Nanotechnology for Clean Energy, Renewable and Sustainable Fuels Solutions, and Nanopharmaceutical Engineering.

Rutgers also maintains the Office of Research Alliances that focuses on working with companies to increase engagement with the university’s faculty members, staff and extensive resources on the four campuses.

As a ’67 graduate of University College, second in my class, I am proud to be a member of

Alpha Sigma Lamda, National Honor Society of non-tradional students.

From Rutgers University: “Gene Mutation Leading to Autism Found to Overstimulate Brain Cells”

Our Great Seal.

From Rutgers University

11.21.22
By Kitta MacPherson

Media Contact
Patti Zielinski
patti.zielinski@rutgers.edu

2018 Billion Photos/Shutterstock. No use without permission. [Used under “Fair Use” for academic teaching purposes.]

Rutgers-led study highlights potential of new techniques to study mental disorders.

Scientists looking to understand the fundamental brain mechanisms of autism spectrum disorder have found that a gene mutation known to be associated with the disorder causes an overstimulation of brain cells far greater than that seen in neuronal cells without the mutation.

The Rutgers-led study, spanning seven years, employed some of the most advanced approaches available in the scientific toolbox, including growing human brain cells from stem cells and transplanting them into mouse brains.

The work illustrates the potential of a new approach to studying brain disorders, scientists said.

Describing the study in the journal, Molecular Psychiatry [below], researchers reported a mutation – R451C in the gene Neurologin-3, known to cause autism in humans – was found to provoke a higher level of communication among a network of transplanted human brain cells in mouse brains. This overexcitation, quantified in experiments by the scientists, manifests itself as a burst of electrical activity more than double the level seen in brain cells without the mutation.

“We were surprised to find an enhancement, not a deficit,” said Zhiping Pang, an associate professor in the Department of Neuroscience and Cell Biology in the Child Health Institute of New Jersey at Rutgers Robert Wood Johnson Medical School and the senior author on the study. “This gain-of-function in those specific cells, revealed by our study, causes an imbalance among the brain’s neuronal network, disrupting the normal information flow.”

The interconnected mesh of cells that constitutes the human brain contains specialized “excitatory” cells that stimulate electrical activity, balanced by “inhibitory” brain cells that curtail electrical pulses, Pang said. The scientists found the oversized burst of electrical activity caused by the mutation threw the mouse brains out of kilter.

Autism spectrum disorder is a developmental disability caused by differences in the brain. About 1 in 44 children have been identified with the disorder, according to estimates from the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention.

Studies suggest autism could be a result of disruptions in normal brain growth very early in development, according to the National Institutes of Health’s National Institute of Neurological Disorders and Stroke. These disruptions may be the result of mutations in genes that control brain development and regulate how brain cells communicate with each other, according to the NIH.

“So much of the underlying mechanisms in autism are unknown, which hinders the development of effective therapeutics,” Pang said. “Using human neurons generated from human stem cells as a model system, we wanted to understand how and why a specific mutation causes autism in humans.”

Researchers employed CRISPR technology to alter the human stem cells’ genetic material to create a line of cells containing the mutation they wanted to study, and then derived human neuron cells carrying this mutation. CRISPR, an acronym for clustered regularly interspaced short palindromic repeats, is a unique gene-editing technology.

In the study, the human neuron cells that were generated, half with the mutation, half without, were then implanted in the brains of mice. From there, researchers measured and compared the electrical activity of specific neurons employing electrophysiology, a branch of physiology that studies the electrical properties of biological cells. Voltage changes or electrical current can be quantified on a variety of scales, depending on the dimensions of the object of study.

“Our findings suggest that the NLGN3 R451C mutation dramatically impacts excitatory synaptic transmission in human neurons, thereby triggering changes in overall network properties that may be related to mental disorders,” Pang said. “We view this as very important information for the field.”

Pang said he expects many of the techniques developed to conduct this experiment to be used in future scientific investigations into the basis of other brain disorders, such as schizophrenia.

“This study highlights the potential of using human neurons as a model system to study mental disorders and develop novel therapeutics,” he said.

Other Rutgers scientists involved in the study include Le Wang, a postdoctoral associate in Pang’s lab, and Vincent Mirabella, who is earning doctoral and medical degrees as part of the MD-PhD student at Robert Wood Johnson Medical School; Davide Comoletti, an assistant professor, Matteo Bernabucci, a postdoctoral fellow, Xiao Su, a doctoral student, and Ishnoor Singh, a graduate student, all of the Rutgers Child Health Institute of New Jersey; Ronald Hart, a professor, Peng Jiang and Kelvin Kwan, assistant professors, and Ranjie Xu and Azadeh Jadali, postdoctoral fellows, all of the Department of Cell Biology and Neuroscience, Rutgers School of Arts and Sciences.

Thomas C. Südhof, a 2013 Nobel laureate and professor in the Department of Molecular and Cellular Physiology at Stanford University, contributed to the study, as did scientists at Central South University in Changsha, China; SUNY Upstate Medical Center in Syracuse, N.Y.; University of Massachusetts in Amherst, Mass.; Shaanxi Normal University in Shaanxi, China; and Victoria University in Wellington, New Zealand.

Science paper:
Molecular Psychiatry

See the full article here .

Comments are invited and will be appreciated, especially if the reader finds any errors which I can correct. Use “Reply”.

five-ways-keep-your-child-safe-school-shootings

Please help promote STEM in your local schools.

Stem Education Coalition

Rutgers-The State University of New Jersey, is a leading national research university and the state’s preeminent, comprehensive public institution of higher education. Rutgers is dedicated to teaching that meets the highest standards of excellence; to conducting research that breaks new ground; and to providing services, solutions, and clinical care that help individuals and the local, national, and global communities where they live.

Founded in 1766, Rutgers teaches across the full educational spectrum: preschool to precollege; undergraduate to graduate; postdoctoral fellowships to residencies; and continuing education for professional and personal advancement.

Rutgers University is a public land-grant research university based in New Brunswick, New Jersey. Chartered in 1766, Rutgers was originally called Queen’s College, and today it is the eighth-oldest college in the United States, the second-oldest in New Jersey (after Princeton University), and one of the nine U.S. colonial colleges that were chartered before the American War of Independence. In 1825, Queen’s College was renamed Rutgers College in honor of Colonel Henry Rutgers, whose substantial gift to the school had stabilized its finances during a period of uncertainty. For most of its existence, Rutgers was a private liberal arts college but it has evolved into a coeducational public research university after being designated The State University of New Jersey by the New Jersey Legislature via laws enacted in 1945 and 1956.

Rutgers today has three distinct campuses, located in New Brunswick (including grounds in adjacent Piscataway), Newark, and Camden. The university has additional facilities elsewhere in the state, including oceanographic research facilities at the New Jersey shore. Rutgers is also a land-grant university, a sea-grant university, and the largest university in the state. Instruction is offered by 9,000 faculty members in 175 academic departments to over 45,000 undergraduate students and more than 20,000 graduate and professional students. The university is accredited by the Middle States Association of Colleges and Schools and is a member of the Big Ten Academic Alliance, the Association of American Universities and the Universities Research Association. Over the years, Rutgers has been considered a Public Ivy.

Research

Rutgers is home to the Rutgers University Center for Cognitive Science, also known as RUCCS. This research center hosts researchers in psychology, linguistics, computer science, philosophy, electrical engineering, and anthropology.

It was at Rutgers that Selman Waksman (1888–1973) discovered several antibiotics, including actinomycin, clavacin, streptothricin, grisein, neomycin, fradicin, candicidin, candidin, and others. Waksman, along with graduate student Albert Schatz (1920–2005), discovered streptomycin—a versatile antibiotic that was to be the first applied to cure tuberculosis. For this discovery, Waksman received the Nobel Prize for Medicine in 1952.

Rutgers developed water-soluble sustained release polymers, tetraploids, robotic hands, artificial bovine insemination, and the ceramic tiles for the heat shield on the Space Shuttle. In health related field, Rutgers has the Environmental & Occupational Health Science Institute (EOHSI).

Rutgers is also home to the RCSB Protein Data bank, “…an information portal to Biological Macromolecular Structures’ cohosted with the San Diego Supercomputer Center. This database is the authoritative research tool for bioinformaticists using protein primary, secondary and tertiary structures worldwide….”

Rutgers is home to the Rutgers Cooperative Research & Extension office, which is run by the Agricultural and Experiment Station with the support of local government. The institution provides research & education to the local farming and agro industrial community in 19 of the 21 counties of the state and educational outreach programs offered through the New Jersey Agricultural Experiment Station Office of Continuing Professional Education.

Rutgers University Cell and DNA Repository (RUCDR) is the largest university based repository in the world and has received awards worth more than $57.8 million from the National Institutes of Health. One will fund genetic studies of mental disorders and the other will support investigations into the causes of digestive, liver and kidney diseases, and diabetes. RUCDR activities will enable gene discovery leading to diagnoses, treatments and, eventually, cures for these diseases. RUCDR assists researchers throughout the world by providing the highest quality biomaterials, technical consultation, and logistical support.

Rutgers–Camden is home to the nation’s PhD granting Department of Childhood Studies. This department, in conjunction with the Center for Children and Childhood Studies, also on the Camden campus, conducts interdisciplinary research which combines methodologies and research practices of sociology, psychology, literature, anthropology and other disciplines into the study of childhoods internationally.

Rutgers is home to several National Science Foundation IGERT fellowships that support interdisciplinary scientific research at the graduate-level. Highly selective fellowships are available in the following areas: Perceptual Science, Stem Cell Science and Engineering, Nanotechnology for Clean Energy, Renewable and Sustainable Fuels Solutions, and Nanopharmaceutical Engineering.

Rutgers also maintains the Office of Research Alliances that focuses on working with companies to increase engagement with the university’s faculty members, staff and extensive resources on the four campuses.

As a ’67 graduate of University College, second in my class, I am proud to be a member of

Alpha Sigma Lamda, National Honor Society of non-tradional students.

From Rutgers University Via “WHYY”: “Rutgers University develops oyster reef ecosystem to prevent beach erosion”

Our Great Seal.

From Rutgers University

Via

WHYY

11.26.22
Zoë Read

Researchers explain oyster recruitment and predation trials at field site. (Kurt Gust, ERDC)

Sea level rise and increased storm events caused by climate change are accelerating erosion along the East Coast, putting communities and infrastructure at risk.

Concrete breakwaters are often installed in the ocean to reduce erosion and protect communities. However, scientists say nature might be the best defense.

Rutgers University has partnered with the environmental engineering firm WSP USA to develop oyster beds that could also protect coastlines from storms, flooding, and erosion. It’s a natural alternative to man-made protections, said Rutgers professor David Bushek.

“How can we use Mother Nature to help us keep up with things such as sea level rise, and keep the shorelines from eroding? Because behind the shorelines are other infrastructures, buildings, roads, and whatnot,” he said.

Bushek’s team have produced oysters, which attach to one another and become a solid structure. As sea level rises, they can grow on top of each other.

Researcher displays oyster recruitment to experimental structure. (David Bushek)

“So the next generation of oysters will sit on top of the previous one, and they will grow vertically in that way,” Bushek said. “And so you have a structure that’s living that continues to provide that protection as opposed to something that’s fixed and inanimate. Oyster reefs, in theory, would increase in height as sea level rises.”

The project is funded by a $12.6 million grant from the Department of Defense, which will help them create the reef in East Bay, Fla. That project will protect a nearby military base, as well as the surrounding community.

The scientists hope the project will inform similar projects in other regions where oysters can thrive.

“I think the 10,000-foot view is to have something that is transferable to any system anywhere across the world that has erosion issues. It’s not just a local issue, it’s a global issue,” said Nigel Temple, Coastal Restoration Specialist at WSP. “Having a product that’s quickly deployable and easy to produce and get out on site and build these systems as close to natural conditions as possible.”

See the full article here .

Comments are invited and will be appreciated, especially if the reader finds any errors which I can correct. Use “Reply”.

five-ways-keep-your-child-safe-school-shootings

Please help promote STEM in your local schools.

Stem Education Coalition

Rutgers-The State University of New Jersey, is a leading national research university and the state’s preeminent, comprehensive public institution of higher education. Rutgers is dedicated to teaching that meets the highest standards of excellence; to conducting research that breaks new ground; and to providing services, solutions, and clinical care that help individuals and the local, national, and global communities where they live.

Founded in 1766, Rutgers teaches across the full educational spectrum: preschool to precollege; undergraduate to graduate; postdoctoral fellowships to residencies; and continuing education for professional and personal advancement.

Rutgers University is a public land-grant research university based in New Brunswick, New Jersey. Chartered in 1766, Rutgers was originally called Queen’s College, and today it is the eighth-oldest college in the United States, the second-oldest in New Jersey (after Princeton University), and one of the nine U.S. colonial colleges that were chartered before the American War of Independence. In 1825, Queen’s College was renamed Rutgers College in honor of Colonel Henry Rutgers, whose substantial gift to the school had stabilized its finances during a period of uncertainty. For most of its existence, Rutgers was a private liberal arts college but it has evolved into a coeducational public research university after being designated The State University of New Jersey by the New Jersey Legislature via laws enacted in 1945 and 1956.

Rutgers today has three distinct campuses, located in New Brunswick (including grounds in adjacent Piscataway), Newark, and Camden. The university has additional facilities elsewhere in the state, including oceanographic research facilities at the New Jersey shore. Rutgers is also a land-grant university, a sea-grant university, and the largest university in the state. Instruction is offered by 9,000 faculty members in 175 academic departments to over 45,000 undergraduate students and more than 20,000 graduate and professional students. The university is accredited by the Middle States Association of Colleges and Schools and is a member of the Big Ten Academic Alliance, the Association of American Universities and the Universities Research Association. Over the years, Rutgers has been considered a Public Ivy.

Research

Rutgers is home to the Rutgers University Center for Cognitive Science, also known as RUCCS. This research center hosts researchers in psychology, linguistics, computer science, philosophy, electrical engineering, and anthropology.

It was at Rutgers that Selman Waksman (1888–1973) discovered several antibiotics, including actinomycin, clavacin, streptothricin, grisein, neomycin, fradicin, candicidin, candidin, and others. Waksman, along with graduate student Albert Schatz (1920–2005), discovered streptomycin—a versatile antibiotic that was to be the first applied to cure tuberculosis. For this discovery, Waksman received the Nobel Prize for Medicine in 1952.

Rutgers developed water-soluble sustained release polymers, tetraploids, robotic hands, artificial bovine insemination, and the ceramic tiles for the heat shield on the Space Shuttle. In health related field, Rutgers has the Environmental & Occupational Health Science Institute (EOHSI).

Rutgers is also home to the RCSB Protein Data bank, “…an information portal to Biological Macromolecular Structures’ cohosted with the San Diego Supercomputer Center. This database is the authoritative research tool for bioinformaticists using protein primary, secondary and tertiary structures worldwide….”

Rutgers is home to the Rutgers Cooperative Research & Extension office, which is run by the Agricultural and Experiment Station with the support of local government. The institution provides research & education to the local farming and agro industrial community in 19 of the 21 counties of the state and educational outreach programs offered through the New Jersey Agricultural Experiment Station Office of Continuing Professional Education.

Rutgers University Cell and DNA Repository (RUCDR) is the largest university based repository in the world and has received awards worth more than $57.8 million from the National Institutes of Health. One will fund genetic studies of mental disorders and the other will support investigations into the causes of digestive, liver and kidney diseases, and diabetes. RUCDR activities will enable gene discovery leading to diagnoses, treatments and, eventually, cures for these diseases. RUCDR assists researchers throughout the world by providing the highest quality biomaterials, technical consultation, and logistical support.

Rutgers–Camden is home to the nation’s PhD granting Department of Childhood Studies. This department, in conjunction with the Center for Children and Childhood Studies, also on the Camden campus, conducts interdisciplinary research which combines methodologies and research practices of sociology, psychology, literature, anthropology and other disciplines into the study of childhoods internationally.

Rutgers is home to several National Science Foundation IGERT fellowships that support interdisciplinary scientific research at the graduate-level. Highly selective fellowships are available in the following areas: Perceptual Science, Stem Cell Science and Engineering, Nanotechnology for Clean Energy, Renewable and Sustainable Fuels Solutions, and Nanopharmaceutical Engineering.

Rutgers also maintains the Office of Research Alliances that focuses on working with companies to increase engagement with the university’s faculty members, staff and extensive resources on the four campuses.

As a ’67 graduate of University College, second in my class, I am proud to be a member of

Alpha Sigma Lamda, National Honor Society of non-tradional students.

From Rutgers University: “Rutgers Ecologist Heads Bold Experiment in Building Climate-Resilient Coastal Communities” Brooke Maslo

Our Great Seal.

From Rutgers University

11.14.22

An effort led by Brooke Maslo aims to redevelop property purchased through New Jersey’s Blue Acres initiative to protect flood-prone parts of the state.

Brooke Maslo (with her dog, Poseidon) stands in the floodplain forest she designed in the Watson-Crampton neighborhood of Woodbridge, New Jersey, where houses once stood. Photo credit: Shelley Kusnetz.

In the Watson-Crampton neighborhood of Woodbridge Township, New Jersey, meadows, marshlands and forests form a green, undeveloped crescent on the community’s eastern edge.

At first glance, the acres of open space look like a natural buffer protecting homes from the whir of the nearby New Jersey Turnpike. But zoom in and the coastal neighborhood’s secrets peer through the Google Maps foliage: empty driveways, dead-end streets and foundations of homes that no longer exist.

Here, on dozens of acres of New Jersey’s storm-riddled coast, is a bold experiment in resilience that Rutgers ecologist Brooke Maslo is heading.

Ten years ago, when Superstorm Sandy tore up the East Coast, Woodbridge scored a direct hit, and nearly every home in Watson-Crampton was underwater. Dozens of those dwellings were demolished and their occupants relocated inland. As for the lots, they were converted into a flood-protection zone that Maslo, an associate professor in the Rutgers Department of Ecology, Evolution and Natural Resources, helped design.

“We didn’t do disaster avoidance in Woodbridge, like putting up sea walls or levies designed to keep water out,” Maslo said. “This was about resilience. We wanted to create spaces that allow water to absorb naturally into the ecosystem and filter out on its own, to give the floodplain an opportunity to do what a floodplain is supposed to do.”

The redevelopment in Woodbridge was facilitated by the Blue Acres initiative, a flood protection and recovery program managed by the New Jersey Department of Environmental Protection (DEP) that includes acquisition and clearing of flood-prone property.

Since 1995, Blue Acres has purchased homes in Federal Emergency Management Agency (FEMA)-established, flood-prone areas or within 100-year flood plains. After the homes are demolished, the lots are turned into open space. Since its inception, Blue Acres has lined up about $250 million in state and federal funding to purchase properties throughout New Jersey, according to DEP spokesman Larry Hajna. It has made offers on 1,134 homes, closed deals on 800 and knocked down more than 640, including 165 in Woodbridge.

“DEP works to establish community buy-in by meeting with local officials, then with interested homeowners,” Hajna said. “Woodbridge is a great example of how that process worked.”

Flood-related buyouts aren’t unique to New Jersey. As climate change has accelerated the frequency of extreme weather events, communities in Alabama, Missouri, North Carolina, Tennessee and elsewhere have implemented similar programs. In the 1930s and 1940s, the federal government even relocated entire communities to make way for dams and other large-scale, flood-protection infrastructure projects.

Maslo created a floodplain restoration plan that buffered the remaining neighborhood from sea-level rise (120 acres in all) to develop the Open Space Conservation/Resiliency Zone. Photo credit: Shelley Kusnetz.

What is unique, however, is Rutgers’ program to transform purchased properties into functioning ecosystems. In New Jersey, the DEP’s involvement officially ends when the land is cleared. Karen O’Neill, a Rutgers sociologist who has studied global instances of coastal retreat, told Scientific American that “you hardly ever see a comprehensive ecological restoration. It just doesn’t exist.”

Before 2012, funding for flood mitigation was sparse, but Sandy refocused attention on the dangers of living in low-lying towns. (Superstorm Sandy caused more than $70 billion in property damage, including an estimated $29.4 billion in New Jersey, according to the governor’s office). Many might expect a similar response to the devastation wrought by Hurricane Ian in Florida.

Once the money flowed, the real work began.

“When we started in 2015 there was really no guidance on what to do,” Maslo said. “The state just said, ‘OK, the land is deed-restricted, it must be managed as open space with no permanent structures,’ but that was about it.”

The Watson-Crampton neighborhood in August 2012 (top) and July 2022 (bottom). Courtesy of Matthew Drews.

The town contacted Maslo, who also is an Extension Specialist for Rutgers working with New Jersey communities, for help.

Because Blue Acres properties tend to be clustered to increase mitigation potential, the first task for Maslo was to survey the site. Her team mapped each Blue Acres parcel, did vegetative, soil and habitat assessments, compiled endangered species lists and mapped critical infrastructure such as firehouses, hospitals, child care facilities and recreational areas.

This information was then used by her team, which included landscape architects and engineers, to produce a floodplain restoration plan to increase the community’s resilience during future flooding. The result is a patchwork of small parks and boardwalks lined with berms, bioswales, stormwater wetlands and concrete channels.

A recent $608,000 grant from the National Fish and Wildlife Foundation’s Coastal Resilience program will fund completion of work in the Watson-Crampton neighborhood and cover the planning costs for two other Woodbridge communities: Avenel and Sewaren. By the time the project is completed, some 120 acres of former residential land will be converted to floodplain habitat and folded into the existing fabric of wetlands and open space within the township.

The work is already paying dividends. In 2021, when the remnants of Hurricane Ida inundated parts of New Jersey, areas of Woodbridge that had been restored stayed dry. In other parts of Woodbridge, including a Blue Acres-identified area where people didn’t accept buyouts, “there was devastation,” Maslo said.

Success in Woodbridge has created opportunities for Maslo to work with other vulnerable New Jersey cities and towns, primarily on designing floodplain mitigation plans. Through a grant from the DEP’s Resilient NJ program, Maslo also is writing a handbook to advise communities on how to restore Blue Acres properties and enhance their resilience to flooding. Topics range from the broad (defining landscape resilience) to the hyper specific (understanding open-space typologies).

Maslo does run into occasional resistance with her work, especially from residents who aren’t ready to move to higher ground.

“A lot of people think of buyouts as abandonment or retreat,” she said. “We’re trying to reframe that narrative and explain that transitions are actually opportunities for new public amenities and for flood management.”

Maslo said with the right support – and more funding – flood-prone communities can be convinced to follow Woodbridge’s lead and more homeowners living in high-risk areas will relocate. As the effects of climate change lead to more severe weather, the number of New Jersey homes in harm’s way is projected to increase. Maslo estimated that by 2045 as many as 100,000 residential properties in the state will be at risk for flooding. By the end of the century, that number increases to 250,000.

“The storms are going to arrive when they arrive,” she said. “We can’t prevent or avoid them. What we can do is reestablish the functions of natural systems and use them to increase resilience.”

The arguments are persuasive – for residents of all types. A constant presence in the field and office is Maslo’s dog, Poseidon. But unlike the Greek god of the sea, Maslo’s four-legged colleague shares something in common with Blue Acres families who have moved.

“He’s terrified of water,” Maslo said.

See the full article here .

five-ways-keep-your-child-safe-school-shootings

Please help promote STEM in your local schools.

Stem Education Coalition

Rutgers-The State University of New Jersey, is a leading national research university and the state’s preeminent, comprehensive public institution of higher education. Rutgers is dedicated to teaching that meets the highest standards of excellence; to conducting research that breaks new ground; and to providing services, solutions, and clinical care that help individuals and the local, national, and global communities where they live.

Founded in 1766, Rutgers teaches across the full educational spectrum: preschool to precollege; undergraduate to graduate; postdoctoral fellowships to residencies; and continuing education for professional and personal advancement.

Rutgers University is a public land-grant research university based in New Brunswick, New Jersey. Chartered in 1766, Rutgers was originally called Queen’s College, and today it is the eighth-oldest college in the United States, the second-oldest in New Jersey (after Princeton University), and one of the nine U.S. colonial colleges that were chartered before the American War of Independence. In 1825, Queen’s College was renamed Rutgers College in honor of Colonel Henry Rutgers, whose substantial gift to the school had stabilized its finances during a period of uncertainty. For most of its existence, Rutgers was a private liberal arts college but it has evolved into a coeducational public research university after being designated The State University of New Jersey by the New Jersey Legislature via laws enacted in 1945 and 1956.

Rutgers today has three distinct campuses, located in New Brunswick (including grounds in adjacent Piscataway), Newark, and Camden. The university has additional facilities elsewhere in the state, including oceanographic research facilities at the New Jersey shore. Rutgers is also a land-grant university, a sea-grant university, and the largest university in the state. Instruction is offered by 9,000 faculty members in 175 academic departments to over 45,000 undergraduate students and more than 20,000 graduate and professional students. The university is accredited by the Middle States Association of Colleges and Schools and is a member of the Big Ten Academic Alliance, the Association of American Universities and the Universities Research Association. Over the years, Rutgers has been considered a Public Ivy.

Research

Rutgers is home to the Rutgers University Center for Cognitive Science, also known as RUCCS. This research center hosts researchers in psychology, linguistics, computer science, philosophy, electrical engineering, and anthropology.

It was at Rutgers that Selman Waksman (1888–1973) discovered several antibiotics, including actinomycin, clavacin, streptothricin, grisein, neomycin, fradicin, candicidin, candidin, and others. Waksman, along with graduate student Albert Schatz (1920–2005), discovered streptomycin—a versatile antibiotic that was to be the first applied to cure tuberculosis. For this discovery, Waksman received the Nobel Prize for Medicine in 1952.

Rutgers developed water-soluble sustained release polymers, tetraploids, robotic hands, artificial bovine insemination, and the ceramic tiles for the heat shield on the Space Shuttle. In health related field, Rutgers has the Environmental & Occupational Health Science Institute (EOHSI).

Rutgers is also home to the RCSB Protein Data bank, “…an information portal to Biological Macromolecular Structures’ cohosted with the San Diego Supercomputer Center. This database is the authoritative research tool for bioinformaticists using protein primary, secondary and tertiary structures worldwide….”

Rutgers is home to the Rutgers Cooperative Research & Extension office, which is run by the Agricultural and Experiment Station with the support of local government. The institution provides research & education to the local farming and agro industrial community in 19 of the 21 counties of the state and educational outreach programs offered through the New Jersey Agricultural Experiment Station Office of Continuing Professional Education.

Rutgers University Cell and DNA Repository (RUCDR) is the largest university based repository in the world and has received awards worth more than $57.8 million from the National Institutes of Health. One will fund genetic studies of mental disorders and the other will support investigations into the causes of digestive, liver and kidney diseases, and diabetes. RUCDR activities will enable gene discovery leading to diagnoses, treatments and, eventually, cures for these diseases. RUCDR assists researchers throughout the world by providing the highest quality biomaterials, technical consultation, and logistical support.

Rutgers–Camden is home to the nation’s PhD granting Department of Childhood Studies. This department, in conjunction with the Center for Children and Childhood Studies, also on the Camden campus, conducts interdisciplinary research which combines methodologies and research practices of sociology, psychology, literature, anthropology and other disciplines into the study of childhoods internationally.

Rutgers is home to several National Science Foundation IGERT fellowships that support interdisciplinary scientific research at the graduate-level. Highly selective fellowships are available in the following areas: Perceptual Science, Stem Cell Science and Engineering, Nanotechnology for Clean Energy, Renewable and Sustainable Fuels Solutions, and Nanopharmaceutical Engineering.

Rutgers also maintains the Office of Research Alliances that focuses on working with companies to increase engagement with the university’s faculty members, staff and extensive resources on the four campuses.

As a ’67 graduate of University College, second in my class, I am proud to be a member of

Alpha Sigma Lamda, National Honor Society of non-tradional students.

From The NASA/ESA/CSA James Webb Space Telescope: “Beneath the Night Sky in a Galaxy (Not Too) Far Away”

National Aeronautics Space Agency/European Space Agency [La Agencia Espacial Europea] [Agence spatiale européenne][Europäische Weltraumorganization](EU)/ Canadian Space Agency [Agence Spatiale Canadienne](CA) James Webb Infrared Space Telescope annotated, finally launched December 25, 2021, ten years late.

From The NASA/ESA/CSA James Webb Space Telescope

11.9.22
Kristen McQuinn | Department of Physics and Astronomy – Rutgers University

Editor: Margaret W. Carruthers | Space Telescope Science Institute

We spoke with Kristen McQuinn of Rutgers University, one of the lead scientists on Webb Early Release Science (ERS) program 1334, focused on resolved stellar populations. These are large groups of stars—including stars within the dwarf galaxy Wolf–Lundmark–Melotte (WLM)—that are close enough for Webb to differentiate between individual stars, but far enough for Webb to capture a large number of stars at once.

A portion of the dwarf galaxy Wolf–Lundmark–Melotte (WLM) captured by the Spitzer Space Telescope’s Infrared Array Camera (left) and the James Webb Space Telescope’s Near-Infrared Camera (right). The images demonstrate Webb’s remarkable ability to resolve faint stars outside the Milky Way. The Spitzer image shows 3.6-micron light in cyan and 4.5-micron in orange (IRAC1 and IRAC2). The Webb image includes 0.9-micron light shown in blue, 1.5-micron in cyan, 2.5-micron in yellow, and 4.3-micron in red (filters F090W, F150W, F250M, and F430M). Download the dwarf galaxy image from the Resource Gallery. SCIENCE CREDIT: NASA, ESA, CSA, STScI, and Kristen McQuinn (Rutgers University). IMAGE PROCESSING: Alyssa Pagan (STScI) and Zolt Levay (STScI).

So, tell us a bit about this galaxy, WLM. What’s interesting about it?

WLM is a dwarf galaxy in our galactic neighborhood. It’s fairly close to the Milky Way (only about 3 million light-years from Earth), but it’s also relatively isolated. We think WLM hasn’t interacted with other systems, which makes it really nice for testing our theories of galaxy formation and evolution. Many of the other nearby galaxies are intertwined and entangled with the Milky Way, which makes them harder to study.

Another interesting and important thing about WLM is that its gas is similar to the gas that made up galaxies in the early universe. It’s fairly unenriched, chemically speaking. (That is, it’s poor in elements heavier than hydrogen and helium.)

This is because the galaxy has lost many of these elements through something we call galactic winds. Although WLM has been forming stars recently—throughout cosmic time, really—and those stars have been synthesizing new elements, some of the material gets expelled from the galaxy when the massive stars explode. Supernovae can be powerful and energetic enough to push material out of small, low-mass galaxies like WLM.

This makes WLM super interesting in that you can use it to study how stars form and evolve in small galaxies like those in the ancient universe.

You arranged to show this image at a planetarium. How did you feel when you saw the image projected on the dome?

It was just inspiring. It really was incredible. I will never look at these images the same again. Seeing this on the dome, it was like looking up at our own night sky—at the Milky Way—from a dark site. I could imagine that we were standing on a planet in the WLM galaxy and looking up at its night sky.

We can see a myriad of individual stars of different colors, sizes, temperatures, ages, and stages of evolution; interesting clouds of nebular gas within the galaxy; foreground stars with Webb’s diffraction spikes; and background galaxies with neat features like tidal tails. It’s really a gorgeous image.

And, of course, the view is far deeper and better than our eyes could possibly see. Even if you were looking out from a planet in the middle of this galaxy, and even if you could see infrared light, you would need bionic eyes to be able to see what Webb sees.

What are you trying to find out by studying WLM?

The main science focus is to reconstruct the star formation history of this galaxy. Low-mass stars can live for billions of years, which means that some of the stars that we see in WLM today formed in the early universe. By determining the properties of these low-mass stars (like their ages), we can gain insight into what was happening in the very distant past. It’s very complementary to what we learn about the early formation of galaxies by looking at high-redshift systems, where we see the galaxies as they existed when they first formed.

The Early Release Science programs were designed to highlight Webb’s capabilities and help astronomers prepare for future observations. How are you supporting other astronomers with this work?

In a few ways. We’re checking the calibration of the NIRCam instrument itself. We’re checking our stellar evolution models. And we’re developing software to measure star brightnesses.

We already studied this exact same field very carefully with Hubble. Now we’re looking at the near-infrared light with Webb, and we’re using WLM as a sort of standard for comparison (like you would use in a lab) to help us make sure we understand the Webb observations. We want to make sure we’re measuring the stars’ brightnesses really, really accurately and precisely. We also want to make sure that we understand our stellar evolution models in the near-infrared.

Our team is also charged with developing a public software tool to measure the brightness of all the resolved stars in the NIRCam images. This is a non-proprietary tool that everyone will be able to use. We are developing and testing the software, and optimizing the parameters used for measurements. This is a bedrock tool for astronomers around the world. If you want to do anything with resolved stars that are crowded together on the sky, you need a tool like this.

See the full article here .

five-ways-keep-your-child-safe-school-shootings

Please help promote STEM in your local schools.

Stem Education Coalition

The NASA/ESA/CSA James Webb Space Telescope is a large infrared telescope with a 6.5-meter primary mirror. Webb was finally launched December 25, 2021, ten years late. The James Webb Space Telescope will be the premier observatory of the next decade, serving thousands of astronomers worldwide. It will study every phase in the history of our Universe, ranging from the first luminous glows after the Big Bang, to the formation of solar systems capable of supporting life on planets like Earth, to the evolution of our own Solar System.

The James Webb Space Telescope is the world’s largest, most powerful, and most complex space science telescope ever built. Webb will solve mysteries in our solar system, look beyond to distant worlds around other stars, and probe the mysterious structures and origins of our universe and our place in it.

Webb telescope was formerly known as the “Next Generation Space Telescope” (NGST); it was renamed in Sept. 2002 after a former NASA administrator, James Webb.

Webb is an international collaboration between National Aeronautics and Space Administration, the European Space Agency (ESA), and the Canadian Space Agency (CSA). The NASA Goddard Space Flight Center managed the development effort. The main industrial partner is Northrop Grumman; the Space Telescope Science Institute operates Webb.

Several innovative technologies have been developed for Webb. These include a folding, segmented primary mirror, adjusted to shape after launch; ultra-lightweight beryllium optics; detectors able to record extremely weak signals, microshutters that enable programmable object selection for the spectrograph; and a cryocooler for cooling the mid-IR detectors to 7K.

There are four science instruments on Webb: The Near InfraRed Camera (NIRCam), The Near InfraRed Spectrograph (NIRspec), The Mid-InfraRed Instrument (MIRI), and The Fine Guidance Sensor/ Near InfraRed Imager and Slitless Spectrograph (FGS-NIRISS).

Webb’s instruments are designed to work primarily in the infrared range of the electromagnetic spectrum, with some capability in the visible range. It will be sensitive to light from 0.6 to 28 micrometers in wavelength.
National Aeronautics Space Agency Webb NIRCam.

NASA Webb NIRSpec

The European Space Agency [La Agencia Espacial Europea] [Agence spatiale européenne][Europäische Weltraumorganization](EU) Webb MIRI schematic.

Canadian Space Agency [Agence Spatiale Canadienne](CA)Webb Fine Guidance Sensor-Near InfraRed Imager and Slitless Spectrograph FGS/NIRISS.

Webb has four main science themes: The End of the Dark Ages: First Light and Reionization, The Assembly of Galaxies, The Birth of Stars and Protoplanetary Systems, and Planetary Systems and the Origins of Life.

Launch was December 25, 2021 on an Ariane 5 rocket. The launch was from Arianespace’s ELA-3 launch complex at European Spaceport located near Kourou, French Guiana. Webb is located at the second Lagrange point, about a million miles from the Earth.

LaGrange Points map. NASA.

From Rutgers University: “How Rutgers Is Forging the Next Generation of Climate Change Problem Solvers”

Our Great Seal.

From Rutgers University

10.24.22
Kitta MacPherson

Training program created in wake of Superstorm Sandy brings graduate students from varied disciplines together to solve real-world climate problems.

Larry Niles, an independent wildlife biologist, describes the ecosystem of the Cumberland County shore to Rutgers students with the Delaware River behind him. The students are banding migratory shorebirds. Credit: Lisa Auermuller/Rutgers University.

As a child, Dan Blanco watched low-income neighborhoods in his native Chicago flood during storms while the more affluent enclaves did not. Now, he is pursuing a doctoral degree in atmospheric sciences at Rutgers so he can further explore – and find ways to diminish – the often inequitable ravages of climate change.

Fatematuz Zohora Nishi, who grew up in a disaster-prone coastal area in Bangladesh, is also at Rutgers because of her concerns about changing climate. She is earning a doctoral degree in earth and planetary sciences so she can better understand sea level rise and inform endangered communities with her research.

Josephine O’Grady, a first-year graduate student at Rutgers, has set her sights on earning a degree in the master of public policy program at the Edward J. Bloustein School of Planning and Public Policy. A native of Bay Head in Ocean County, O’Grady studied marine life in nearby Barnegat Bay from the time she was a girl and wants her professional work to intersect with the many community environmental organizations she grew up with.

Blanco, Nishi and O’Grady are part of a cadre of Rutgers graduate students in a special initiative at Rutgers that is one of the first in the nation. They are among the newest participants in the Coastal Climate Risk and Resilience (C2R2) graduate certificate program, where top students from a variety of scientific, engineering, public policy and urban planning backgrounds are trained and work together and then placed into partnerships with local municipalities confronting real-time issues brought about by climate change.

“If we want to have a real-world impact on finding solutions to climate change, we are going to need people who can talk both to other researchers and also talk to the people who are actually having the problems,” said Robert Kopp, a professor in the Department of Earth and Planetary Sciences at the Rutgers School of Arts and Sciences. Kopp, who also serves as director of the Megalopolitan Coastal Transformation Hub, a new 13-institution, National Science Foundation-funded partnership led by Rutgers, founded C2R2 with several Rutgers colleagues following the impact of Superstorm Sandy. “Our goal is to produce next-generation researchers whose science is deeply guided by those conversations, and also to produce the critically important leaders who foster those conversations and help link climate research to real-world climate action. Many of our students want to do science that is useful in the near-term, not just the long-term.”

Doctoral students Fatematuz Zohora Nishi and Dan Blanco discuss their coastal climate resilience models built during a recent class led by Lisa Auermuller (right). Credit: Lucia Mostello/Rutgers University.

Started with support from the National Science Foundation and hosted at the Rutgers Institute of Earth, Ocean and Atmospheric Sciences (EOAS), the C2R2 certificate program is a collaboration between EOAS, the Edward J. Bloustein School of Planning and Public Policy, the Rutgers School of Arts and Sciences, the Rutgers School of Environmental and Biological Sciences, the Rutgers School of Engineering and the Rutgers School of Graduate Studies.

“The professionals who will solve the climate problems of tomorrow are our students,” said Jeanne Herb, another founder of the program and associate director of the Environmental Analysis and Communications Group at the Bloustein School. “Through C2R2, our students acquire the knowledge and practical skills needed to become leading researchers and practitioners tackling the critical challenges of coastal resilience.”

Herb said the program is deliberately designed to force students to take on unfamiliar subjects, including a course on science communications, and become familiar with novel environments. During a two-week boot camp, students and professors travel to coastal communities in six different New Jersey counties, conducting scientific fieldwork and meeting with community officials.

Students in the program have served several coastal communities in New Jersey, preparing detailed analyses addressing climate challenges for Atlantic Highlands, Keansburg and Perth Amboy.

The plan drafted for Perth Amboy involved elements of oceanography, biology, landscape architecture, urban planning and public policy that would address the natural hazards and climate change effects threatening the city. Students recommended taking a “green infrastructure” approach such as retrofitting existing buildings to be more resilient and sustainable.

Lisa Auermuller, the assistant manager for the Rutgers New Jersey Agricultural Experiment Station’s Jacques Cousteau National Estuarine Research Reserve in Tuckerton who teaches a course on climate risk and resilience, said she would like students to look at resilience as more than just the ability to bounce back from adversity. She wants students to come up with ideas that will leave citizens and their communities in a stronger position than before.

Rutgers professor Robert Kopp (at upper left) leads his students in the C2R2 program on a visit with police and municipal leaders at Harvey Cedars on Long Beach Island. Credit: Lucia Mostello/Rutgers University.

“In this program, I also want them to consider multiple perspectives,” Auermuller said. “What does it mean to communicate science? What does it mean to work with a municipality or with stakeholders? And how can our work benefit more than just our own learning but really be put into use in the community?”

During a recent class, more than a dozen students peppered a virtual visitor, Angela Andersen, the sustainability coordinator for Long Beach Township on Long Beach Island with questions about her experiences post-Sandy as well as present efforts to protect shorelines from erosion.

Ben Goldberg, a student in Auermuller’s class who is in his second year of a master’s program in city and regional planning at the Bloustein School, said he plans to help cities implement resilient designs.

His journey in the years after college – where he worked as an organic farmer, managed a farmers market, formally studied agroecology and worked as a cook in sustainably minded restaurant kitchens – led him to be in the right place and program, he said.

“Climate change is the defining issue of my generation,” said the Washington, D.C. native as he looked soberly around the classroom at his peers. “I believe there are changes coming that people are not ready for. This program gives me inspiration that I will be able to help.”

Other founding faculty of C2R2 include Clint Andrews, a professor and associate dean for research at the Bloustein School; Carrie Ferraro, who originally served as administrative director for the program and is now assistant professor of professional practice in the Math & Science Learning Center at the School of Arts and Sciences; Jie Gong, an associate professor of civil and environmental engineering in the School of Engineering; and Rebecca Jordan, now a professor in the Department of Community Sustainability at Michigan State University.

See the full article here .

five-ways-keep-your-child-safe-school-shootings

Please help promote STEM in your local schools.

Stem Education Coalition

Rutgers-The State University of New Jersey, is a leading national research university and the state’s preeminent, comprehensive public institution of higher education. Rutgers is dedicated to teaching that meets the highest standards of excellence; to conducting research that breaks new ground; and to providing services, solutions, and clinical care that help individuals and the local, national, and global communities where they live.

Founded in 1766, Rutgers teaches across the full educational spectrum: preschool to precollege; undergraduate to graduate; postdoctoral fellowships to residencies; and continuing education for professional and personal advancement.

Rutgers University is a public land-grant research university based in New Brunswick, New Jersey. Chartered in 1766, Rutgers was originally called Queen’s College, and today it is the eighth-oldest college in the United States, the second-oldest in New Jersey (after Princeton University), and one of the nine U.S. colonial colleges that were chartered before the American War of Independence. In 1825, Queen’s College was renamed Rutgers College in honor of Colonel Henry Rutgers, whose substantial gift to the school had stabilized its finances during a period of uncertainty. For most of its existence, Rutgers was a private liberal arts college but it has evolved into a coeducational public research university after being designated The State University of New Jersey by the New Jersey Legislature via laws enacted in 1945 and 1956.

Rutgers today has three distinct campuses, located in New Brunswick (including grounds in adjacent Piscataway), Newark, and Camden. The university has additional facilities elsewhere in the state, including oceanographic research facilities at the New Jersey shore. Rutgers is also a land-grant university, a sea-grant university, and the largest university in the state. Instruction is offered by 9,000 faculty members in 175 academic departments to over 45,000 undergraduate students and more than 20,000 graduate and professional students. The university is accredited by the Middle States Association of Colleges and Schools and is a member of the Big Ten Academic Alliance, the Association of American Universities and the Universities Research Association. Over the years, Rutgers has been considered a Public Ivy.

Research

Rutgers is home to the Rutgers University Center for Cognitive Science, also known as RUCCS. This research center hosts researchers in psychology, linguistics, computer science, philosophy, electrical engineering, and anthropology.

It was at Rutgers that Selman Waksman (1888–1973) discovered several antibiotics, including actinomycin, clavacin, streptothricin, grisein, neomycin, fradicin, candicidin, candidin, and others. Waksman, along with graduate student Albert Schatz (1920–2005), discovered streptomycin—a versatile antibiotic that was to be the first applied to cure tuberculosis. For this discovery, Waksman received the Nobel Prize for Medicine in 1952.

Rutgers developed water-soluble sustained release polymers, tetraploids, robotic hands, artificial bovine insemination, and the ceramic tiles for the heat shield on the Space Shuttle. In health related field, Rutgers has the Environmental & Occupational Health Science Institute (EOHSI).

Rutgers is also home to the RCSB Protein Data bank, “…an information portal to Biological Macromolecular Structures’ cohosted with the San Diego Supercomputer Center. This database is the authoritative research tool for bioinformaticists using protein primary, secondary and tertiary structures worldwide….”

Rutgers is home to the Rutgers Cooperative Research & Extension office, which is run by the Agricultural and Experiment Station with the support of local government. The institution provides research & education to the local farming and agro industrial community in 19 of the 21 counties of the state and educational outreach programs offered through the New Jersey Agricultural Experiment Station Office of Continuing Professional Education.

Rutgers University Cell and DNA Repository (RUCDR) is the largest university based repository in the world and has received awards worth more than $57.8 million from the National Institutes of Health. One will fund genetic studies of mental disorders and the other will support investigations into the causes of digestive, liver and kidney diseases, and diabetes. RUCDR activities will enable gene discovery leading to diagnoses, treatments and, eventually, cures for these diseases. RUCDR assists researchers throughout the world by providing the highest quality biomaterials, technical consultation, and logistical support.

Rutgers–Camden is home to the nation’s PhD granting Department of Childhood Studies. This department, in conjunction with the Center for Children and Childhood Studies, also on the Camden campus, conducts interdisciplinary research which combines methodologies and research practices of sociology, psychology, literature, anthropology and other disciplines into the study of childhoods internationally.

Rutgers is home to several National Science Foundation IGERT fellowships that support interdisciplinary scientific research at the graduate-level. Highly selective fellowships are available in the following areas: Perceptual Science, Stem Cell Science and Engineering, Nanotechnology for Clean Energy, Renewable and Sustainable Fuels Solutions, and Nanopharmaceutical Engineering.

Rutgers also maintains the Office of Research Alliances that focuses on working with companies to increase engagement with the university’s faculty members, staff and extensive resources on the four campuses.

As a ’67 graduate of University College, second in my class, I am proud to be a member of

Alpha Sigma Lamda, National Honor Society of non-tradional students.