Environmental Engineering & Toxicology

Fellow Story

Bradman research with CHAMACOS study finds pesticides harm the young brain

Even as the researchers have been trying to unravel the tangled effects of pesticides and other chemicals on children’s development, they’ve been devising practical ways to help the study’s participants reduce their risk of exposure—a rare example of community engagement by academic scientists. In a place that’s often sharply polarized between those who own the fields and those who work in them, CHAMACOS researchers have insisted on involving all sides.
March 14, 2014
Fellow Story

Linden's team builds innovative solar-powered toilet with Gates Foundation funding

A revolutionary University of Colorado Boulder toilet fueled by the sun that is being developed to help some of the 2.5 billion people around the world lacking safe and sustainable sanitation will be unveiled in India this month.
March 13, 2014
Fellow Story

An Ocean in the Desert: RocketHub campaign launched to transform Biosphere 2 biome

Rafe Sagarin has been working the last several months at Biosphere 2, which is now owned by the University of Arizona. We have been working to find the right balance of scientific research, STEM education, and visitor outreach for this strange and rather amazing facility with a history to match.
March 12, 2014
Fellow Story

Towards better worker and public safety

Switzer Fellows Evan Hansen and Mike Wilson testified before the U.S. Senate Committee on Environment & Public Works about how we might prevent chemical threats and improve safety at facilities across the country.
March 7, 2014
Foundation News

GMOs - real time debate and science

Recently, amidst the flutter of grassroots and policy activism to prevent the proliferation of genetically engineered foods in our food supply, a few friends and family members queried me on Facebook about the pros and cons of GE and GMOs...
February 3, 2014
Fellow Story

Culverts and Climate Adaptation in the Lake Champlain Basin

In 2012, through a Switzer Leadership Grant, I had the opportunity to join the Adirondack Chapter of The Nature Conservancy to help advance work in freshwater conservation and climate change adaptation in the bi-national Lake Champlain Basin.
January 30, 2014
Fellow Story

Tompkins co-chairing symposium session in India

The 2014 Indo-American Frontiers of Engineering will be held May 19-21, at the Infosys Center in Mysore, India. About 60 outstanding engineers under the age of 45 will meet for an intensive 2-1/2 day symposium to discuss cutting-edge developments in four areas: Biomaterials, Water Resource Management in the Face of Climate Change, Green Approaches to Communications, and Engineering in the Context of Big Data.
January 20, 2014
Fellow Story

Mapping tool, policy analysis of West Virginia crisis

From 1996 Switzer Fellow Evan Hansen, whose West Virginia-based firm Downstream Strategies offers environmental consulting services with a core belief in the importance of protecting the environment and linking economic development with natural resource stewardship:
January 17, 2014
Fellow Story

Responding to crisis in West Virginia, organizing relief effort

From 2000 Switzer Fellow Jen Osha, who is coordinating an effort to bring bottled water to West Virginia residents whose water supply was contaminated by the chemical leak at Freedom Industries last week:
January 16, 2014
Fellow Story

Morello-Frosch finds high correlations of indoor and outdoor industrial pollutants

A team of scientists came to Richmond in 2006 to conduct a new kind of study, one that would try to answer residents' questions of which outdoor pollutants were coming indoors. At 40 homes in Richmond and 10 in nearby Bolinas, which has no heavy industry, equipment monitored pollution levels outdoors and indoors. The results were striking. The outdoor levels around Richmond homes were almost double the levels around Bolinas homes, and the chemicals moved indoors. Vanadium and nickel in outdoors air were among the highest in the state.
December 31, 2013