In this week’s inaugural special issue of Science Magazine on Sustainability Studies, ERG's Dan Kammen and Dr. Deborah Sunter explore the potential of using renewable energy technologies in urban areas to promote low-carbon, resilient, and livable cities.
ARE grad student Andrew Stevens and his research on quinoa pricing was featured in an article in The Economist on the global fad for quinoa and its effect on Andean peasants.
ESPM CE Specialist and adjunct professor Matteo Garbelotto is featured in this Washington Post article on sudden oak death and its rampant spread through coastal California. Garbelotto notes that awareness of sudden oak death is key, and that "we have been doing reserach for 15 years to come up with prescription and management guidelines to slow down the spread."
ESPM professor John Battles, alum Lenya Quinn-Davidson (B.S. '04) and Ph.D. candidate Kate Wilkin were highlighted in this Science article on cooperative extension programs across the US. Quinn-Davidson, a CE fire adviser, and Wilkin both participated in Graduate Students in Extension, a program launched by Battles and others that offers up to a year of funding for graduate students to conduct applied research projects and learn the principles of outreach.
ESPM assistant adjunct professor Eoin Brodie, deputy director of Berkeley Lab's Climate and Ecosystem Sciences Division, co-authored a research editorial in mBio that calls for a predictive understanding of Earth's microbiomes to address maintaining our food, energy, and water supplies while inmproving the health of our population and ecosystems. Berkeley Lab will be participating in a new National Microbiome Initiative launched by the White House Office of Science and Technology Policy.
NST 198 course "Cooking Healthy on a Budget," to be renamed "Personal Food Security and Wellness," is highlighted in this California Magazine article on the student hunger crisis at UC Berkeley. Launched with a grant from the UC Global Food Initiative, the course is part of expanded campus efforts on improved nutrition and education.
Alumni Bill Hagopian (B.S. '94) and Hope Jahren (Ph.D. '96), who have been working together since their overlapping times at Berkeley, are featured on Ars Technica on the many one-of-a-kind instruments they created to study plants and the deep geological history of Earth's atmosphere. Jahren and Hagopian, her lab manager, have been collaborating since 1996.
ESPM CE Specialist Tom Scott is featured in The San Diego Union-Tribune on the goldspotted borer beetle, which has decimated old-growth trees across Southern California. Scott comments that the estimated number of infested trees is so large that "nobody would believe it."