Tag: University of Vermont

A who’s-who lineup of comic artists and graphic novelists will converge on Burlington later this month for the “Pulp Culture Comic Arts Festival and Symposium” sponsored by the University of Vermont and the Vermont Folklife Center.

Scheduled for October 19-21, the event features talks by artists Alison Bechdel, Joe Sacco and Art Spiegelman; discussion panels and workshops; exhibits by over 30 cartoonists from New England and Quebec; and a festival of images and ideas for enthusiasts of the art form.

Works like Speigelman’s Maus, serialized from 1980 to 1991, demonstrated that comic art could take on serious adult subjects, contradicting the assumption that comics were only relevant for adolescent lovers of fantasy, sci-fi and superheroes.

The mid-eighties kicked off the graphic novel movement, which now report on topics like genocide, particle physics and political theory, and provide a robust medium for biography and fiction.

Isaac Cates, a lecturer who teaches classes in the comic arts at UVM, serves as an advisor for the festival. He came to appreciate comic art from the perspective of poetry.

“Poets must be attentive to every word, every detail,” he says. “In the same way, every detail in every panel of a graphic novel is purposeful—nothing appears accidentally.”

Cates will moderate a forum on comic art as a medium for autobiography.

“I tell my students that comic authors are like filmmakers who happen to be the writer, producer, director, costume designer, set designer, editor and cinematographer.”

Highlights of “Pulp Culture Comic Arts Festival and Symposium” include:

An Evening with Art Spiegelman, October 19, 2017, 7-9 p.m. at the UVM Recital Hall. In an onstage interview and presentation, the legendary Spiegelman will discuss his extensive body of work, including his award winning graphic novel Maus, and share his perspectives on the history of comics and use of comics in non-fiction storytelling. The event will conclude with an audience question and answer session.

A Conversation with Joe Sacco, October 20, 2017, 3-5 p.m. at the Carpenter Auditorium, Larner College of Medicine at UVM. The Dan and Carole Burack President’s Distinguished Lecture Series at UVM presents this conversation with renowned comics journalist, Joe Sacco. Sacco will explore journalism, cartooning, subjectivity and objectivity in representation, reflexivity, and the role of the self in his work, as well as the intersections of journalism, ethnography and history.

Drawing from the Past: A Nonfiction Comics Workshop. Join New Hampshire teaching artist Mark Bennett for this hands-on non-fiction comics lab. Participants will look at basic techniques of cartooning and comics creation, and draw original comics based on primary source texts. No experience required–space is limited. Contact Andy Kolovos (akolovos@vermontfolklifecenter.org) for more information. 10-2 p.m. October 20 at the UVM Special Collections.

A Conversation with Alison Bechdel, October 21, 2017, 6-8 p.m. at the Fleming Auditorium (Room 101) at UVM’s Fleming Museum. The capstone event of “Pulp Culture Comic Arts Festival and Symposium” features a live interview with MacArthur Fellow and UVM professor of English Alison Bechdel. Her comic strip “Dykes to Watch Out For” became a countercultural institution among lesbians and discerning non-lesbians all over the planet. And her more recent, darkly humorous graphic memoirs about her family have forged an unlikely intimacy with an even wider range of readers.

Panel Discussions. On October 21, symposium features a series of five panels throughout the day that explore different aspects of non-fiction cartooning. Drawing together cartoonists, writers and academics, the hour-long panels will foster a rich dialog between panelists and audience. Panels will be held in the Fleming Auditorium (Room 101) in the Fleming Museum.

Exhibition. Visit the Marble Court of the Fleming Museum on October 21 from 10 a.m.-6 p.m. and meet cartoonists from Vermont, New England, New York and Montreal.

Green Mountain Pulp: Comics in Vermont. This exhibit in partnership with the Vermont Folklife Center, the Fleming Museum and University of Vermont Libraries is on display on the main floor of UVM’s Bailey/Howe Library October 2-March 5, 2018. “Green Mountain Pulp” highlights the work of symposium presenters Alison Bechdel, Joe Sacco and Art Spiegelman, and presents a wide range of materials on comics in and about Vermont, including original works by Bechdel, Stephen R. Bissette, James Kochalka and Rick Veitch.

All events are free and open to the public. For more details visit
www.vermontfolklifecenter.org/pulp-culture

The “Pulp Culture Comic Arts Festival and Symposium” is presented by the University of Vermont and the Vermont Folklife Center. UVM co-sponsors include The Fleming Museum, Carolyn and Leonard Miller Center for Holocaust Studies, Department of German and Russian, Jewish Studies Program, Dan and Carole Burack Distinguished Lecture Series, University of Vermont Humanities Center, Department of Art and Art History, Vermont Humanities Council, Larner College of Medicine, Vermont Arts Council, Center for Cartoon Studies, The Center for Research on Vermont, UVM Departments of Anthropology, English, Geography, History, Romance Languages & Linguistics, Global & Regional Studies, Gender, Sexuality, & Women’s Studies Program, and the Honors College. Jonah Steinberg (associate professor of anthropology) is the principal organizer and host of the event.

Source: UVM News

Source: UVM News

Sprawling mining operations in Brazil are destroying much more of the iconic Amazon forest than previously thought, says the first comprehensive study of mining deforestation in the world’s largest tropical rainforest.

The research, published in Nature Communications, finds that mining-related forest loss caused roughly 10 percent of all Amazon deforestation between 2005 and 2015, much higher than previous estimates.

Surprisingly, roughly 90 percent of deforestation related to mining occurred outside the mining leases granted by Brazil’s government, the University of Vermont-led study finds. Mining-induced deforestation was 12 times greater outside the mine lease areas than within them, extending as far 43.5 miles (70 km) beyond mine borders.

“These results show that mining now ranks as a substantial cause of Amazon forest loss,” says Laura Sonter of UVM’s Gund Institute for Environment. “Previous estimates assumed mining caused maybe one or two percent of deforestation. Hitting the 10 percent threshold is alarming and warrants action.”

Mining infrastructure is one key form of off-lease deforestation, researchers say. This includes worker housing and new transportation routes – roads, railways and airports. Built by mining companies or developers, these routes also enable other forms of deforestation, including agriculture, which remains the leading cause of Amazon forest loss. 

“Our findings show that Amazon deforestation associated with mining extends remarkable distances from the point of mineral extraction,” says Gillian Galford of UVM’s Gund Institute and Rubenstein School of Environment and Natural Resources.

The findings come as Brazil’s government considers legislation that would further ease environmental regulations and lift restrictions on mining in protected and indigenous areas. Currently, when companies apply for mining leases, they do not need to account for any damage their operations may cause offsite, researchers say.

For the study, researchers tracked landscape changes around the Amazon’s 50 largest active mines, analyzing 10 years of deforestation data from Brazil’s Space Agency (INPE).

“We hope these findings help government, industry and scientists to work together to address this issue,” says Sonter, who led the study as a UVM postdoctoral researcher, before joining the University of Queensland (Australia).

Rainforests provide many benefits, including helping to regulate the planet’s climate, housing rich plant and animal biodiversity, and soaking up carbon dioxide, researchers say. They note that global efforts have successfully helped to curb other causes of Amazon loss, such as agriculture and cattle.

Key minerals targeted by mining companies in the Amazon include iron ore for steelmaking and bauxite to produce aluminum.

The study was conducted by researchers in the U.S., Brazil and Australia. Co-authors include former UVM postdoctoral researcher Deigo Herrera (now Environmental Defense Fund), Gund affiliate Britaldo Soares-Filho (Universidade Federal de Minas Gerais), Damian Barrett (Commonwealth Scientific and Industrial Research Organisation) and Chris Moran (Curtin University).

Key findings:

• Mining caused 9.2 percent of total deforestation in the Brazilian Amazon between 2005 and 2015.
• Mining-related deforestation was 12 times greater outside mine lease boundaries than within them, and extended as far as 70 km away.
• Deforestation from mining (11,670 km²⁾ was significantly larger than previously assumed, twice the size of the state of Delaware.
• Brazil is currently considering proposals to ease current environmental restrictions further on mine development.

DOI: 10.1038/s41467-017-00557-w

Source: UVM News

Saving Our Waters, a three-part documentary on the health and resiliency of the Lake Champlain basin featuring interviews with many Vermont EPSCoR experts, including faculty, graduate students, post-doctoral associates and technicians from UVM, premiered online and on Vermont PBS Thursday, October 19 at 8 p.m.

View the first episode of Saving Our Waters now. Two more episodes will air October 26 and November 2.

The series, which also includes interviews with other scientists, community members, policy makers, farmers, business owners and stakeholders, creates a comprehensive look at the Lake Champlain watershed, which covers approximately 40% of Vermont. The results are three thought-provoking short documentaries designed to help tell the interesting story of how we have tried to keep our waterways clean; the impacts of human activity on the waterways especially relative to phosphorus and other contaminants; and efforts underway towards a more resilient future using a coupled human and natural systems approach.

Saving Our Waters aims to examine the state of the Lake Champlain Basin today in an age of extreme weather events and the importance of resiliency and what that means to community members and decision makers.

“Let’s solve blue green algae! Public media has a vital role to play in helping our community recover the rich natural resource, economic vitality and recreational lifestyle that is tied to the quality of Vermont water, especially in Lake Champlain,” said Holly Groschner, President and CEO of Vermont PBS. “Saving Our Waters brings Vermonters the science behind our water pollution issues and supports conversation around ways we can all help achieve cleaner waterways.”

“We in Vermont EPSCoR are focused on understanding the basin’s watershed and what makes some parts rebound from extreme events while others do not. This resiliency is critical to foster throughout the basin in order to safeguard the Lake. We are delighted to partner with Vermont PBS in this effort to highlight the Lake and watershed, and our goal is to engage citizens and other stakeholders in helping us to model and predict the effects on the lake of extreme events into the distant future,” said Judith Van Houten, Ph.D., Vermont State EPSCoR director and University of Vermont distinguished professor of biology.

With these goals in mind, the series is complemented by multiple town hall meetings in some of the communities most affected by watershed issues. Vermont PBS will also air a panel discussion on the Lake Champlain basin that was pre-recorded in Montreal, one of many sources of water flowing into Lake Champlain and the pollutants associated with it.

In addition, anyone who wishes to add their voice to the conversation may do so by visiting Resilient Waters, a website specifically designed by social science researchers Asim Zia, Ph.D. and Christopher Koliba, Ph.D., professors in the Community Development & Applied Economics Department of UVM, and science leaders for VT EPSCoR, for this important topic.

Koliba explained that, “As the series will underscore, we all have a shared stake in ensuring that our lakes and streams are resilient to the changes we can expect from changing weather patterns and land uses. To this end, we have designed a website for the public to participate in the ‘crowd sourcing’ of solutions to the challenges we face in the coming years and decades. The site also has links to the papers, videos and talks VT EPSCoR researchers are making as the research progresses.”

Episodes and broadcast time are:

• Where Do We Stand? – aired October 19
• Lake Champlain: A Jewel in Trouble – Thursday, October 26, 8 p.m.
• Our Actions Matter – Thursday, November 2, 8 p.m.

All three episodes will be available online concurrent with their air dates. 

Vermont PBS will also convene town hall style conversations around Saving Our Waters. The public is welcome to register to attend these free events. 

• Wednesday, November 1, 6:30 pm; ECHO, Burlington, VT
• Wednesday, November 8, 6:30 pm; Paramount Theater, Rutland, VT
• Wednesday, November 15, 6:30 pm; 14th Star Brewery, St. Albans, VT

Vermont EPSCoR, the Established Program to Stimulate Competitive Research, is funded by the National Science Foundation (NSF) for its $20M Research Infrastructure Improvement Award (RII) Track-1 Award, Lake Champlain Basin Resilience to Extreme Events.

Source: UVM News

Pulitzer Prizes, MacArthurs, Guggenheims, American Book Awards and numerous New York Times Best Sellers are just a sampling of the achievements collectively stacked up by the trio of artists/authors — Art Spiegelman, Joe Sacco and Alison Bechdel — who shared keynote honors at last week’s Pulp Culture Comic Arts Festival & Symposium. And, as if we need further confirmation of their cultural currency and cartoon cred, consider that Spiegelman and Bechdel have both appeared on “The Simpsons.”

Hosted by UVM, which co-organized the festival with the Vermont Folklife Center, the three-day event drew hundreds of comic artists and fans of the medium. There are many portals into the work of the three celebrated artists and, more broadly, contemporary comic arts. Literature, visual arts, history, sociology, political science, anthropology, journalism and social activism to name a few. Evidence of that was found in the students and faculty from across a broad array of disciplines filling the Music Building’s Recital Hall for Spiegelman’s appearance on the festival’s opening night event, sponsored by UVM’s Carolyn and Leonard Miller Center for Holocaust Studies.

Early birds were fortunate to get a seat. Those who shaved it close to 7 p.m. perched on the stairs or stood in back when Spiegelman, blue glow of an e-cigarette in hand, and moderator Dan Fogel, chair of the English Department, walked onto the stage and settled into a pair of arm chairs for a two-hour discussion of the author’s diverse career and the evolution of comic arts.

Fogel, who currently teaches a course on graphic novels, shepherded the talk with the help of his laptop and a projector queued up with images encompassing the scope of Spiegelman’s work. The arc of that career spanned from the childhood inspiration of “Mad Magazine” to his years of work for Topps bubble gum/baseball cards (“my Medicis,” Spiegelman quipped), from his covers for “The New Yorker” to his exploration of the Holocaust in the landmark “Maus,” which redefined the medium and received a Pulitzer Prize in 1992.

The next day, Spiegelman went from star on the stage to fan in the audience for fellow cartoonist Joe Sacco’s talk. Credited in his own-right as a pioneer of graphic journalism and war reportage, Sacco’s books, such as “Palestine” and “Footnotes in Gaza,” have further pushed the boundaries of cartooning.

Beyond the talks, comic arts took the spotlight many places on campus. A display in the Bailey/Howe Library showcased the work of the keynote speakers and also comic artists from Vermont and Quebec. On Friday evening, students in a service-learning-based Spanish course taught by Rachael Montesano delivered dramatic readings from “El Viaje Mas Caro,” cartooning stories created, through an initiative of the Vermont Folklife Center, by migrant dairy farm laborers.

Discussion panels throughout the day on Saturday led up to the closing keynote by local hero Alison Bechdel. Celebrated for her long-running strip “Dykes to Watch Out For” and her graphic memoir turned Broadway musical, “Fun Home,” Bechdel has been a UVM Marsh Professor-at-Large for the past several years. Professor Jackie Weinstock, an associate professor in Human Development & Family Studies who includes LGBTQ relationships and communities among her scholarly interests, moderated the discussion.

Bechdel was informal and insightful, funny and frank. Reflecting on the unlikely success of “Fun Home,” she said, “At age 40, it saved my ass. I got to keep being a cartoonist.” She traced a line back to Spiegelman. “The publication of ‘Maus’ turned everything upside down. You could tell painful, complex, adult stories and people would read them.”

For the event’s masterminds — Jonah Steinberg, associate professor of anthropology, and Andy Kolovos, director of archives and research at the Vermont Folklife Center — the event was the culmination of years of work that began with a “hey, what if?” moment between friends. On the Monday after, Steinberg enthused about the ways the event crossed disciplines in terms of support and participation. Particularly gratifying, seeing Spiegelman, Sacco and Bechdel connect, attending one another’s talks and having dinner together each evening. “Here were the three greatest cartoonists of our time talking. There was collaboration and intersection that was incredible and unexpected — tremendous synergy,” Steinberg said.   

Missed the festival? Don’t despair, there’s another chance to get an up-close look at cartooning’s cutting-edge next semester when the Fleming Museum presents “Self-Confessed! The Inappropriately Intimate Comics of Alison Bechdel.” 

Source: UVM News

Daniel A. Burack ’55, HON’08, member of the University of Vermont Foundation’s Leadership Council and chair of the UVM Hillel Board, and his wife Carole Burack HON’08 have made a gift of $2,500,000 towards a new home for UVM Hillel on campus. Their gift will be directed toward the design, planning and renovation of 439 College Street as a vibrant hub for Jewish life, and will support ongoing and inclusive programming at UVM Hillel.

Ardent supporters of UVM Hillel, the Buracks hope others will see their gift as a call-to-action. “Now is the time for us to combine our Jewish values of giving back and creating a bright future for Jewish students at UVM,” urged the couple. “We believe this gift will spur others to join us in generating an exciting fundraising campaign that advances UVM Hillel. Gifts can come in many forms, including pledges, gift annuities, and other estate gifts.”

In the five years since Dan has chaired its board, UVM Hillel has seen extraordinary growth with participation increasing from 330 students in 2013 to 1,655 in 2017, and a projected 2,000 students for the current academic year. UVM Hillel aspires for an inclusive environment and extends its activities beyond traditional programming. Students from all backgrounds and beliefs are invited to engage with the program and one another as a way to create community and form lasting connections.

The temporary location for UVM Hillel on Colchester Avenue is routinely over capacity for core programming such as Shabbat services and dinners, Passover and High Holidays.  The new facility at 439 College Street will provide accommodations for the more than 220 events facilitated by Hillel each year as well as house all of its professional staff. The second floor residential space will provide an inclusive living and learning community for more than 20 students with a separate lounge and kitchen access for residents.

“Dan and Carole’s cumulative philanthropy has made an impact on thousands of students. Their involvement with UVM Hillel provides students the means to make a difference in the world,” said Tom Sullivan, president of the University of Vermont. “This new gift will ensure a vibrant center of Jewish life at UVM for generations to come.” 

Constructed in 1923, 439 College Street was originally home to former UVM fraternity Phi Delta Theta. The Colonial Revival style structure incorporates local materials in its marble façade and Vermont slate roof. Immediately adjacent to the UVM president’s residence (Englesby House) and across from the main administration building, the structure’s location will provide for a distinct environment that blends student activity, academic life, and residential experiences.   

“The new facility will benefit campus by providing a physical center of support for students to connect with high-quality, inclusive Jewish life,” said Matt Vogel, executive director of UVM Hillel. “We envision a hub of activity where all students can come to grab coffee, study, attend class, plan and participate in the hundreds of programs Hillel facilitates each year. A typical week at the new Hillel center could see yoga, Challah for Hunger baking, student group meetings, mentorship from our professional staff, skill building, and accessible learning about Jewish life.” 

Along with their son, Adam ’85 and grand-daughter Abigail ’16, the Burack family’s prior philanthropy at UVM has supported a professorship in the College of Education and Social Services, an endowed scholarship, and the Burack President’s Distinguished Lecture Series and the Fleming Museum.

Dan is chairman of Burack Investments and one of the founding partners of ABS Partners Real Estate. In addition to his role as chair of UVM Hillel’s Board of Directors, he is a member of Hillel International’s Board of Governors. He was a founding member of the UVM Foundation’s Board of Directors. Carole served on the Fleming Museum Board of Advisors.

As a result of this gift, UVM Administration and UVM Hillel will complete an agreement that finalizes plans for the use and renovation of the facility. The UVM Foundation will support the Move Mountains campaign by continuing to focus on a donor-centric approach to fundraising.

“The Buracks have found a special way to blend their interest in supporting UVM’s student body and investing in UVM Hillel,” said Shane Jacobson, president and CEO of the UVM Foundation. “Dan and Carole have provided us with the opportunity to share their story of investment in Jewish life with the idea that we develop a broader and more impactful donor community supporting the uniqueness and diversity of our students.”

Source: UVM News

Just as one phase of the University of Vermont’s ambitious plan to remake its physical campus has reached an inflection point, with seven new or renovated buildings recently completed or under construction, UVM leadership shared its vision for a new generation of impressive facilities at last week’s Board of Trustees meeting.

Headlining the presentation were detailed new drawings of UVM’s long-anticipated multipurpose center, which the board had authorized the university to create at its February meeting.  

The board saw a variety of new renderings of the facility’s exterior and interior, including of an events center that will serve as the home for men’s and women’s basketball and host a variety of campus and public events, a transformational renovation of Gutterson Fieldhouse for men’s and women’s hockey and dramatic upgrades to the health, wellness and recreation facilities for the entire campus. The upgrades will result in a five-fold increase to the amount of dedicated space available for campus recreation.

According to Bob Vaughan, director of capital planning and management, the new schematic drawings the board saw represent about 20 percent of the project’s total design work. To move the project design through the next phase, the board authorized UVM to spend up to $1 million, all in private gifts, to finish the design development process and determine a final budget for the new facility.

Vaughan said he would give the board an update on the project at its February meeting and hopes to present the final plans and budget at the May meeting.  

Groundbreaking could happen as early as spring 2019, Vaughan said, provided fundraising goes as planned. UVM Foundation president Shane Jacobson said the project was generating significant interest among potential donors. He mentioned one in particular, David Daigle (’89), chair of the UVM Board who, with his wife Beth Daigle (’89), has pledged $1 million to the project. Their gift will be directed toward new facilities that will enhance student health and wellness on campus, as well as programs that encourage all UVM students to lead healthier lives.

The board also got its first glimpse of another future project, just in its formative stages, that would house the Department of Psychological Sciences and researchers from the Larner College of Medicine. The project will include a complete renovation of the Given Building, address over $40 million in deferred maintenance, and construct a new facility adjacent to it. Psychological Sciences is currently located in Dewey Hall, another building in significant need of refurbishing.

“The good news is we can solve this with one collaborative solution,” said Larner College of Medicine dean Rick Morin, who presented the project to the board with Bill Falls, dean of the College of Arts and Sciences.

Faculty researchers from psychology and medicine frequently collaborate. The co-location would lead to even more joint projects, Morin and Falls said. A more detailed plan for the project is under development and will be presented to the board at a later date, Morin said. 

In other news:

• The board authorized the university to enter into a five-plus year contract not to exceed $1.4 million with Educational Advisory Board – Student Success Collaborative for advising and retention software and services. Administrators expect that the software will make it much easier to record and widely share among faculty and staff information gathered in student advising sessions and red flag students who may need help. It will also enable the university to improve first-year retention and four-year graduation rates, a key element of President Tom Sullivan’s 2013 Strategic Action Plan.
• The board approved a variety of new degree programs: a minor in Law and Society in the College of Arts & Sciences, a minor in Emergency Medical Services in the College of Nursing & Health Sciences and an MS in Physical Activity and Wellness Science in the Graduate College.
• The board charged a Board Governance Work Group to evaluate potential changes in its composition that could enable the university to address challenges and better reach its goals. The group will seek input from all trustees and other relevant constituents and will submit a proposal to the full board at a later meeting.

For a summary of all action taken by the UVM Board of Trustees at the October meeting, see the consent agenda. 

Source: UVM News

As its contribution to BTV Ignite’s second annual Innovation Week, the University of Vermont held its second Innovation Slam on October 18 in the Black Box theatre at Main Street Landing.

About 50 participants and spectators were on hand to see five UVM speakers pitch their product and company ideas in a lightning round of talks. After the presentations, the speakers repaired to booths the theater’s lobby and took questions from audience members.

Richard Galbraith, vice president for research at the UVM whose office sponsored the event, was happy with the both the presentations and the turnout.

“The goal of the event is to showcase the innovation that comes out of the University of Vermont,” he said. “I think the event accomplished that very well. We also want to demonstrate the continuum of innovation that exists among students, faculty and community members. You need interaction among all those groups to take good ideas and commercialize them, employ people and contribute to society.”

Dennis Moyniham, the executive director of BTV Ignite, who was on hand for the event, was impressed with the presentations.

“I think this is great; it’s raising the visibility, you can see the eagerness of the people here, the creativity,” he said.

Presenters included Ryan McDevitt of Benchmark Space Systems, who earned his doctorate at UVM; former Sustainable Innovation MBA student Jana Gailunas of Noble Fresh; UVM sophomore Casey Husband of Lazarus Defense; Jeff Sprenger of Xemory, a former doctoral student at the univeristy; and third-year Larner College of Medicine student Al Marchese of the Catamount Innovation Fund.

Innovation Week, October 15-22, 2016, was designed to highlight the energy of greater Burlington’s entrepreneurial, technological and creative ecosystem. Sponsored by BTV Ignite and its partners, the weeklong series of events began on Saturday with the annual HACK-VT, a 24 hour hackathon, and ended with the eleventh annual Vermont Tech Jam, a two-day job far Jam, a two-day fair and tech expo. 

Source: UVM News

Although it appears fragile, spider silk can actually be tougher than steel. Ingi Agnarsson, spider expert and associate professor of biology, explains the potential webs hold, a good reason why these eight-legged creatures deserve to be revered, not feared. 

Read more about Agnarsson’s recent research. 

 

About Faculty Feature:

What makes our faculty members tick? In this video series, get up close and personal with our professors. Hear them talk about their passions, their paths to UVM and why they love what they study, from the mysteries of Lake Champlain’s sculpin to the stories of homeless children in Pakistan. 

Source: UVM News

The University of Vermont has received a $598,000 grant from the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency to investigate links between harmful algal blooms and human well-being and to explore how a community along Lake Champlain works to take action based on scientific information about those links. In lakes and ponds worldwide, cyanobacteria blooms, also known as “blue-green algae,” threaten water quality, ecosystem health and human well-being.

“Science has demonstrated multiple links between cyanobacteria blooms and human health and well-being,” said lead principal investigator Rachelle Gould of UVM’s Rubenstein School of Environment and Natural Resources. “This project explores links of emerging concern and then investigates how the community processes that information.”

The three-year project combines natural and social sciences to study both the blooms’ impacts and the community responses to data about those impacts. A team of interdisciplinary researchers will investigate how algal toxins may travel in fish tissue and as aerosols, and how the blooms affect nonmaterial aspects of well-being such as connection to place. The team will then analyze how communities process scientific information about these links to human well-being and how people feel empowered or disempowered to affect change.

“In many communities, awareness of these concerns has not readily transformed into policy and behavior change that could reduce bloom impacts,” said Gould, who specializes in research investigating relationships between ecosystems and human well-being, and in environmental learning. “There is, of course, a complex suite of reasons that information and concern don’t translate to action,” he said. “To help communities develop preventative or adaptive measures, one important step is to explore how people process complex information and determine how to make change. Our community partners on the project are critical to helping us understand that.”

Gould and collaborator Brendan Fisher, of the Rubenstein School and the Gund Institute for Environment, will engage communities in and around the city and town of St. Albans, Vermont, located along the northern shore of Lake Champlain. St. Albans Bay is a hotspot for cyanobacteria blooms.

Partnership with local nonprofit organizations is a crucial component of the project. Project partners include Franklin Grand Isle Community Action and Lake Champlain International.

“Recognizing that households with limited resources are often impacted disproportionally by adverse environmental conditions, this study will better equip our agency to anticipate the future needs of low income households in the affected areas and help them strategize about effective remedies,” said Robert Ostermeyer, director of the Franklin Grand Island Community Action program. This program of the Champlain Valley Office of Economic Opportunity helps to address issues of economic, social and racial justice for residents of northern Lake Champlain communities.

Low income households can be disproportionately impacted by the transfer of algal toxins to fish tissue used for human consumption. Jason Stockwell, director of the Rubenstein Ecosystem Science Laboratory on Burlington’s lakeshore and co- principal investigator on the grant, will lead efforts to understand the impacts of algal toxins in the tissues of fish.

“We have very little information about how many and how much cyanobacteria toxins can accumulate in fish,” said Stockwell. “We will be evaluating a long list of potential toxins, including neurotoxins, that are typically not assessed in fish tissues.”

“I congratulate Dr. Gould and Dr. Stockwell and their team for taking on such an important, but complicated, set of questions,” said Vermont U.S. Senator Patrick Leahy who strongly supported this grant award from the EPA. “I am proud that the EPA selected this project, based at the University of Vermont’s Rubenstein School, to help us learn more about how water pollution and algae blooms may affect our health and our communities.”

Other collaborators on the grant include Jana Kraft in the UVM Department of Animal and Veterinary Sciences; Elijah Stommel at the Geisel School of Medicine at Dartmouth; Todd Miller at the University of Wisconsin-Milwaukee Zilber School of Public Health; and James Ehlers of Lake Champlain International. Rubenstein School Ph.D. students Diana Hackenburg and Natalie Flores will conduct their dissertation research on aspects of the project.

The UVM grant was one of four grants funded, and part of more than $2 million awarded, by the EPA in October 2017 in the research area of Integrating Human Health and Well-Being with Ecosystem Services. The grant comes through the EPA’s Science to Achieve Results (STAR) program administered by the EPA Office of Research and Development’s National Center for Environmental Research. The research area supports collaborative, community-based research to improve people’s understanding of how ecosystems support human health and well-being and to better inform community decision-making and management practices.

Source: UVM News