Senator George J. Mitchell Center for Sustainability Solutions

Darren Ranco will discuss climate change impacts and adaptation priorities among Wabanaki First Nations in Maine on Thursday, May 16, at 4:10 p.m. at College of the Atlantic. The lecture, part of the Seminar in Climate Change 2019 Speaker Series, will be held in McCormick Lecture Hall. “Indigenous people will be impacted by climatic change […]

Highlighted Talk from the 2019 Maine Sustainability & Water Conference Community Food Councils as Vessels for Coordinated Food System Change Session: Sustainable Practices and Decision-Making Across Diverse Food Systems in Maine The development of sustainable food systems in a changing climate and evolving globalized society is an ever more critical challenge. Food systems of production, […]

Highlighted Talk from the 2019 Maine Sustainability & Water Conference Co-learning Sustainability Science & Policy: An interdisciplinary approach to food waste reduction Session: Developing Effective Sustainability Curricula In light of a myriad of environmental challenges, the need for high quality undergraduate curricula on topics of sustainability has never been more urgent. This session showcased new […]

Microplastics Stink! A Comparison of Microplastics Counts in Seal Scat Compared to Gull Scat High School Soleil Skehan, John Bapst Memorial High School Honorable Mention Pollution in air and waterways has been contaminating our environment for decades, threatening the stability of ecosystems across the globe. An increasingly growing concern, however, has risen surrounding microplastics, specifically […]

Using Industry for Change: Cellulose-based Food Packaging Products Undergraduate Shayla Rose Kleisinger, University of Maine First Place (tie) Through an Interdisciplinary Undergraduate Research Collaborative (IURC) grant from the University of Maine and with Diana Davis Spencer Foundation funding through the Mitchell Center’s Partnership for a Sustainable Maine project, Shayla Rose Kleisinger is investigating how alternative food-packaging […]

Quantifying Tidally Driven Transport in the Jordan River Estuary Undergraduate Gwyneth Roberts, University of Maine Honorable Mention Pollution events in tidal estuaries can wreak havoc on aquaculture operations, leading to closures of areas for weeks at a time and a significant loss of revenue. These pollution events are inherently linked to the dynamics of the […]

Brieanne Berry, Ph.D. candidate in the Department of Anthropology and member of the Mitchell Center’s Materials Management research team, has been awarded the 2019 Edith Patch Award for a doctoral student. The Edith Patch Award is given by the Friends of Dr. Edith Marion Patch each year to graduate and undergraduate women in acknowledgement of […]

The Mitchell Center’s Future of Dams team will have a very strong presence at this year’s American Association of Geographers (AAG) meeting April 3-7, 2019 in Washington, D.C. For the three Future of Dams sessions, presenters and authors from the team include Bridie McGreavy (chair for session 2), David Hart, Sam Roy, Emma Fox, Sharon Klein, Tyler Quiring, Sarah Vogel, […]

The Interdisciplinary Undergraduate Research Collaborative (IURC) grant program recently announced four award winners for 2019 projects, all led by Mitchell Center members. Funded projects involve teams of two or more faculty members from different disciplines with primarily undergraduate researchers working in areas of interest. The IURC is funded by UMaine’s Office of the Vice President for […]

Master’s student Gabrielle “Gabby” Hillyer, a dual-degree oceanography and marine policy major, has spent the last three years conducting research on the Medomak River in Waldoboro, Maine taking measure of the tides using small “bucket drifters” packed with scientific instruments. The research is aimed at better understanding the dynamics of the estuary’s ability to flush […]