Senator George J. Mitchell Center for Sustainability Solutions

Mitchell Center researchers Aaron Weiskittel, Cindy Isenhour, Sharon Klein, Laura Rickard, and Balu Nayak are among twenty-one University of Maine faculty who recently received tenure and/or promotion. Weiskittel, of the College of Natural Sciences, Forestry, and Agriculture, was promoted to professor. Isenhour and Rickard, of the College of Liberal Arts and Sciences, and Klein and […]

Orono, Maine — From sessions on religious and ethical respect for water resources, rivers and fish passage, to building resilience to sea level rise and citizen science, the 2018 Maine Sustainability & Water Conference March 29 at the Augusta Civic Center will feature an expanded agenda on urgent topics affecting Maine, New England, the country […]

2018 Maine Sustainability and Water Conference Session Overview: Religious and Ethical Respect for Water Resources The panel will discuss religious and ethical respect for water resources that are rooted in tradition and reinforced by storytelling. Indigenous people such as the Penobscot and Passamaquoddy have strong historical, ethical and spiritual connections to water resources. Other traditions […]

2018 Maine Sustainability and Water Conference: Session Overview: Stakeholders and Sustainability As part of the Stakeholders and Sustainability session, Linda Silka, Senior Fellow at the Senator George J. Mitchell Center for Sustainable Solutions, UMaine, will wrap up the morning session on citizen science with her talk, “What We Can Learn from the Multiple Citizen Science […]

2018 Maine Sustainability and Water Conference: Session Overview: Protecting Waters in Forest Operations One of the major impacts from any forest operation is related to sedimentation of water bodies. Even though the risk of sedimentation is comparatively less than other land uses, forest operations can have detrimental effects if not properly executed. Over the years, […]

Mitchell Center director David Hart will join a group of 20 global leaders for the National Socio-Environmental Synthesis Center (SESYNC) workshop “Interdisciplinary Research Matters: Pathways to Successful Organizational Models” from March 5-8, 2018 in Annapolis, Maryland. The leaders will discuss strategies used to foster interdisciplinary research, especially in the context of sustainability challenges. SESYNC identified […]

John Hagan will be the 2018 Sustainability and Water Conference Keynote Speaker Why does society make such painfully slow progress on issues that have such huge consequences, like climate change? The science is overwhelming. But until most of society participates, problems this big won’t be solved. Conservatives, liberals, North, South, urban, rural, religious, areligious, etc., will all […]

Sarah Vogel investigates the human dimensions of dam relicensing Master’s student Sarah Vogel graduated from Tennessee Technological University with  dual degrees in Environmental Biology and Wildlife and Fishery Sciences, which gave her some of the skills needed for her work on the Mitchell Center’s Future of Dams (FoD) project. But it was her two years […]

Deborah Saber works to bring sustainable practices to hospital waste disposal In 2016, registered nurse Deborah Saber came to the University of Maine from Miami, Florida where she worked on problems related to the disposal of solid waste materials from infectious hospitalized patients. Now a UMaine assistant professor of nursing, Saber found her way to […]

Undergraduate Michaela Murray found her academic path on the road to sustainability UMaine ecology and environmental science major Michaela Murray had always been interested in doing student research but it wasn’t until the end of her sophomore year that she acted on that desire. Hoping to begin a research project that summer, Murray—who is an […]