Senator George J. Mitchell Center for Sustainability Solutions

The summer 2015 edition of UMaine Today features the accomplishments of several of our researchers and collaborators. Jennifer Neptune, a collaborator on the Mobilizing to Fight the Emerald Ash Borer project, is featured for her work recreating historical replicas for her Penobscot community. See Sources of Inspiration… Researcher Jessica Leahy, with student Sabrina Vivian, has […]

A new Mitchell Center project will take a unique look at the health of Maine’s lakes. A collaborative team will introduce a two-pronged approach, looking at both water quality and levels of stakeholder engagement. It’s all part of the effort to develop a new lake vulnerability index for the state. The project is a pilot […]

Four diverse projects covering pressing sustainability issues in Maine have each been awarded research funding by the Senator George J. Mitchell Center for Sustainability Solutions. The awards fund innovative projects that further the Mitchell Center’s vision to connect knowledge with action to create a brighter environmental, social, and economic future in and beyond Maine. Funded […]

A group of UMaine Honors College students have undertaken an intensive summer session in an area of study coming alive with new focus: food and food-related topics. “Maine is the heaviest state in the Northeast. If you look at the way the topic is framed in the news, it’s an individual problem. Blame is placed […]

In a concept that touches the very mission of sustainability, Sarah Ebel and her colleagues went directly to Maine lobstermen to ask questions. They were not merely asking these stakeholders for information about what they do. They were asking lobsterman how they think about their role in collaborative research – if they think they have […]

If sustainability science is about reaching beyond the borders of academia into communities, then it follows that a class focused on the growing discipline might land a student in a group of fishermen concerned about their livelihoods. Students at UMaine and University of New Hampshire taking the newly offered Sustainability Science and Stakeholder Engagement course […]

Researchers studying team building in collaborative sustainability projects have teased out factors that affect these enterprises and their outcomes, things like personality and worldview and how they shape the way people work together. But few studies have looked closely at communication. For Bridie McGreavy, communication is at the heart of successful collaborations. In her work, […]

As scientists comb the globe for renewable energy ideas, biomass – the use of plant material and animal waste as fuel – has come to the fore as a potential solution. Could this new market have a future in Maine’s northernmost county? Researchers at the University of Maine at Presque Isle (UMPI), University of Maine […]

Each year the Maine Water Resources Research Institute (WRRI) funds projects that further knowledge of the State’s water resources. Three projects are being funded in 2015 that range in focus from the water flow puzzle of vernal pools to the deconstruction of an algae outbreak to a novel fix to a difficult drinking water problem. […]

John Kramer says he feels kinship with those at UMaine’s Senator George J. Mitchell Center for Sustainability Solutions who work to link knowledge with action, homing in on real world, place-based problems. His work has similar characteristics, but on a broader scale. Kramer is Director of Interdisciplinary Science at the National Socio-Environmental Synthesis Center (SESYNC). […]