Senator George J. Mitchell Center for Sustainability Solutions

July 29, 2013 Orono, ME – Maine and New Hampshire’s coastal tourism and shellfish industries contribute millions of dollars annually to the regional economy. In Maine in 2010, coastal tourism and recreation added $1.1 billion to Maine’s gross domestic product, while shellfish landings in that same year generated revenues of $347 million. But these industries […]

Researchers from SSI’s Protecting Natural Resources at the Community Scale (Vernal Pool) team have been awarded  a grant from the NSF Dynamics of Coupled Natural and Human Systems (CNH) program for their project, “Of Pools and People: Small Natural Features with Large Ecosystem Functions in Urbanizing Landscapes. ”  This 4-year project was funded for $1.49M and […]

SSI Doctoral Student Kristine Hoffman was featured recently in a news broadcast on Bangor TV stations Fox 22 and ABC 7.  The story highlights Kristine’s research focusing on the conservation and habitat of the blue spotted salamander (Ambystoma laterale). Kristine is looking at the breeding ecology, habitat selection and life histories of  blue-spotted salamanders, including […]

UMaine President Paul Ferguson and SSI Director David Hart contributed an op-ed that appeared in the July 5th edition of Bangor Daily News. The piece, titled “How UMaine is Driving Sustainability, Research”, discussed the role of initiatives like SSI in facilitating economic growth in the state and in preparing students to take leadership roles in […]

SSI researchers Shaleen Jain and Esperanza Stancioff joined City of Ellsworth planner Michelle Gagnon, and city manager Michelle Beal for a guest panel on WERU Community Radio’s  “Talk of the Towns”.  The topic of discussion for the show was the role of sustainability science in helping coastal regions increasingly intense and frequent storms.  A podcast […]

University of New England associate professor James Sulikowski, a researcher on the SSI project “Sustaining Quality of Place in the Saco River Estuary through Community Based Ecosystem Management“, netted a 7 foot long, 250lb Atlantic sturgeon as part of his SSI research on the Saco river. See full Bangor Daily News article…

May 28th, 2013 Researchers at the Mitchell Center’s Sustainability Solutions Initiative are closely watching the movement of an invasive beetle known as the emerald ash borer (EAB). The beetle has recently been discovered in New Hampshire’s ash trees and now poses a serious threat to Maine. According to the USDA Forest Service, EAB was introduced […]

May 28th, 2013 Two University of Maine sophomores have been named winners of the George J. Mitchell Peace Scholarship and will study abroad in Ireland as part of the student exchange program. George J. Mitchell Scholars Gwendolyn Beacham and Lorna Harriman will each spend a semester at the University College Cork in Ireland. The scholarship […]

May 28th, 2013 Michael Dandy, a junior in UMaine’s Civil & Environmental Engineering Dept.,was the recipient of a Center for Undergraduate Research Fellowship at UMaine for his SSI research project titled, “Extreme Rainfall in a Changing Climate: Developing New Methodologies to Inform Infrastructure Design,”. Michael’s faculty adviser on the project is Shaleen Jain who co-leads […]

May 28th, 2013 Shaleen Jain, SSI researcher and a PI on various WRRI projects, has been appointed as an Editor of the Journal of Water and Climate Change. The journal publishes refereed research and practitioner papers on all aspects of water science, technology, management and innovation in response to climate change, with emphasis on reduction […]