2020-21 News Stories

Welcome Leandro Castello, Chloé Lahondère, Kevin McGuire, and Ignacio Moore who will serve through 2023!

Meet the newest members of the Interfaces of Global Change Curriculum Committee (IG3C), GCC faculty members Jennifer Russell and Holly Kindsvater, and IGC Fellows Amanda Hensley and Tyler Weiglein.

In a year complicated by the global pandemic, three recipients of Global Change Center Undergraduate Research Grants succeeded in conducting impactful research and presented their work at a campus conference attended by hundreds of Virginia Tech students and faculty.

Please join us in congratulating Charles Sterling and Amanda Darling, and in welcoming Amanda to the Interfaces of Global Change (IGC) Interdisciplinary Graduate Education Program this fall 2021!

Congratulations to two GCC affiliated faculty members who have earned tenure and promotion in June 2021 as a result of their outstanding achievements in teaching, research, and service.

Please join us in welcoming the newest Global Change Center faculty affiliates!

What started out as a reading and discussion group in the fall of 2020 has evolved into a formal working committee focused on Diversity, Equity and Inclusion (DEI) initiatives for the Interfaces of Global Change (IGC) Graduate Student Organization (GSO).

The Interfaces of Global Change (IGC) Graduate Student Organization has launched a new Fellow-to-Fellow Mentoring Program! Highlighted at the IGC Graduate Student Symposium on April 23, 2021, this Fellow-initiated peer mentoring program seeks to foster a support system composed of incoming, current, and alumni IGC Fellows.

The Sixth Annual Interfaces of Global Change (IGC) Graduate Research Symposium was held virtually over Zoom on April 23, 2021. Although the forum was a little different this year, this annual meeting provides a space to showcase and celebrate the important and impressive work of the IGC Fellows.

Congratulations to our first Global Change Center Diversity Fellows, Idowu Okeshola and Gabriel Borba! The aims of this fellowship are to engage students in difficult discussions of complex socio-environmental problems, learn from their diverse perspectives and life experiences, and equip them with the skills needed to drive change in communities of the U.S. and abroad.

In ongoing efforts to foster a diverse, equitable, and inclusive community, the Global Change Center is proud to announce a new partnership with the Multicultural Academic Opportunities Program (MAOP). The new partnership provides financial scholarships to undergraduate students with unmet financial need so that they can participate in undergraduate research with GCC faculty affiliates.

IGC fellow Lauren Maynard, PhD candidate in Susan Whitehead’s lab, has received a NSF Non-Academic Research Internships for Graduate Students (INTERN) award to support an internship with the Smithsonian Environmental Research Center.

IGC Fellows, VT Stream Team, and New River Land Trust create educational outreach Stream Box. The stream box, a beautifully hand-painted mailbox located near the Nature Play Space at Blacksburg’s Heritage Park, is filled with activities and ID guides for people of all ages to learn about Tom’s Creek.

Bird-friendly coffee is certified organic, but its impact on the environment goes further than that: it is cultivated specifically to maintain bird habitats instead of clearing vegetation that birds and other animals rely on.

Dexter Howard, a former undergraduate researcher (B.S. ’20 in Water: Resources, Policy, and Management) and now PhD student with GCC affiliate Dr. Cayelan Carey, has first-authored a publication of his undergraduate thesis research.

IGC fellow Alaina Weinheimer has been selected as the American Society for Microbiology (ASM) Young Ambassador to Virginia. Because Virginia Tech (VT) doesn’t have a formal microbiology department, Alaina was motivated to apply for this role to support her effort in creating opportunities to bring together grad students and researchers in the field.

The research grant funds awarded for 2021 support 6 projects led by 7 outstanding undergraduate students spanning 5 undergraduate majors.

The GCC welcomes four new faculty affiliates in January 2021!

The Interfaces of Global Change IGEP welcomes 12 new Ph.D. fellows in Spring 2021. The incoming cohort holds the most diverse disciplinary representation to date for an IGC admissions cycle, representing 10 different departments and 5 colleges across the VT campus!

Faculty and students at VT are invited to join a new professional networking and research seminar series centered on human-water systems. Meetings will be held the third Friday of each month from 1-2 pm EST, with the first meeting occurring on Friday, January 15th, 2021.

With the help of newly discovered skulls and skeletons that were unearthed in North America, Brazil, Argentina, and Madagascar in recent years, Virginia Tech researchers Sterling Nesbitt and Michelle Stocker from the Department of Geosciences in the College of Science have demonstrated that a group of “dinosaur precursors,” called lagerpetids, are the closest relatives of pterosaurs.

William Hopkins, Global Change Center director and professor of wildlife in the College of Natural Resources and Environment, has been selected to receive a 2021 Outstanding Faculty Award from the State Council of Higher Education for Virginia (SCHEV) and Dominion Energy.

Because of land use and climate change, lakes and reservoirs globally are seeing large decreases in oxygen concentrations in their bottom waters. It is well-documented that low oxygen levels have detrimental effects on fish and water quality, but little is known about how these conditions will affect the concentration of carbon dioxide and methane in freshwaters.

Hokies graduating this fall will celebrate with the ideal person to provide guidance on safe post-ceremony hugs. Linsey Marr, the Charles P. Lunsford Professor of Civil and Environmental Engineering and a Global Change Center affiliate, has been selected as the speaker for Virginia Tech’s fall commencement exercises.

Looking to predict beetle abundance and springtime greenness, among other things, the NEON Ecological Forecasting Challenge is looking to mobilize researchers and forecast answers to a complex set of ecological questions.

With support from the Fralin Life Sciences Institute and the Virginia Tech Graduate School, the Global Change Center (GCC) is pleased to announce two new graduate fellowship opportunities intended to help diversify and strengthen our IGC IGEP community.

At the edge of a retreating glacier, bedrock terrain that has been hidden under layers of ice is seeing light for the first time in several hundred years. On mountain peaks, trees experiencing warmer weather are gradually moving higher than established tree lines. Along Virginia’s coast, sea levels are rising by as much as 1 inch every four years.

We resumed our IGC CoffeeConvo session over Zoom this Fall 2020 semester on November 16 with GCC faculty Dr. Susan Whitehead meeting with IGC fellows Isaac VanDiest, Korin Jones and Gaelle Blanvillain. This was a great opportunity to not only chat about science, but also to interact in an informal way with each other, something that is becoming increasingly rare during this Covid-19 era.

Each year, the Global Change Center (GCC) solicits proposals from GCC faculty to support interdisciplinary research that will lead to collaborative proposals submitted to extramural funding sources.

IGC fellows Amanda Pennino (Forest Resources and Environmental Conservation), Melissa Burt (Biological Sciences), and Amber Wendler (Biological Sciences) recently met virtually with GCC faculty member Dr. Brian Romans (Geosciences).

Viruses are tiny invaders that cause a wide range of diseases, from rabies to tomato spotted wilt virus and, most recently, COVID-19 in humans. But viruses can do more than elicit sickness — and not all viruses are tiny.

The 5th annual Nutshell Games took place over a new virtual format this past Saturday, November 7th. Bravo! to all graduate student presenters! Five prizes were awarded this year, four of which recognized IGC fellows: Amber Wendler, Abby Lewis, Bennett Grooms, and Sara Teemer Richards. Congratulations and way to impress, IGC!!

Dr. Cayelan Carey is teaching a graduate-level course on “Science of Team Science” during the spring 2021 semester. Drs. Rachel Reid and Ben Gill are offering a joint graduate/undergraduate course Stable Isotope Biogeochemistry in spring 2021.

Scientists don’t yet know what caused the Triassic mass-extinction event — one of the largest extinction events in the history of our planet — 200 million years ago.

To kick off the school year with the IGC’s first social event, many of us fellows wanted to gather offline in a safe way, so we organized a hike followed by a visit to Moon Hollow Brewing Company for this past Saturday, 10/17.

Scientists have long known that clear water lakes are in danger from land development, pollutants, run-off from storms, and climate change because of increased nutrient pollutants that lead to algae blooms.

Welcome to our newest GCC Affiliates!

Department of Population Health Sciences faculty member and Global Change Center affiliate Ryan Calder released today a policy report evaluating economic and environmental costs and benefits of diverse scenarios for renewable energy transitions for the New York City Area.

Monday, October 12, 2020 marked the first time the Commonwealth of Virginia celebrated Indigenous Peoples’ Day! It was also the first meeting of the IGC Diversity, Equality and Inclusion (DEI) reading group...

For centuries, scientists have worked above ground, studying plants and their effect on biodiversity. Lying below the scientists’ feet, though, is a world with even richer biodiversity — the soil.

Throughout much of her career, Linsey Marr found that her multi-disciplinary approach to science was more of a challenge than an asset.

Friends and affiliates of the GCC are invited to join a new Restoration Ecology Working Group forming this semester. The group will meet virtually every other week...

Friends and affiliates of the GCC are invited to join a new Restoration Ecology Working Group forming this semester. T

Hi everyone! I hope this e-postcard finds you healthy and energized for the upcoming semester! My name is Amanda, I’m heading into the third year of my Ph.D. program in the Department of Forest Resources and Environmental Conservation.

After completing the end of my junior year virtually, I was both eager and hesitant to begin a virtual internship with the Environmental Protection Agency.

Several Global Change Center faculty members have recently completed terms on the GCC Advisory Committee.

The Interfaces of Global Change Curriculum Committee (IG3C) is the primary entity responsible for visioning, oversight, and implementation of the IGC IGEP curriculum.

As more and more meetings become virtual, we are all keenly aware of “Zoom fatigue”. And yet, as I was gearing up for my final Zoom meeting of the week, this phenomenon didn’t cross my mind.

Another successful IGC CoffeeConvo took place via Zoom last week on August 11th with Dr. Francesco Ferretti, associate professor of Fish and Wildlife Conservation in VT’s College of Natural Resources and Environment.