2021-22 News Stories

Please join us in congratulating Carla López Lloreda and Rahul Garg, and in welcoming them to the Interfaces of Global Change (IGC) Interdisciplinary Graduate Education Program this fall 2022!

Welcome new faculty affiliates joining the Global Change Center in 2022

Please join us in congratulating Amina Tithi and Dr. Shariful Islam, and in welcoming them to the Interfaces of Global Change (IGC) Interdisciplinary Graduate Education Program this fall 2022!

The Amazon Rainforest, the world’s largest rainforest, provides ecosystem services, stores carbon stocks, and supports biodiversity. In addition, a fifth of the world’s freshwater is located in this region.

Several Global Change Center faculty members will complete terms on the GCC Advisory Committee this summer. Each member has shown great leadership and resilience during the past two years of unprecedented global adversities through their research, teaching, and guidance of the GCC.

The Interfaces of Global Change Graduate Student Organization exists to benefit the IGC community as a whole through student contributions to infrastructural, educational, and social investments and activities.

Recipients of Global Change Center Undergraduate Research Grants recently presented their work at the annual Dennis Dean Undergraduate Research and Creative Scholarship Conference held on April 29, 2022.

Achieving effective science communication is a challenge for most scientists. Yet, communication science is part of a scientist’s everyday life; thus, to be successful, scientists need to learn how to communicate effectively, from a peer-reviewed article to an elevator pitch.

The Hollins Partnership program, initiated in 2017, provides summer research experiences with Global Change Center faculty at Virginia Tech for select Hollins undergraduate students.

Welcome new faculty affiliates joining the Global Change Center in 2022

The symposium highlighted the latest research from the program’s graduate student fellows, whose collective work addresses critical global changes impacting the environment and society.

The Global Change Center Science Policy Fellowship program resumes this year to award three undergraduate students a fully-funded opportunity to participate in the Washington Semester Program during summer semester 2022!

The Flip the Fair event, organized & facilitated by VT graduate students, and sponsored by the Center for Communicating Science, GCC, Communicating Science Club, and the Roanoke City Public Libraries, will be held on February 5th in Roanoke, VA.

The incoming cohort reflects the disciplinary diversity of the Global Change Center, representing seven different departments and six colleges across the VT campus!

It was quite the blustery morning for three IGC fellows, Jennifer Brousseau, Tyler Weiglein, and Isaac VanDiest, to grab a coffee with GCC Affiliate and Assistant Professor of Environmental Health and Policy Dr. Ryan Calder.

The IGC DEI committee has recently received funding from the GCC to open a new DEI library in the GCC Steger Hall Office

Dr. Lahondère enlisted the efforts of two previous recipients of the GCC Undergraduate Research Grant– Lauren Fryzlewicz and Ashlynn VanWinkle. Fryzlewicz to study the invasive mosquito species.

Jeff Walters joined the Virginia Tech community in 1994 as the Harold H. Bailey Professor in the Department of Biological Sciences.

After 16 years of service and leadership at Virginia Tech, Matt Hulver is leaving next week for a tremendous opportunity to serve as the Vice President of Research at Arizona State University.

This year the Global Change Center continued to support the research efforts of our undergraduate students through our Undergraduate Research Grant program.

During his visit, seven Interfaces of Global Change Fellows had the opportunity to meet with Hoffman and discuss climate change in the Old Guard Room at Preston’s Restaurant.

Julie Shortridge is an assistant professor and extension specialist in the Department of Biological Systems Engineering at Virginia Tech.

Graduate students from across the Virginia Tech community recently gathered for the opportunity to improve their science communication and poster-making skills.

The Virginia Tech Science Festival has returned to campus this year with free hands-on learning interactive booths and activities that showcase dozens of science education and research programs throughout the university. Once again, IGC Fellows volunteered to teach local students important lessons in global change science.

Aylward’s current research broadly focuses on microbial diversity and genome evolution in multiple different microbial groups, including giant viruses, bacteriophages, and several lineages of bacteria and archaea.

On an unseasonably warm mid-October day, three IGC fellows met with GCC faculty Dr. Wendy Parker to discuss climate change, values, and the roles of philosophy and science in a changing world.

The Center for Communication Science will be celebrating its 5th anniversary with the annual Communicating Science Week! Taking place between 3/16 -3/22 , the week will showcase the efforts of faculty and graduate students from across multiple disciplines.

The wicked socio-environmental challenges of our time such as climate change, water pollution and scarcity, and emerging infectious diseases disproportionately affect marginalized communities around the globe.

Michelle Stocker is an Assistant Professor in vertebrate paleobiology in the Department of Geosciences at Virginia Tech. Joining the Global Change Center in April of 2016, Stocker has become an integral part of the community.

Members of the GCC Microbiome Working Group combined their research experience to develop a graduate course in the Spring of 2019 titled “Introduction to Microbial Community Analysis”.

Amber is a third year Ph.D. student in the Department of Biological Sciences at Virginia Tech co-advised by GCC Affiliates Professor Ignacio Moore and Professor Jeffrey Walters. She is also an NSF Graduate Research Fellow.

Last Monday, leaders of the university and the Fralin Life Sciences Institute (FLSI) gathered at Steger Hall to welcome Virginia Speaker of the House Eileen Filler-Corn to Virginia Tech.

Last week, a group of IGC Fellows enjoyed a bit of sun and coffee with GCC Director Dr. Bill Hopkins for the first Fall 2021 IGCoffee Convo!

While many members of the Virginia Tech community stayed in to recover from the first week of classes, a small group of the Global Change Center’s Interfaces in Global Change (IGC) Fellows were working hard to clean the New River on Saturday, August 28th.

Each year, the Global Change Center (GCC), along with the Institute for Society, Creativity and the Environment (ISCE) at Virginia Tech, accept proposals from GCC faculty to support interdisciplinary research that will lead to collaborative proposals submitted to extramural funding sources.

As we welcome in the newest officers of the IGC GSO, we also want to take a moment to thank all the officers who are finishing up their term.

GCC Affiliate and Professor in the Department of Philosophy (COLAHS) Wendy Parker was one of the IPCC scholars who volunteered their time to assess the published research that informs the comprehensive report.

We’d like to welcome Lara Hopkins as she joins the Global Change Center administrative team this month!

The Fralin Life Sciences Institute is co-locating researchers from across three colleges at Virginia Tech to Steger Hall to foster interdisciplinary collaborations to tackle threats to the environment and society.

Courses include Policy Gateway; Microbial Analysis; & Systems Thinking