IRIS News

  • Thesis Defense: Modeling Oyster Reef Resilience with Rebecca Stanley

    Thesis Defense: Modeling Oyster Reef Resilience with Rebecca Stanley

    Join us for a IRIS graduate student’s thesis defense! Rebecca Stanley, MS candidate in Civil & Environmental Engineering with Emphasis in Environmental Engineering in the College of Engineering, University of Georgia will defend her thesis: “Modeling Oyster Reef Resilience as a Form of Nature-Based Infrastructure in Response to Local Hydrodynamic Conditions” The application of nature-based infrastructure (NBI) has become…

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  • Rainwater Harvesting with Cisterns

    Rainwater Harvesting with Cisterns

    Whether it’s at the turn of a faucet or a bucket from the well, every person in the world relies on having clean water. In Ceará, Brazil, where water scarcity is an issue, communities rely on collected rainfall in cisterns to ensure that they have access to water through the year. Cydney Seigerman, a PhD…

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  • Join us for Holly Yaryan Hall’s Dissertation Defense!

    Join us on November 1 at 2:30 for Holly Yaryan Hall’s dissertation defense.  The topic of her dissertation is “Innovative Approaches to Urban Riverscape Planning and Design.”  Email Gin Bacon Talati at vbtalati@uga.edu for access to the Zoom information! INNOVATIVE APPROACHES TO URBAN RIVERSCAPE PLANNING AND DESIGN by HOLLY RUTH YARYAN HALL (Under the Direction of…

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  • IRIS Affiliate Jenna Jambeck awarded MacArthur Grant

    IRIS Affiliate Jenna Jambeck awarded MacArthur Grant

    Congratulations to Dr. Jenna Jambeck, a Georgia Athletic Association Distinguished Professor of Environmental Engineering, for her being named a 2022 MacArthur Fellow! Jambeck was given this honor for her work investigating the scale of plastic pollution and galvanizing efforts to address plastic waste. Read the full story here.

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  • Sizing up marshes for flood prevention

    Sizing up marshes for flood prevention

    Just how big do coastal marshes need to be to do their job as protectors of the coastline? IRIS researchers from the University of Georgia, Viyaktha Hithaishi Hewageegana, Matt Bilskie, Brock Woodson, and Brian Bledsoe investigated the matter by running simulations that tested how changes in marsh geometry impacted the storm surge and amount of…

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  • Special Section on LTER and Climate Change 

    Special Section on LTER and Climate Change 

    Story by Sean Turner Forest and freshwater ecosystems are not just important for their natural beauty. They also provide our communities with drinking water, power, transportation, and provide habitat for other species. And because of their importance as infrastructure, it is imperative that we know how climate change has affected these biomes and how we…

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  • Engineering coastal structures to centrally embrace biodiversity

    Engineering coastal structures to centrally embrace biodiversity

    Story by Sean Turner Image from Pexels.com Protecting ecosystems or protecting our communities is not an “either-or” scenario. Both are possible using natural infrastructure in place of and alongside gray infrastructure. Natural infrastructure is capable of protecting our coastal communities from floods as well as increasing biodiversity on our shorelines. Network for Engineering With Nature member,…

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  • IRIS in the News: Leaky infrastructure driving antibiotic resistant pathogens in local waters

    How are antibiotic resistant microbes and septic tanks related? IRIS affiliate Krista Capps and her collaborators were recently featured by the UGA College of Public Health for their research on the link between microbial resistance and leaky septic tanks: their research pointed to the fact that old infrastructure could be a primary driver of antibiotic…

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  • IRIS Affiliate Clark Alexander voted 2022-23 president-elect of the Southern Association of Marine Laboratories

    IRIS Affiliate Clark Alexander voted 2022-23 president-elect of the Southern Association of Marine Laboratories

    Congratulations to IRIS affiliate Dr. Clark Alexander, the director of the Skidaway Institute of Oceanography, for being voted president-elect of the Souther Association of Marine Laboratories. He’ll serve his term during 2023-2024. Read the full story here!

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  • IRIS member Marshall Shepherd explains how extreme weather, justice and water supply factor into the Jackson Water Crisis

    IRIS member Marshall Shepherd explains how extreme weather, justice and water supply factor into the  Jackson Water Crisis

    “The entanglement of environmental justice, disparities in infrastructure investments, and the ongoing era of amplified extreme weather defines the current crisis,” wrote IRIS Associate Director of Climate and Science Outreach, Dr. Marshall Shepherd in a recent piece published in the Jackson Water Crisis. Read the full story here.

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  • Amy Rosemond gives plenary at the International Society of Limnology Centennial

    Amy Rosemond gives plenary at the International Society of Limnology Centennial

    Humility. It isn’t a word you often hear in connection with the fields of science or engineering, but IRIS researchers believe that it is of the utmost importance. In a recent plenary, IRIS Director of Inclusion and Equity, Dr. Amy Rosemond, touched on this theme at the International Society of Limnology (SIL) conference, held in…

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  • A Conversation with the Environmental Protection Agency’s Daniel Blackman

    Join the Georgia Initiative for Climate and Society (Fall 2022 Seminar Series) on Tuesday, September 6th, 2022 at 4:00pm in the Miller Learning Center, Room 102 at the University of Georgia for a talk given by Dr. Daniel Blackman, the EPA Region 4 Administrator. President Biden appointed Daniel Blackman to serve in this role on…

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