In the News

  • People protesting with big sign that says Stop the Destruction

    U.S. Forest Service Should Let Forests Grow

    Letting forests grow would support the full range of native biodiversity while removing carbon from the atmosphere.
    Boston Globe Department News
  • COP27 JRV, Tyler and Arie

    COP27 Empowers Students to Address Climate Change

    Three students and three faculty members traveled to Sharm El Sheikh, Egypt, for COP27, the United Nations climate summit, where they were the only delegation from a public university in Massachusetts.
    Featured Story
  • World Bank Group president David Malpass spoke during a panel on getting to net-zero IFIs (international financial institutions) and multilateral partnerships, during the IMF annual Fall meeting at the IMF headquarters in Washington, DC, on October 12.BRENDAN SMIALOWSKI/AFP VIA GETTY IMAGES

    Do net-zero pledges add up?

    Do net-zero pledges mean the world is on track to protect the climate? So far, the answer is no, because if, when, and how net zero is reached matters.
    The Boston Globe Department News
  • smart thermostat

    Researchers Win NSF Grant to Boost Energy Efficiency

    UMass Lowell researchers have teamed up with local organizations in search of effective strategies that will encourage underserved communities to participate in energy efficiency programs.
    Featured Story
  • Hmes were surrounded by water in Fort Myers, Fla.

    Hurricane Ian Capped 2 Weeks of Extreme Storms Around the Globe

    When Hurricane Ian hit Florida, it was one of the United States’ most powerful hurricanes on record, and it followed a two-week string of massive, devastating storms around the world. Prof. Mathew Barlow wrote a piece for The Conversation about what’s known about how climate change fuels tropical cyclones.
    The Conversation Department News
  • Cool Science Alice Lobel

    Local K-12 Students Use Art to Teach Public About Extreme Weather

    The National Science Foundation-funded project Cool Science hosted its 10th annual Extreme Weather Art Competition for students in grades kindergarten through 12th. The winning posters are now displayed on transit buses in the Merrimack Valley and Worcester areas.
    Featured Story
  • A student uses their laptop outside while seating in a green Adirondack chair

    Changing Campus Landscape Greets River Hawks this Fall

    New homes for the Honors College, Rist Institute for Sustainability and Energy and Asian American Center for Excellence and Engagement highlight a busy summer of campus improvements by Facilities Management.
    Featured Story
  • Matt Barlow research

    Scientist Lends Expertise to Greater Boston Climate Assessment

    Environmental, Earth & Atmospheric Sciences Prof. Mathew Barlow led the Storms, Precipitation, Flooding and Groundwater section of a new report that assesses likely climate changes for the Greater Boston area. 
    Department News
  • Orange flames

    Does Wood Bioenergy Help or Harm the Climate?

    Governments and organizations around the world claim that wood bioenergy is carbon neutral. New research by UMass Lowell's Climate Change Initiative, the MIT Sustainability Initiative, Climate Interactive, and Tufts University uses a dynamic model to determine the carbon - and climate - impact of wood bioenergy.
    Department News
  • How participatory simulation motivates climate action

    How Participatory Simulation Motivates Climate Action

    New research from the UMass Lowell Climate Change Initiative, which spearheads impact research for the MIT Climate Pathways Project, shows that group deliberation guided by interaction with the C-ROADS model can positively influence high school and college students’ climate change knowledge, attitudes, and behaviors.
    Department News
  • A man speaks to a crowd while holding a certificate in a wood-paneled room with an American flag

    S.E.E.D. Fund Recipients All About the Green

    Seven projects led by students, faculty and staff received a share of the university’s annual $50,000 Sustainability Encouragement & Enrichment Development (S.E.E.D.) Fund. 
    Featured Story
  • Three bees pollinate pink and yellow flowers

    UML Climbs to New Heights for Sustainability

    UMass Lowell remains the highest-rated campus in Massachusetts for sustainability with a STARS Gold score of 83.37 from the Association for the Advancement of Sustainability in Higher Education.
    Department News
  • Three students hold award certificates while talking to two faculty members on a staircase

    Lights Out! Students’ Energy-Saving Idea Wins CO2 Challenge

    A competition-based initiative to get students thinking about their residence hall energy usage won the third annual Rist Institute for Sustainability & Energy Climate Mitigation Challenge, which asks students to find ways to reduce CO2 emissions by 10,000 pounds in 10 weeks.
    Featured Story
  • Introducing the new Climate Impacts and Solutions with En-ROADS curriculum module!

    New Curriculum: Climate Impacts & Solutions with En-Roads

    The Climate Impacts & Solutions with En-ROADS module is a new, free, multidisciplinary collaboration between The Climate Initiative (TCI) and the UMass Lowell Climate Change Initiative (CCI).
    Department News
  • Climate Change Leads to Simultaneous Droughts Across the World

    Climate Change Leads to Simultaneous Droughts Across the World

    Asst. Prof. Christopher Skinner recent work published in Nature Climate Change shows that continued use of fossil fuels will increase the risk that multiple regions across the globe experience drought simultaneously.
    Department News
  • EEAS Asst. Prof. James Heiss

    Environmental Science Professor Awarded NSF CAREER Grant

    The National Science Foundation (NSF) awarded Asst. Prof. James Heiss a $680,000 faculty early-career development award to understand water and chemical exchanges between groundwater and surface water along the land-sea transition zone.
    Featured Story
  • A man in a bowtie gestures in his hand while speaking

    Good COP, Bad COP: UML Delegates Reflect on U.N. Climate Summit

    An interdisciplinary group of faculty members from UMass Lowell’s Climate Change Initiative attended the recent United Nations global climate summit, aka COP26, in Glasgow, Scotland, where they observed progress being made — but also missed opportunities.
    Featured Story
  • An aerial view of the Merrimack River running through the UML campus

    With NSF Award, New Grad Program Focuses on Protecting Water Resources

    An interdisciplinary team of UML faculty, led by Assoc. Profs. Meg Sobkowicz-Kline and Chris Hansen, have received a nearly $3 million National Science Foundation Research Traineeship award for a new graduate student program focused on developing sustainable materials and chemicals that won’t harm water resources.
    Featured Story
  • A Cool Science bus poster

    Professor: Science Education Can Help Slow Climate Change

    Science education can help slow the pace of global warming, because people who understand climate science can make informed decisions, says Education Assoc. Prof. Jill Hendrickson Lohmeier. Lohmeier does research on using artwork in informal settings to educate the public about climate science.
    Featured Story
  • A Lowell city bus crossing the Howe Bridge on campus

    Students Step Up to Reduce Carbon Footprint

    A plan to boost ridership on Lowell’s city buses won the second annual Rist Institute for Sustainability and Energy Climate Mitigation Challenge, which asks students to find ways to reduce CO2 emissions by 10,000 pounds in 10 weeks.
    Featured Story
  • Meg Sobkowicz-Kline talks to a student about recycled plastics in the lab

    New Seminar Series Explores Climate Anxiety, Plastics Sustainability and More

    UMass Lowell’s Climate Change Initiative, in partnership with the Environmental, Earth & Atmospheric Sciences Department and the Rist Institute for Sustainability and Energy, is hosting a virtual spring seminar series featuring experts from across the country.
    Department News
  • Student Javon Bryan takes part in the World Climate simulation with other students

    EEAS Faculty, Students Present at AGU Conference

    Four Environmental, Earth and Atmospheric Sciences faculty members and graduate students from the Kennedy College of Sciences presented research at the virtual AGU Fall Meeting, the largest gathering of Earth and space scientists from around the world.
    Department News
  • TNEC trainers help someone with their hazmat suit

    TNEC’s Evolving Worker Safety Training Gets $6.6M Boost

    Thanks to a five-year, $6.6 million grant from the National Institute of Environmental Health Sciences, The New England Consortium at UMass Lowell will expand its hazardous materials worker health and safety training under the direction of Research Prof. David Turcotte.
    Featured Story
  • Recycling Contaminated Plastics Using Bioprocesses

    Recycling Contaminated Plastics Using Bioprocesses

    Funded by a $1.5M grant from the Department of Energy, Professor Meg Sobkowicz-Kline, along with colleagues Dongming Xie and Hsi-Wu Wong, is working to optimize this enzymatic recycling process for low quality contaminated PET sources and large-scale deployment.
    Department News
  • Predicting The Onset Of Drought In The Northeast Us

    Predicting The Onset Of Drought In The Northeast U.S.

    Drought and heat waves both have a range of severe societal and ecosystem impacts. Our research seeks to understand the causes of droughts and heat waves and how they interact with one another to better predict their occurrence and help manage their impacts in the Northeast U.S.
    Department News
  • Advancing Safe and Sustainable Chemistry

    Advancing Safe and Sustainable Chemistry

    For more than 20 years, the Lowell Center for Sustainable Production’s Chemicals Science and Policy Initiative has been a leading research and strategy effort focused on driving the transition to safer, more sustainable chemicals, materials, and products.
    Department News
  • Extreme Multi-Hazard Coastal Storm Impacts

    Extreme Multi-Hazard Coastal Storm Impacts

    Supported by a three-year, $784,000 National Science Foundation grant, a team of researchers led by James Heiss in the Department of Environmental, Earth and Atmospheric Sciences (EEAS) are studying the impact of extreme multi-hazard coastal storms on groundwater flow and saltwater-freshwater mixing in beach aquifers.
    Department News
  • Climate Disasters: Prepare and Respond

    Climate Disasters: Prepare and Respond

    Climate Change is increasing the frequency of extreme weather events and resulting disasters. The New England Consortium (TNEC-CSEA) in partnership with the Civil Service Employees Association (CSEA) and Massachusetts Coalition for Occupational Health and Safety (MassCOSH) received another 5-year NIESH Hazmat Disaster Preparedness Training Program grant to train organizations and their workers who prepare for and respond to climate related disasters.
    Department News
  • Cool Science: K-12 Student Art Competition

    Cool Science: K-12 Student Art Competition

    Cool Science brings an inter-disciplinary approach to the challenge of improving public understanding of climate change science by focusing on issues related to heat transfer, energy and extreme weather. This project aims to engage students, teachers, parents, and the general public with the science of extreme weather.
    Department News
  • Asst. Prof. of Economics Kelly Hellman, plastics engineering major Kerry Candlen and chemical engineering major Maria Fonseca-Guzman

    Rist Institute for Sustainability and Energy Awards First Fellowships

    The Rist Institute for Sustainability and Energy has awarded its inaugural fellowships to Asst. Prof. of Economics Kelly Hellman, plastics engineering major Kerry Candlen and chemical engineering major Maria Fonseca-Guzman.
    Featured Story
  • UML physics major Anne Souza teaches an online lab to science teachers in Haiti

    New Honors Class Inspires Renewable Energy Research

    A new honors seminar that helps students think critically about different sources of energy is inspiring research involving renewables, including projects at UMass Lowell’s Haiti Development Studies Center.
    Featured Story
  • Hurricane Irma

    Researchers to Study the Impact of Coastal Storms on Beach Aquifers

    Environmental, Earth and Atmospheric Sciences Asst. Prof. James Heiss and the Woods Hole Oceanographic Institution were awarded a three-year, $784,000 National Science Foundation grant to study how powerful coastal storms affect the fresh water flowing below the ground along the seashore.
    Featured Story
  • An aerial view of the UML campus and Merrimack River

    Very Cool! UML 16th on Sierra’s List of Eco-friendly Schools

    UMass Lowell is No. 16 on Sierra magazine’s “Cool Schools” list for 2020, the university’s highest ranking ever in a survey that assesses colleges’ performances on everything from sustainability-focused courses, carbon-neutral energy and land policies, eco-friendly dining halls and student engagement.
    Featured Story
  • Drought photo

    Climate Scientists to Study Droughts, Heat Waves in the Northeast

    Profs. Mathew Barlow and Christopher Skinner of the Department of Environmental, Earth and Atmospheric Sciences will study the cause of heat waves and droughts in the Northeast and how they interact with each other under a three-year, $478,000 grant from the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration.
    Featured Story
  • Students Fiona Benzi, Lucia Cheney and Kseniya Vialichka pose for a selfie

    Environmental Science Students Give Virtual Teaching a Try

    Environmental science students from the Kennedy College of Sciences led free educational sessions on Zoom for middle and high school students who, like them, are stuck at home because of the coronavirus pandemic.
    Department News
  • Student Lily Green talks about her Carbon Consumers project

    How to Lose 10,000 Pounds (of CO2) in Just 10 Weeks

    Three student projects proposing ways to reduce the university community’s carbon dioxide emissions by 10,000 pounds in 10 weeks received the first-ever Rist Institute for Sustainability and Energy (RISE) Student Innovation Awards and a share of $1,000 in prize money.
    Featured Story
  • Juliette Rooney-Varga talks with two conference attendees about the En-ROADS climate solutions simulator

    UML Researchers Shed Light on Climate Change Science

    Climate change was the central issue at the 100th annual meeting of the American Meteorological Society in Boston, where students, faculty and alumni from the Kennedy College of Sciences shared their environmental and atmospheric science research and networked with meteorologists, climate scientists and academics from around the country.
    Featured Story
  • Chancellor Moloney and UML staff pose with DOER and DCAMM officials with the Leading by Example award

    UML Earns Kudos from Commonwealth for Sustainability

    The commonwealth of Massachusetts recognized UMass Lowell for its sustainability efforts across campus with a 2019 Leading by Example award, which Chancellor Jacquie Moloney accepted at a State House ceremony. 
    Featured Story
  • Asst. Prof. Hsi-Wu Wong working in the lab

    Chemical Engineering Professor Recognized with NSF CAREER Award

    The National Science Foundation recently recognized Asst. Prof. Hsi-Wu Wong of the Department of Chemical Engineering with a prestigious faculty early career development grant, called the “CAREER” award. This highly competitive annual program selects the nation’s best young university faculty-scholars “who most effectively integrate research and education within the context of the mission of their organization.”
    Featured Story
  • Communicating Wildfire Risk to Homeowners

    Communicating Wildfire Risk to Homeowners

    Causing numerous deaths and billions of dollars in damages, recent wildfires in California have raised concerns about growing wildfire risk. As people become more vulnerable to wildfire risk, it is imperative that information regarding such risk is effectively communicated.
    Department News
  • Charlotte Ryan works in collaboration with the Media Research and Action Project (MRAP) (https://www.mrap.info/).

    Communication Activism and Social Change

    How do individuals with a variety of interests and wills form common cause to change society? Working at the interface of media and movements, Charlotte Ryan studies how individuals build learning communities that, in turn, form coalitions and movements for systems change.
    Department News
  • Animation of weather phenomena known as “atmospheric rivers”. The animation comes from a climate model simulation ran with the Community Earth System Model (CESM).

    Tracking Atmospheric Rivers in a Changing Climate

    Climate models are used to study how and why atmospheric rivers change as the climate changes. This is the research topic of Chris Skinner’s recent NSF grant: “Elucidating the drivers and consequences of changes in atmospheric rivers from the last glacial maximum to the present day.”
    Department News
  • Satellite flying above Earth

    Innovating Meteorology Through Remote Sensing Technology

    Professor Robert Gamache’s current work aids satellite programs of NASA’s Earth Observing System, missions to Mars and Venus, several satellite programs of ESA, EUMETSAT and CNES, and the study of the atmospheres of exoplanets.
    Department News
  • Lori Weeden speaks during the workshop

    It’s Never Too Early to Learn About Climate Change

    The UMass Lowell Climate Change Initiative, in conjunction with the National Association of Geoscience Teachers and the College of Education, hosted a professional development workshop for two dozen area K-12 teachers on incorporating climate change education into the classroom. 
    Featured Story
  • iStronG: Supporting Stem Interest and Self-Efficacy for Low-Income Students

    iStronG: Supporting STEM Interest and Self-Efficacy for Low-Income Students

    A major goal of this grant is to contribute to research on the potential of systems thinking, place-based curriculum in out-of-school TRIO college access programs, such as Upward Bound, to increase underrepresented students’ STEM interest, self-efficacy, and motivation to pursue STEM degrees/careers.
    Department News
  • Student Media Production for Climate Change Communication

    Student Media Production for Climate Change Communication

    The Climate Education in an Age of Media (CAM) Project brought together a team of scientists, science educators, media artists, and media instructors, to create curriculum materials and resources that give geoscience educators the tools they need to bring student media production into their own climate change education work.
    Department News
  • CCI members pose with state legislators

    Faculty Experts Brief Legislators on Climate Change

    The university’s Climate Change Initiative hosted members of the state’s House Committee on Global Warming and Climate Change for a roundtable discussion on climate science and policy at which faculty members shared scientific research and expertise to help inform policy decisions.
    Featured Story
  • Administrators and guests look at the new Green Roof garden

    UML Celebrates Energy Savings, Sustainability on Earth Day

    The university marked two major milestones at its Earth Day celebration: the completion of its $23.1 million Accelerated Energy Program and its latest STARS Gold rating, which moves UML into the top 10 nationally.
    Featured Story
  • Cashier Danielle DePalma hands a student a paper bag at the bookstore

    Bookstore Switches from Plastic to Paper Bags

    The River Hawk Shop now gives customers recyclable paper bags instead of single-use plastic bags, a move that will eliminate around 10,000 plastic bags from the waste stream each year. 
    Department News
  • Kirsten Swenson and Akbar Abjduljalil stand nextt to the teach-in poster

    Image is Everything at Climate Change Teach-In

    The 2018 David Lustick Climate Change Teach-In, “Invisibilities: Seeing and Unseeing the Anthropocene,” explored how images can both shape and obscure our understanding of climate and environment. It was organized by Assoc. Prof. of Art History Kirsten Swenson as part of the IDEA Leadership Grant Initiative.
    Featured Story
  • Crops growing in the greenhouse on East Campus

    Students’ Sustainability Fee Seeds 10 New Projects

    Ten projects led by students, faculty and staff received more than $50,000 in support from the university’s Sustainability Encouragement & Enrichment Development (S.E.E.D.) Fund, which saw a jump in applications in its second year.