News

Summer 2009 Edition

Green Campus Newsletter

Learn about Green Campus' efforts to reduce energy consumption on campus. Read more in their August 2009 newsletter.

Satellite Data Explains Vanishing India Groundwater

Using satellite data, UCI and NASA hydrologists have found that groundwater beneath northern India has been receeding by as much as 1 foot per year over the past decade - and they believe human consumption is almost entirely to blame. >> More

UCI Receives Fourth LEED Gold Award for Green Construction

For the fourth time since March 2007, UC Irvine has earned LEED Gold certification from the U.S. Green Building Council for excellence in environmentally responsible building design, construction, and operation. The most recent award went to Donald Bren Hall. >>More

Ritchie to Co-Direct New Sustainable Transportation Research Program

A new sustainable transportation research program co-directed by Stephen Ritchie, UCI Institute of Transportation Studies Director, has been awarded $6.25 million over 5 years from the Office of the President. The program is one of 37 Multicampus Research Programs and Initiatives sharing $68 million in competitive grant funding. >> More

UC Funds New Center for Hydrologic Modeling

UCI has been awarded $2.5 million to use for satellites and field research to more accurately determine how much water exists in California and where it has been located. The UC Office of the President funding will create the UC Center for Hydrologic Modeling under the guidance of Jay Famiglietti, Earth system science professor. Research will focus on combining computer models with observations to determine how much water exists in underground aquifers, the soil, and the snowpack.

Chemists Discover Ozone Boosting Reaction

It's a recipe for choking smog. Burn tons of fossil fuels. Pump the resultant chemicals into the air, where they react on surfaces of buildings and roads. The results is the creation of photochemical smog-forming chlorine atoms, UCI scientists report in a new study. Under extreme circumstances, this previously unknown chemistry could account for up to 40 parts per billion of ozone - nearly half of California's legal limit on outdoor air pollution. Study results appear in the Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences. >> More

Building Better Commutes

For almost 20 years, Marlon Boarnet has studied the links between land use and transportation networks - research generally of interest only to policy wonks. But the planning, policy & design, and economics professor noticed a change over the past year. "The nation is looking to planners for serious answers," he says. Boarnet relishes the current debate over how to use $787 billion in economic stimulus funds to improve U.S. roads and communities. To articulate some of the planning community's ideas, Boarnet recently co-wrote and edited Transportation Infrastructure: The Challenges of Rebuilding America, published by the American Planning Association. >> More

Greenplanet: Cluster Computing for Physical Sciences

Physical Sciences, with support from IAT, has assembled a high-performance computing cluster for climate modeling and other computational-intensive research. >>More

ReadyTalk: New Option for Teleconferencing

UC has signed a system-wide agreement with ReadyTalk to provide a range of new teleconferencing services to UC campuses. >> More

More Preemies Born in Neighborhoods with Heavy Traffic Pollution

Women exposed to air pollution from freeways and congested roads are much more likely to give birth to premature babies and suffer from preeclampsia, according to a UC study led by Public Health Assistant Professor Jun Wu. The findings, based on pregnant women in the Long Beach/Orange County region, add to the growing evidence that car and truck exhaust can jeopardize the health of fetuses. The study appears on-line in Environmental Health Perspectives. >> More

UCI Receives Grant for Nuclear Energy Research

UCI has been awarded up to $300,000 from the U.S. Department of Energy for Nuclear energy research, Mikael Nilsson, Chemical Engineering and Materials Science Assistant Professor, initiatied the effort along with Russell Detwiler, Civil and Environmental Engineering Assistant Professor, and George Miller, Chemistry Senior Lectuerer and UCI's nuclear reactor facility director. With the grant, they will purchase new equipment and strengthen UCI's nuclear science and engineering research program. >> More

Wind Power Exists Above Earth's Oceans, Study Finds

Wind energy over the planet's oceans is a vastly underutilized renewable resource, according to UCI researchers. At 80 meters above the ocean - the typical wind turbine height - 50 percent more power is available than at 10 meters, the height important to the shipping industry upon which previous wind estimates were made. >> More

Critical Path Issues on the Way to Carbon Neutrality

NACUBO's latest publication, written by UCI Vice Chancellor Wendell C. Brase, provides an overview of the tools, resources, and public policies that colleges and universities need to markedly reduce, or neutralize, their carbon emissions. >> More

Campus Cuts Greenhouse Gas Emissions

In ways that have altered nearly every aspect of campus life, UCI has reduced the energy needed to keep the place humming, serving as a model for other large organizations seeking to shrink their carbon footprints. >>More

Does the Fiscal Crisis Mean Postpoining Green IT Improvements?

Read the EDUCAUSE Quarterly article by Vice Chancellor Wendell Brase and Assistant Vice Chancellor Mark Askren regarding implementation of IT initiatives during these challenging financial times. >> More

Hai Vo Sows Seeds of Sustainable Food Reform

Hai Vo, undergraduate student class of 2009, has made food his passion. He became a student leader of the Real Food Challenge at UCI, joining a nationwide, student-based network that advocates "real" food; ecologically sound, community-based, humane, and fair. >> More