The 2026 Rutgers Cooperative Extension (RCE) Annual Conference convened on January 15 at the Busch Student Center, bringing together faculty, staff, and stakeholders from across New Jersey. The annual gathering provided a shared space for networking, professional development, research collaboration, and the exchange of best practices in delivering research-based educational programming with service excellence. The conference opened with welcoming remarks …
An article from Centraljersey.com explores a question many New Jersey residents may have wondered about during blustery days: Is the state actually getting windier? The piece examines the science behind measuring wind, the challenges of identifying long-term trends, and why understanding wind patterns matters for issues like drought, wildfires, bird migration, and climate change. Wind forms when air moves from …
An article from The New Republic written by RCEI affiliate Robert Kopp examines how the second Donald Trump administration has systematically targeted U.S. climate science infrastructure—while researchers mobilize to defend and preserve it. The piece begins by explaining that for more than 75 years, the United States has led the world in climate research, launching major modeling centers and building …
In laboratories and greenhouses at Rutgers University-New Brunswick – alongside collaborators at the University of Massachusetts Amherst, University of Florida and Bar-Ilan University – scientists are advancing plant breeding innovations to protect one of the world’s most widely used herbs: basil. Now, supported by a $3.2 million grant from the U.S. Department of Agriculture’s National Institute of Food and Agriculture, …
An article from Inside Climate News examines how powerful winter storms can trigger dangerous coastal flooding in New Jersey—highlighting that nor’easters, not just hurricanes, pose serious risks to the state’s densely populated shoreline. The story focuses on a recent blizzard that blanketed New Jersey with more than two feet of snow and brought strong winds that caused flooding in places …
Faculty from SEBS and NJAES gathered on Rutgers’ Cook Campus in January to kick off a dialogue that the SEBS Office of Research hopes will lead to an increase in the high-quality, cross-disciplinary research at Rutgers that often significantly impacts the state and our society, at large. The in-person event was the kickoff of the office’s inaugural “Charting a Research …
The Rutgers Institute for Corporate Social Innovation is among the recipients of a New Jersey Economic Development Authority grant to help strengthen the state’s food security infrastructure. The institute, known as RICSI, is part of Rutgers Business School …
RCEI Affiliate Onur Bilgen, an associate professor in the Department of Mechanical and Aerospace Engineering, elected to spend his 2024 spring semester sabbatical at the Addis Ababa Institute of Technology’s (AAiT) School of Electrical and Computer Engineering (SECE), the leading technical institute in the Ethiopian university system. His decision was prompted partly by a desire to immerse himself in a …
An article from Media Matters for America covers a recent CNN segment that invited Rutgers University climate scientist, lead author on U.N. climate assessments, and RCEI affiliate Robert Kopp on air to push back against a common piece of climate misinformation: the idea that extreme cold weather disproves global warming. The piece focuses on a January 25, 2026 episode of …
An article from WHYY reports on New Jersey’s newly finalized coastal building regulations that require new construction in flood-prone areas along the Jersey Shore to be built significantly higher to account for future sea level rise driven by climate change . The story explains that, starting this summer, new homes and some substantially renovated buildings in designated coastal flood zones …
