The 2024 Excellence Awards celebrate exceptional contributions from individuals and teams at the School of Environmental and Biological Sciences and the New Jersey Agricultural Experiment Station at Rutgers University. These awards highlight the creativity, innovation, engagement, and impact that exemplify our mission as a land-grant university. This year RCEI affiliate Victoria Ramenzoni, an assistant professor in the Department of Human …

Rutgers Associate Professor, 4-H Youth Development STEM Agent and RCEI affiliate Janice McDonnell is a collaborating partner of the Center for Advancing Research Impact in Society (ARIS) who was awarded $1.1 million of a $9.1 million grant from the National Science Foundation (NSF) to build capacity in supporting research impact.  While researchers around the world are working to bring their scientific discoveries …

A trio of Rutgers experts is leading the university effort with support from a science and technology philanthropy A trio of scientists from Rutgers University-New Brunswick is studying the potential of turning a species of seaweed into a source of energy and food. The researchers from the Rutgers Climate and Energy Institute ̵ working with other institutions ̵ are looking …

Rutgers-New Brunswick inaugurates state-of-the-art agrivoltaics research and demonstration project for simultaneous production of food and solar energy Federal, state and university officials are inaugurating a research and demonstration project at Rutgers University-New Brunswick with the purpose of advancing a technology that could produce renewable energy while making farms more sustainable. The New Brunswick project, part of a $7.4 million effort, …

By Pam McElwee & Marjorie Kaplan Rutgers hosted the first ever Summer School in Sustainability Governance, led by RCEI Affiliates Pam McElwee and Rachael Shwom of Rutgers Department of Human Ecology as part of the RCEI signature initiative to build a Center for Sustainability and Governance in the Anthropocene (C-SAGA). Twenty-nine attendees from Rutgers plus 19 other institutions across the …

RCEI affiliate Alexander Gates’ article “Climate change is a pollution problem, and countries have stopped similar threats before – think DDT and acid rain” was published on The Conversation to coincide with the UN conference this week. This article discusses how climate change, driven by carbon dioxide emissions from fossil fuels, mirrors past environmental challenges that humanity has successfully tackled, …

On September 9, RCEI affiliate Oscar Schofield, Distinguished Professor in the Department of Marine and Coastal Sciences (DMCS), was officially named Fellow of the Marine Technology Society (MTS), one of highest accolades an MTS member can achieve. Schofield, who chairs DMCS, is also a Life Member of MTS. Schofield is a visionary whose work has transformed ocean observation. With a …

Since 2011, enormous seaweed blooms have spread across the Atlantic Ocean, spanning over 5,000 miles from West Africa to the Gulf of Mexico.   Known as the Great Atlantic Sargassum Belt, the leviathan — visible from space — has wreaked havoc on environments and economies throughout the Caribbean Sea and Gulf of Mexico, where unprecedented quantities of seaweed routinely break away from …

RCEI affiliate and PI Shishir Chundawat will lead a team of researchers to develop integrated technologies for conversion of cellulosic biomass and biomass-derived CO2 to fuels/chemicals. The project was selected for funding by the Northeast SunGrant program at Pennsylvania State University and supported directly by the United States Department of Agriculture (USDA). For this project Chundawat will collaborate closely with …

A Rutgers-led study shows diminished crop yield is globally common but low yields could be addressed by increasing the number of pollinators A team of researchers led by Rutgers University-New Brunswick scientists has analyzed crop yields of more than 1,500 fields on six continents, and found that production worldwide of important, nutritionally dense foods such as fruits, vegetables, nuts and …