The Syracuse University Environmental Finance Center (SU-EFC) was selected by the United States Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) to serve as a regional Environmental Finance Center (EFC) to help communities access federal infrastructure funds and continue supporting environmental and financial challenges in the communities that need it most. SU-EFC will continue serving EPA Region 2, which includes New York, New Jersey, Puerto Rico, US Virgin Islands, and eight Native Nations, and is one of 29 Environmental Finance Centers awarded to support states, local governments and Native Nations as they work to protect the environment and public health over the next five years. Read more.
News Posts
Lifetime Achievement Honor for Mark Monmonier, Distinguished Professor Emeritus of Geography and the Environment
Mark Monmonier, Distinguished Professor Emeritus of Geography and the Environment in the Maxwell School, has received the American Association of Geographers’ (AAG) Lifetime Achievement Honor. Monmonier has made “outstanding contributions to geographic research, most notably in the fields of cartography and geographic communication” as well as an “extensive record of distinctive leadership at national and international levels,” according to a release on the AAG website. Read more.
Getting to the ‘Point’: Powerful Computing Helps Identify Potential New Treatments for Coronaviruses
A team of researchers have been searching for locations on coronavirus spikes where antibodies have a better chance to attach and stop infections of human cells. “We tested and compared seven known antibodies, and some of them work well in grabbing onto the exposed part of the spike protein,” says Atanu Acharya, assistant professor in the Department of Chemistry and member of the BioInspired Institute. “Different antibodies target different spots on the spike protein.” As a co-first author, Acharya recently published a study in Communications Biology with lead author James C. Gumbart, associate professor in the School of Physics at the Georgia Institute of Technology. Acharya performed this research while a postdoctoral fellow at Georgia Tech and is continuing his studies of coronavirus antibodies at his Syracuse University lab. Read more.
School of Architecture Faculty Member Honored With Best of Design Award
The Architect’s Newspaper (AN) recently announced the winners of its 10th annual Best of Design Awards, a unique project-based awards program that showcases great buildings, unbuilt proposals, interiors and installations. Iman Fayyad, assistant professor in the School of Architecture, won the Young Architects Award for CloudHouse, a shade pavilion she designed and built with four student researchers—Rayshad Dorsey, Pietro Mendonça, Jack Raymond and Audrey Watkins (all M.Arch ’23), from the Harvard Graduate School of Design—in Greene-Rose Heritage Park, one of the more underserved and most diverse neighborhoods of Cambridge, Massachusetts. Read more.
Researchers Reject 30-Year-Old Paradigm: Emergence of Forests Did Not Reduce CO2 in Atmosphere
Contrary to previous estimates, a team of researchers including Christopher Junium, associate professor of Earth and environmental sciences in the College of Arts and Sciences, have found geochemical evidence suggesting that CO2 levels may have been much lower millions of years before the emergence of large forests, according to a study published in Nature Communications. Junium and his collaborators, including the study’s lead author Tais W. Dahl, associate professor from the Globe Institute at the University of Copenhagen, found that the earliest vascular plants substantially reduced CO2 levels long before the evolution of forests. This early CO2 decline may have led to significant global cooling and glaciation during this period. Read more.