News

The National Aeronautics and Space Administration has awarded a University of Maine marine researcher up to $957,871 to improve ways to detect and track changes in the oceanic carbon pool, subsequently allowing scientists to better understand its role in oceanic ecosystems and the removal of atmospheric carbon dioxide.

Ivona Cetinić, a research associate in the School of Marine Sciences and the Darling Marine Center in Walpole, Maine, is leading a four-person team that will develop a novel way of detecting particulate organic carbon (POC) in oceans, using data collected by satellites.

POC — which includes phytoplankton, zooplankton and marine debris — is part of the oceanic mechanism that “pumps” carbon dioxide from the atmosphere to the depths of the ocean to be stored.

Oceanographers seek to better understand how POC distribution varies in oceans around the world. Together with policy makers, they are interested in learning whether the changing climate is impacting POC and the global carbon cycle.

Cetinić and her team will analyze seawater collected from multiple places in the world’s oceans, including from coastal Maine, equatorial and polar regions, to see how POC distribution varies in different marine ecosystems. The team will use those oceanographic measurements to develop an algorithm — a set of calculations that can be used to detect POC from space.

NASA’s Ocean Biology and Biogeochemistry program is funding the three-year project through November 2015. Mary Jane Perry, a professor at the School of Marine Sciences and Ira C. Darling Marine Center; Nicole Poulton, a research scientist at Bigelow Laboratory for Ocean Sciences in East Boothbay, Maine; and Wayne Homer Slade, who earned a doctorate in oceanography at UMaine and is now at Sequoia Scientific Inc. in Bellevue, Wash., are collaborating with Cetinić on the study.

Contact: Beth Staples, 207.581.3777

In a story on the Portland Flower Show, Channel 2 (WLBZ) advanced the silent and live plant auctions that will take place Sunday at the Portland Company Complex and will benefit the University of Maine Cooperative Extension Demonstration Garden at Tidewater Farm and the Maine Harvest for Hunger Gardens in Cumberland County.

Several media outlets including the Bangor Daily News, Portland Press Herald, Channel 5 (WABI) and Channel 2 (WLBZ) reported on University of Maine System Chancellor James Page’s address at a joint session of the legislature Thursday. Page, along with other higher education leaders, vowed to continue to adapt to the state’s needs and build a skilled workforce, but said they need the legislature’s support. Page told the legislature education must be affordable, and the first step is to “break the back of year-to-year tuition increases.”

The Bangor Daily News reported that American pianist Jonathan Biss will make his third appearance at the University of Maine at 3 p.m. Sunday, March 10, at Minsky Recital Hall.

The newest entry in the Bangor Daily News blog Education: Future Imperfect, by UMaine Professor of History Howard Segal is online.

University of Maine faculty will take part in a series of events surrounding the Penobscot Theatre Co. production of the Pulitzer Prize-winning play “Wit.”

Jesse Moriarity, coordinator of the Foster Center for Student Innovation, will host “Stories of Survival” at 7 p.m. Saturday, March 16 at the Bangor Opera House. Offered in partnership with Bangor Area Story Slam, audience members are invited to tell their stories of survival at the free event. Call 207.942.3333 to register. Women in the Curriculum and Women’s Studies Program Spring 2013 Lunch Series will also hold a panel discussion based on the play and focused on cancer and women’s health from 12–1:20 p.m. March 19 in the Bangor Room of the Memorial Union. The play’s cast and director will also visit Mimi Killinger’s Cultural Odyssey class in the Honors College on March 27.

“Wit” was the first play written by Margaret Edson and was inspired by her experience working in a hospital oncology unit. Tickets can be purchased online or through the box office at 207.942.3333.

A film director and an author will visit UMaine this month to discuss transgender issues.

The University of Maine’s Rainbow Resource Center and the Gay, Lesbian, Bisexual, Transgender and Allies Council will host Jennifer Finney Boylan, author of “She’s Not There: A Life in Two Genders” and Mark Schoen, producer of the new documentary “Trans.”

Boylan, who is also a Colby College professor, will speak from 3–4 p.m. Thursday, March 21 in the Bangor Room of the Memorial Union. She will discuss life as a transgender woman as well as her new book, “Stuck in the Middle with You.”

Schoen will attend a screening of his film “Trans” at 6:30 p.m. Thursday, March 28 in 100 D.P. Corbett Business Building. He will also host a question-and-answer session after the screening from 8–9 p.m. The movie looks into the personal journey into the transgender world through the characters and their life stories.

Both events are free and open to the public.

The Portland Press Herald reported that Michael Dubyak, chairman, president and CEO of South Portland-based WEX Inc., and chairman of the business-led nonprofit Educate Maine, promoted Project>Login at the Portland Community Chamber’s monthly Eggs & Issues event Wednesday. Project>Login, led by Educate Maine and the University of Maine System, is a new initiative designed to attract more students to information technology programs at Maine colleges and universities. “I’d love to see our best and brightest stay in Maine,” Dubyak said.

Amy Witt, a home horticulturist with the University of Maine Cooperative Extension, was cited in a Portland Press Herald story about the Portland Flower Show. The theme of the flower show is “Timeless Gardens” and organizers invited children and teenagers to write essays about how to make gardens timeless. Witt said nine students received cash prizes for their essays. The Cumberland County Master Gardener Plant Auction, which benefits the University of Maine Cooperative Extension and the Maine Harvest for Hunger Gardens in Cumberland County, will take place Sunday, March 10 during the flower show.

The Bangor Daily News reported the estate of a University of Maine alumnus who was killed along with two UMaine students in a Nov. 16 plane crash at the Knox County Regional Airport has notified the county that it may sue for $2 million. The notice was filed on behalf of the estate of William B.J. Hannigan III, a member of the Maine Air National Guard and the Lambda Chi Alpha fraternity. In December, a notice of intent to sue was also sent on behalf of the estate of UMaine student Marcelo Rugini who was also killed in the crash.

The Bangor Daily News spoke with George Markowsky, associate director of the UMaine School of Computing and Information Science, about the three-day 2013 regional Northeast Collegiate Cyber Defense Competition that begins Friday, March 8. Ten teams will compete in UMaine’s Neville Hall by defending against computer hacking attempts made by national cybersecurity professionals. Markowsky, who organized the event, told the BDN, “We have some great hackers involved.”

CompositesWorld spoke with UMaine’s Advanced Structures and Composites Center Director Habib Dagher about the center’s efforts to develop a scale model of a floating wind turbine for testing off the coast of Maine. At the Offshore Wind Power USA 2013 conference in Boston on Feb. 26–27, Dagher said the test turbine is progressing well and deployment is expected later this year.

The Bangor Daily News reported on the March 4 episode of Comedy Central’s “Colbert Report” that featured a segment about a November incident in Somesville in which a bucket of scallop innards to be used for research was mistakenly placed in the wrong car. Skylar Bayer, a marine biology graduate student at the University of Maine’s Darling Marine Center, and Gail Garthwait, a faculty member in the College of Education and Human Development, were featured on the show and in the article.

The Portland Press Herald spoke to Rick Wahle, research associate professor in the University of Maine’s School of Marine Sciences, about Maine’s early lobster season. Wahle explained that in 2012, the season for soft-shell lobsters started four to five weeks early when there weren’t enough buyers, which brought the price down. Wahler warned lobstermen that if prices stay in decline they will have only two options: to stop fishing or fish harder.

The Bangor Daily News featured a story on University of Maine associate philosophy professor Kirsten Jacobson’s time spent sailing around the world. Jacobson, who became fascinated with an adventure on the high seas after seeing the movie “Master and Commander” 10 years ago, is spending half of her sabbatical year living and working on the tall ship Picton Castle. Jacobson and her 40 shipmates have visited places such as Mangareva in French Polynesia, the Galapagos Islands and Panama, but have spent most of their time navigating the Pacific Ocean with no land in sight.

Corey Conner of the University of Maine set a new school record Saturday in the 5,000-meter race during the Columbia Final Qualifying Meet in New York City, the Bangor Daily News reports. The senior from West Townsend, Mass., covered the 5k in 15:55.60, breaking her previous time by more than 10 seconds. Conner now ranks 13th in the NCAA Division I rankings, which could put her in position to compete in the NCAA Championships March 9–10 in Nampa, Idaho.

The Portland Press Herald and the Bangor Daily News reported on the Univeristy of Maine women’s basketball team’s decision not to play in the America East tournament in the wake of the team’s bus crash Feb. 26 on I-95 in Massachusetts. Athletic Director Steve Abbott and Coach Richard Barron talked with players Monday before deciding to end the season. Robert Dana, UMaine’s vice president for student affairs and dean of students told the media it has been a difficult time for the women and the university’s focus will continue to be the health and well-being of the players.

On March 4, Comedy Central’s Colbert Report reported on the November incident in Somesville in which a container of scallop innards collected for marine research was misplaced and found. A scallop diver delivering the bivalve parts to Skylar Bayer, a marine biology graduate student at the Darling Marine Center, mistakenly put the container in a university vehicle driven by Gail Garthwait, a faculty member in the College of Education and Human Development.

Michael Eckardt, Vice President for Research, has announced the recipients of the 2013 Regular Faculty Research Funds Awards, 2013 Scholarly Materials and Equipment Award, and the 2013 Summer Faculty Research Awards. Recipients are selected based on recommendations by the Faculty Research Funds Committee. The Faculty Research Funds Program is part of a broader investment strategy designed to assist faculty and encourage research and other creative achievements.

2013 Regular Faculty Research Funds Award and Scholarly Materials and Equipment Award recipients:

Benildo de los Reyes (SBE) “Genetic Network Rewiring During Oryza Evolution”

Shawn Ell (PSY) “The Enhancing and Impairing Effects of Stress on Cognition: An RO1 Pilot Data Proposal”

Andre Khalil (MAT) “On the Improvement of Early Breast Cancer Detection”

Adrienne White (FSN) “A Clinical Intervention to Address Childhood Obesity Using Self-Determination Theory in a Rural Maine Setting”

2013 Summer Faculty Research Funds Award recipients:

Laura Artesani (SPA) “Integrating Music with Maine Studies and LD 291 in Maine’s Public and Private Schools”

Charlsye Diaz (OEH) “Using Conflict to Spur Creativity: Comparing a Meta-Analysis of Quantitative and Qualitative Research to Popular Belief and Practice”

Dylan Dryer (OEH) “Using Corpus-Analysis to Validate ‘Construct-Representation’ As the Fitting Aim of the TA-Practicum Graduate Course”

Brian Dzwonkowski (SMS) “Developing a Regional Climate Change Index for Maine’s Coastal Ocean”

Nathan Godfried (HTY) “Fellow Travelers of the Air: Labor-Left Radio Commentators and American Politics, 1935–1960”

Paul Grosswiler (CMJ) “The Role of Communication Practices in the Global Crisis of Electronic Technology Waste”

Jason Harkins (MBS) “Exploring the Role of Salespeople in New Ventures: Who Hires Them and Do They Make a Difference?”

Rebecca Holberton (SBE) “Learning to Use New Tracking Technology to Determine Spatial and Temporal Movements and Habitat Use”

Kimberly Huisman (SOC) “Using Public Sociology to Engage Maine Communities: Examining the Challenges and Successes of the Maine Mother-Daughter Project”

Jessica Miller (PHI) “Enhancing Cooperation Between Intensivists and Organ Procurement Coordinators by Creating Moral Space for Principled Ethical Disagreement”

Susan Pinette (FAS) “Transnational Belonging or “Le Quebec d’en bas”: Franco-America in the Quebecois diaspora”

Mary Shea (NUR) “The Experience of Near Elderly Uninsured Women in Downeast Maine”

Nominations are being accepted for the annual Steve Gould Award. The award was created in 1981 in memory of Steve Gould to honor his honesty and compassion for others. The President of the University of Maine gives the award to people or organizations that have demonstrated superior qualities of unselfishness and compassion in the course of service to the university and its ideals. Students, staff, faculty members and organizations serving the University of Maine community are eligible. The award will be presented by President Paul Ferguson at the Employee Recognition Reception on May 21. Deadline for nominations is April 1. For information or to submit nominations, contact Christi Renzi at the president’s office, 207.581.1512.