ESE Symposium 2009 - Ecological Sciences and Engineering

In the spirit of unifying environmental interests at Purdue, the Ecological Sciences & Engineering Graduate program, hosted their third annual campus-wide integration symposium. This year's theme was Water Resources in a Changing Global Climate. This symposium seeks to stimulate interest and discussion in the Purdue community about the various interdisciplinary aspects of environmental research and application. This year's symposium occured during Purdue University's 2nd annual Green Week. The purpose of Green Week is to bring attention to issues of sustainability, locally and globally, through a series of activities, lectures, and showcases. Registration is now closed.

The ESE Symposium, a student-run, interdisciplinary event, provides graduate students an opportunity to present their research and interact with experts in various environmental fields. It also raises awareness about the ESE program and other environmentally focused initiatives at Purdue University and beyond. This year the symposium events will take place across two days. The schedule included two distinguished speakers and a luncheon on September 22, 2009, with a student poster presentation competition on September 25, 2009.

Poster Competition Winners

1st place (Tie) Souleymane Fall, poster title:
Lower Tropospheric Temperature Variability over the United States (1979-2008): A GIS Approach
1st place (Tie) Heather Gall, poster title: Monitoring Boiler Green Initiative’s Green Roof on Schleman Hall

2nd place: Isaac Emery - The Impact of Dry Matter Loss During Biomass Storage on Net Greenhouse Gas Emissions from Biofuels Production

3rd place:( Tie) between Margaret McCahon, poster title: Targeting Sites for Constructed Wetlands to Remove Nitrate in an Agricultural Watershed
Heather Gall: ( Tie) poster title:Temporal Variations in Nutrient Fluxes in Agricultural Tile Drains and Ditches

Thank you to GE Water Division for sponsoring the poster competition prizes at this year's symposium!

Morning Speaker
Melvin Visser is native to and resident of the Great Lakes area. Mel attended Michigan Technological University on the shores of Lake Superior for his Chemical Engineering degree. In his early career, he manufactured pharmaceutical chemicals, and when the U.S. came to the realization that chemicals outside of their intended use were harmful to health and the environment, Mel assumed major responsibilities for environmental compliance at a Fortune 200 company. An early retirement in 1995 left Mel with an unsolved dilemma. PCBs were banned in 1978, but their levels in Lake Superior dropped to 50% of their peak and then stayed constant. There had to be a continuing major source. Mel volunteered in Michigan and U.S. EPA efforts to understand and clean the lakes, and spent years compiling and putting into context research into the source and fate of persistent organic pollutants. Cold, Clear and Deadly: Unraveling a Toxic Legacy is the story of Mel’s quest published by MSU Press in May of 2006. Mel will give a talk on his investigative work on pollutants in the Arctic and the Great Lakes.

Keynote Speaker
Dr. Andrea Rinaldo will give a talk titled "River networks as ecological corridors for species, populations, and pathogens of water-borne disease". Dr Rinaldo (University of Padua, Italy) has a PhD in Civil Engineering from Purdue, was elected to the US National Academy of Engineering and to the Instituto Veneto, a highly selective and prestigious institute in Venice that was started by Napoleon.