UConn Research’s Post

🌊 Advancing Environmental Science with AI 🌊 UConn researchers are using machine learning to model "dead zones" in lakes -- oxygen-deprived areas that can lead to fish mortality, water quality issues, and other harmful environmental and economic impacts. This work is crucial for understanding and mitigating the impacts of these zones on aquatic ecosystems. By applying advanced AI techniques, researchers are providing valuable insights that will inform better management and conservation practices. https://lnkd.in/eK9-GWz7 #UConnResearch #UConn #Research #MachineLearning #EnvironmentalScience #Conservation

With an award of $3.4 million from the U.S. Department of Education, UConn researchers are launching “Project Focus” to increase nationwide recognition of gifted students. https://lnkd.in/eXsgX6P8 “Project Focus is really all about supporting teachers in how they engage in questioning and discussion in the classroom, as a way of giving more students access to the opportunity to engage in high-level discussion about what they’re learning,” says project PI Catherine Little, a professor in the UConn Neag School of Education who specializes in giftedness, creativity, and talent development.

No use crying over 80-year-old milk! 🥛Instead, researchers in UConn's department of pathobiology and veterinary science are analyzing it to trace the history of antibiotic resistance. https://lnkd.in/e8kRHi_g

Lijing Wang, an incoming assistant professor of geosciences in the UConn College of Liberal Arts and Sciences, will be conducting one of just 35 projects supported by the first-ever National Artificial Intelligence Research Resource (NAIRR) Pilot. https://lnkd.in/exSxE_VP Her project studies water flow in mountainous areas where the lack of data about snow melt and water movement makes predictions about the area’s future water flow difficult to compute or inaccurate. 🏔 “Mountainous watersheds provide significant water resources,” says Wang. “Conducting intensive monitoring is key to understanding water availability, but it’s not feasible in every catchment. Together with monitoring, an AI tool could help us evaluate these water variations more efficiently in the face of climate change.” 💧

Climate change is happening worldwide, but the Arctic provides an unusually rich and diverse environment to study its effects. https://lnkd.in/eazZGtw9 With an award of $15 million from the National Science Foundation (NSF), researchers at UConn, the Woodwell Climate Research Center, and Columbia University are forming the Evolving Meta-Ecosystems (EvoME) Institute to study ecosystem resilience in the Arctic. UConn professor of ecology and evolutionary biology Mark Urban will co-lead the project, along with UConn scientists Jill Wegrzyn, Rachel O’Neill, Cory Merow, and Dan Bolnick. UConn contributors will work with experts in diverse disciplines from 14 institutions on the project over the next six years. “Our larger goal is to come up with a more holistic view of ecosystem extending across time, space, disciplines, and ecosystems that we can use in forecasting the effects of climate change on the Arctic,” says Urban, who is founder and director of UConn’s Center of Biological Risk. “There are a lot of synergies here that will help us forecast the future. It will also enhance our ability to work together and learn from one another to answer these questions.”

Researchers at UConn's Connecticut Veterinary Medical Diagnostic Laboratory (CVMDL) have sequenced the genome of the rabies virus recently detected in a Connecticut black bear, helping protect wildlife and the public against future cases. https://lnkd.in/ezU2YQTm This rare case is only the second time the lab has seen rabies in a black bear. By sequencing the virus, researchers will be able to better understand and monitor its spread. "We have created a sequencing lab inside a diagnostic lab that is allowing us to dig more into what is going on," says Guillermo Risatti, CVMDL director and professor in the department of pathobiology and veterinary science.

Two teams of students, advised by UConn College of Agriculture, Health and Natural Resources faculty, are headed to the finals of the U.S. Department of Energy’s AlgaePrize competition. https://lnkd.in/eT6HRt-n The interdisciplinary teams will develop sustainable, algae-based products for use as a poultry feed supplement and food preservative. #UConnResearch #UConn #research #algae #algaeprize #usdoe #energy #sustainability #poultry #preservatives