Environment
Student Saif Bhatti relied on Northwestern connections to develop a smart listening device that might slow illegal poaching. After meeting first with his computer science and mechatronics professors, he’s turned to more than a dozen faculty, students and staff at McCormick School of Engineering, Northwestern Pritzker School of Law and the University’s Global Learning Office for support to get the project off the ground.
You can tell a lot about a poacher by the way they dehorn a rhinoceros — was the horn hacked off crudely or was it removed skillfully with a sharp, scalpel-like instrument? As Saif Bhatti bumped along the dirt back roads of Thornybush Game Reserve in South Africa, he was unsure which one they might find.
Northwestern students, alumni and professors share insights into their research and performance around the world.
Earth and planetary sciences graduate students Leah Salditch and Molly Gallahue spent a week in September hunting down earthquake anecdotes on California excursion. The memories they gathered will help inform state hazard maps of quake-vulnerable areas.
Lillian Hoodes ’13 MA is helping to fix a common problem for environmentally aware hikers: how to pack nutritious food when headed out on the trail. Hoodes is co-founder and CEO of TrailFork, a company dedicated to providing outdoor adventurers with sustainably packaged and healthy dehydrated food.
Lake Michigan, the immense body of fresh water whose shimmering beauty convinced Northwestern’s founders that this was the place to build the University, has been under threat since the early 20th century. Northwestern researchers, students and alumni are discovering solutions for water quality issues and climate change challenges in the Great Lakes region.
If you drive by or stroll along the lakefront on the Evanston campus on a regular basis, you might have noticed that the color of Lake Michigan has been changing the past few years. While most of the time the water is a familiar slate blue-gray or brown-green color, there are days when it turns a Caribbean blue, almost turquoise.
For nearly five decades, fog artist Fujiko Nakaya ’57 has presented her ethereal, shape-shifting installations of pure water vapor in an effort to connect humans to nature.
Nyree Zerega, who studies evolution, genetic diversity, origins and pollination biology of plants, finds inspiration in her colleagues — people who are passionate about getting outdoors to learn about ecosystems around the world.
It was the majestic oak trees near the shore of Lake Michigan that caught Orrington Lunt’s eye on his first visit to the land that today is Northwestern University’s Evanston campus. “The thought first struck me that here was where the high and dry ground began,” Lunt, one of the University’s founders, later wrote.
