2006 News and Events Archive
Site Navigation
![]() |
Research Project Search
You will need Adobe Acrobat Reader to view some of the files on this page. See EPA's PDF page to learn more about PDF, and for a link to the free Acrobat Reader. |
Featured Stories | People In The News | Grant Applications Sought | Grants Awarded | Past Events
41 P3 Grants Awarded
EPA has awarded P3 grants to student teams representing 41 universities in 21 states. Winners were chosen from about 100 teams who applied. All the competition winners received $10,000 grants to research and develop their design projects during the academic year (2005-2006).
[Read More]
Cellulose Makes Plastic 3,000 Times Stronger
NCER STAR grantee William Winter at the SUNY College of Environmental Science and Forestry (ESF) is developing ways to use cellulose from wood to strengthen plastics, providing a lightweight component that has the added advantage of being biodegradable. [Read More | Abstract | Video]
Students Plant a Green Future for the Environment and the Economy: Think money doesn't grow on trees?
Take a closer look at projects being done by 42 student design teams, who received $420,000 in grants from EPA to research and develop sustainable environmental solutions. Students at Southern Illinois University will develop green roofs made of plants for improved storm water management, increased energy conservation, reduced urban heat island effects, and extended roof life - - all of which means saving dollars! Students at the University of Tennessee will test whether algae (one-celled plants) can generate enough hydrogen energy in a biohydrogen facility to produce transportation fuel for a city of 100,000 people.[Read full article]
New Biodiversity and Human Health research program planned.
The National Center for Environmental Research (NCER) at the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency's (EPA) Office of Research and Development has proposed a joint Ecosystem-Health research program to study the links between changes in biodiversity and risks to human health. [Read More]
Nanofibers: A Novel Approach to Filtration
With support from EPA's SBIR Program, eSpin Technologies, Inc., developed and commercialized custom-made nonwoven membranes, whiskers, and 3-dimensional structures using nanofibers. These fibers can be made from a variety of organic, inorganic, or biological polymers. [Read full article (PDF) (2 pp, 130 K)]
Technology for a Sustainable Environment Grant Program: A Decade of Innovation
New report describes the collaborative funding program between EPA's National Center for Environmental Research and the National Science Foundation (NSF). The report defines and documents the research conducted during the 10 years the program existed and covers some of the many "Success Stories" of innovations that grew out of the funded projects. [Read full article]
National Sustainable Design Expo Winners Announced
Washington, D.C. - George Gray, Assistant Administrator for EPA's Office of Research and Development, today announced the winners of EPA's 2nd Annual P3 Awards - People, Prosperity, and the Planet. Six student teams from Appalachian State University, University of Michigan, Lafayette College, Portland State University, University of Massachusetts - Lowell, and Stanford University won the awards by competing at EPA's National Sustainable Design Expo. [Read full article]
National Sustainable Design Expo featuring EPA's P3 Award
More than 350 college and university students will soon head to the nation's capital to compete for the EPA's Second Annual P3 (People, Prosperity, Planet) Award on the National Mall in Washington, DC. The National Sustainable Design Expo is the showcase for the EPA's P3 Awards featuring novel designs for green buildings, innovative alternative fuel technologies, ideas on rainwater collection, and even options for "greening" the apparel industry. [Read full article]
Winning Ideas
"Green" dorms, biodiesel buses, and new ways to remove arsenic from groundwater are some of the winning projects from this year's EPA P3 competition. [Read full article]
Enhanced Plasma Sterilized Filtration™ System: Improving Indoor Air Quality
With support from EPA's SBIR Program, Atmospheric Glow Technologies, Inc. (AGT), developed and is actively commercializing its Enhanced Plasma System (EPS) for IAQ. The EPS-IAQ, covered by four patents, is a multi-stage system that eliminates airborne microorganisms and certain chemicals using One Atmosphere Uniform Glow Discharge Plasma (OAUGDP®). The EPS-IAQ consists of an OAUGDP generator, a particulate filter for microorganism capture, a volatile organic compound (VOC) filter, and an ozone catalytic filter. [Read full article (PDF) (2 pp, 125 K)]
Vital Signs At Risk: High-Traffic Areas Tied to Children's Asthma Risk
New York - Children who live near busy roads are more likely to have symptoms of asthma than those who do not, a study of more than 5,000 children in Southern California has found. The study, which appears in Environmental Health Perspectives, found that children who lived within 250 feet of major roads had a 50 percent higher risk of having had asthma symptoms in the past year.[Read full article]
Upflow Filters for Rapid and Effective Treatment of Stormwater
With support from EPA's SBIR Program, USInfrastructure, Inc. (USI), developed an upflow filter technology that is a low-cost, low-maintenance filtration system for stormwater treatment. Stormwater filters with a mixed sand/organic media operated in an upflow mode have the potential to eliminate many of the disadvantages associated with conventional downflow stormwater filters. [Read full article (PDF) (2 pp, 96 K)]
Small Business Develops Water Treatment System to Remove Biological Infestations and Chemical Contamination in Waterways
With support from EPA's SBIR Program, Eltron Research, Inc., developed a unique hydrogen peroxide (H2O2) generation technology into a turn-key, modular, flow-through water treatment system for bilge, ballast, and wastewater treatment.
[Read full article (PDF) (2 pp, 110 K)]
Field of Dreams
Corn on the cob. Corn nibblets. Corn muffins. Corndogs. And now, corn containers. When the world's largest retailer recently announced it is switching from petroleum-based plastic containers to those made of corn for its cut fruit, herbs, strawberries, and Brussels sprouts, it signaled that this new generation of plastic had reached the big time.
[Read full article]
Special Issue of International Journal of Remote Sensing Focuses on Unique STAR Program: EaGLe
The December 2005 edition of the International Journal of Remote Sensing (2005 International J. of Remote Sensing, 26, #23), highlights the remote sensing and Geographical Information System (GIS) research conducted by scientists from EPA's Estuarine and Great Lakes (EaGLe) program. The remote sensing component of this program was in part supported through a partnership with NASA. The remote sensing component of this program was in part supported through a partnership with NASA.
[Read full article]
EPA Announces Environmental Economics Research Strategy to Support Policy Decisions
EPA recently announced the release of a long-term strategy to conduct research in environmental economics and decision sciences that will further the Agency's mission to protect public health and the environment. The Environmental Economics Research Strategy identifies and prioritizes research that will be conducted over the next five to ten years to improve the scientific foundation for EPA's decision-making and policy initiatives.
[Read full article]
STAR Grantee Receives Science Award
Dr. Shanna Swan recently received the Jenifer Altman Award for her outstanding dedication to scientific integrity in environmental health sciences and the pursuit of science in the public interest. The award is given to five scientists selected by the Board of Directors of the Jenifer Altman Foundation.
[Read More]
History in the Making
Philip Garone, an EPA Science To Achieve Results (STAR) graduate fellow, recently accepted a full-time tenure track position as an Assistant Professor of U.S. Environmental History at California State University, Stanislaus.
[Read More]
STAR Fellow and Grantee Co-Author Article
Former Science to Achieve Results (STAR) fellow Michael Dillon and STAR grantee Melanie Frazier have co-authored a paper on the physiology and evolution of alpine insects for the journal Integrative and Comparative Biology (Vol. 46, Number 1, February 2006).
[Read More]
EPA Fellow Appointed Editor of Haseltonia
An article from ScienCentral News was written on a scientific study reports that the air pollution that's so common to our cities and even suburbs could put unborn babies at risk for mental deficiencies. This ScienCentral News video has more.
[Read More]
American Society for Public Administration Honors STAR Grantee
STAR grantee Peter J. May has received the William E. and Fredrick C. Mosher Award for the best article by an academic published in the Public Administration Review in 2005. Dr. May received the award at the annual meeting of the American Society of Public Administration in Denver, Colorado, in April 2006.
[Read More]
Three STAR Grantees Receive First AERE Fellows Awards
Three Science to Achieve Results (STAR) grantees were recently honored by the Association of Environmental and Resource Economists (AERE). Dr. Maureen Cropper, Dr. Michael Hanemann, and Dr. V. Kerry Smith were recognized for their outstanding contributions to the field of environmental and resource economics. The three scientists became the first members of AERE's Fellows Award program
, initiated in 2005. Three other researchers were also honored at the annual AERE luncheon and business meeting on January 7, 2006 in Boston, Massachusetts.
[Read More]
Newspaper Article Profiles NCER Fellow's Research
NCER Fellow Rena Borkhataria, a doctoral student at the University of Florida, is studying the federally-endangered wood stork in the Florida Everglades. On March 30, 2006, the Naples Daily News featured her research project and the quest to know more about where the endangered birds forage and nest across the Southeast United States and how long adults of the species are surviving in the wild.
[Read More]
National Academy of Sciences Honors STAR Grantees
The National Academy of Sciences recently elected Dr. Gretchen C. Daily, a Science to Achieve Results (STAR) grantee, as a member of its prestigious organization. Dr. Daily is part of a group of 90 new members.
Election to the Academy is considered one of the highest honors that can be accorded a scientist or engineer. Members and foreign associates of the Academy are elected in recognition of their distinguished and continuing achievements in original research.
[Read More]
Work of EPA AAAS Fellow Highlighted
Dr. Betsy Van Holle, an American Association for the Advancement of Science (AAAS) fellow at EPA, is the focus of a feature article
on the AAAS web site. Dr. Van Holle will be in New Delhi, India, November 8-19 to meet with a group of scientists and policy makers from the U.S. and India as part of the Indo-U.S. Science and Technology Forum.
[Read More]
STAR Grantee's Research Highlighted in Applied Spectroscopy
The nanotechnology research of STAR grantee, Dr. Murray Johnston, is the focus of the most recent issue of Applied Spectroscopy (Applied Spectroscopy (2006) 60(10), 264A-272A), the official publication of the Society for Applied Spectroscopy. The October 2006 issue highlights the work of Dr. Johnston and his co-researchers, Shenyi Wang and Melissa Reinard, at the University of Delaware.
[Read More]
STAR Grantee Serving as Committee Chair
Dr. Terry Gordon is an EPA Science To Achieve Results (STAR) grantee working on health issues related to Particulate Matter (PM) and other inhaled pollutants. He was recently appointed as Chair of the Threshold Limit Value for the Chemical Substances Committee for the American Conference of Governmental Industrial Hygienists (ACGIH).
[Read More]
National Center for Environmental Research (NCER) Post-Doctoral Research Program
NCER seeks a candidate to fill a federal three-year post-doctoral research position in support of activities related to the Council for Regulatory Environmental Modeling (CREM), a cross-Agency institution established to promote consistency and consensus among environmental model developers and users, thus helping to ensure that the Agency's model-based decisions are based on the best available practicable science.
[Read More]
Nanotechnology Research Grants Investigating Environmental and Human Health Effects of Manufactured Nanomaterials: a Joint Research Solicitation-EPA, NSF, NIOSH, NIEHS
The US Environmental Protection Agency (EPA), as part of its Science to Achieve Results (STAR) program, along with NSF, NIOSH, and NIEHS are seeking applications proposing research about the potential implications of nanotechnology and manufactured nanomaterials on human health and the environment. Research areas can include the toxicology and biological effects; environmental fate, transport and transformation; exposure and bioavailability; and industrial ecology and life cycle assessment.
[Read More]
3rd Annual P3 Award: A National Student Design Competition for Sustainability Focusing on People, Prosperity, and the Planet
The P3 competition will provide grants to teams of college students to research, develop, and design solutions to challenges to sustainability. P3 highlights people, prosperity, and the planet – the three pillars of sustainability – as the next step beyond P2 or pollution prevention. EPA and its partners offer the P3 Award competition to respond to the technical needs of the developed and developing world in moving towards the goal of sustainability.
[Read More]
STAA Awards for 2005
EPA's STAA awards for 2005 were recently announced by the Administrator Stephen Johnson and the Science Advisory Board. This year out of 110 papers submitted for the competition, 39 received awards and 31 others received honorable mentions. The STAA review program is a long-standing partnership between the Agency and the EPA Science Advisory Board. Each year since 1980, Agency scientists and engineers have submitted nominated scientific and technological papers through an internal Agency review process managed by the Office of Research and Development (ORD).
[Read More]
$5 Million Awarded to Study Health and Environmental Effects of Nanotechnology
Nanotechnology has the potential to transform environmental clean-up, treat serious illnesses, and improve computer technology. EPA wants to see Americans benefit from this exciting new technology while ensuring that human health and the environment are protected. Therefore EPA has awarded 14 grants totaling $5 million to universities to investigate potential health and environmental effects of manufactured nanomaterials. By performing research on potential adverse affects, EPA is doing what is right for both human and environmental health and technological progress.
[Read More]
42 P3 Grants Awarded
EPA today awarded $420,000 to 42 student teams for the 2006-2007 academic year to research and develop cutting-edge, sustainable solutions to environmental challenges. The People, Prosperity and the Planet (P3) competition encourages university teams to address an environment issue while providing economic opportunities and maintaining economic growth. This year's teams will work on developing alternative energy sources, providing clean water to rural communities, new methods of recycling, novel options for green buildings, designing sustainable buildings, and much more.
[Read More]
EPA awards U.W. nearly $750,000 for Pesticides Research
Today, the University of Washington (U.W.) was awarded a $749,997 grant from the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) to conduct research to develop methods to help determine if children exposed to pesticides are at increased risk of developing health effects because of those exposures.
[Read More]
EPA awards $70,000 to local companies in Oregon and Washington for Small Business Innovation Research
Michael Bogert, EPA Region 10 Administrator, today announced that four small businesses in Region 10 each received $70,000 from the EPA's Small Business Innovation Research (SBIR) program.
[Read More]
Colorado Small Businesses Receive EPA Research Contracts
Robert E. Roberts, EPA Region 8 Administrator, today announced that six Colorado small business received a total of $870,000 in research contracts -- three small businesses in each received $220,000, and another three received $70,000 -- from the Small Business Innovation Research (SBIR) program in the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency (EPA).
[Read More]
U.S. EPA Collaborative Science and Technology Network for Sustainability Progress Review Meeting
- December 5-6, 2006
[Read More]
International Conference on Nanotechnology Occupational and Environmental Health and Safety: Research to Practice
- December 4-7, 2006
[Read More]
2006 USEPA STAR Nanotechnology Environmental Implications Progress Review Workshop
- November 13-14, 2006
[Read More]
2006 USEPA STAR Nanotechnology Environmental Applications and GRO Progress Review Workshop
- November 8-9, 2006
[Read More]
USEPA NCER/NCEE Market Mechanisms and Incentives Workshop
- October 17-18, 2006
[Read More]
The Role of Air Pollutants in Cardiovascular Disease
- October 12-13, 2006
[Read More]
2006 EPA Graduate Fellowship Conference "From Discovery to Solutions: Generation Y Scientists Lead the Way"
- September 24, 2006
[Read More]
US EPA and CDC Symposium on Air Pollution Exposure and Health
- September 19, 2006
[Read More]
Forum on Biodiversity and Human Health: A Multidisciplinary Approach To Examining the Links
- September 14, 2006
[Read More]
USEPA Small Business Innovation Research (SBIR) Program Workshop
- August 2, 2006
[Read More]
U.S. EPA Endocrine Disruptors Program - 2006 STAR Progress Review Workshop
- July 13-14, 2006
[Read More]
10th Annual Green Chemistry and Engineering Conference - Designing for a Sustainable Future
- June 26-30, 2006
[Read More]
U.S. EPA STAR Global Aquatic Ecosystem Services and Multi-Stressor Progress Review Workshop
- June 8-9, 2006
[Read More]
Public Participation in Nanotechnology & Nanoscale Science
- May 30-31, 2006
[Read More]
EPA's Science Forum: Your Health, Your Environment, Your Future
- May 16-18,2006
[Read More]
National SBIR Conference
- May 15-18,2006
[Read More]
National Sustainable Design Expo featuring EPA's P3 Award
- May 9-10,2006
[Read More]
U.S. EPA Region 2 Science Day 2006 Environmental Health for Work and for Life
- April 26, 2006
[Read More]
Nanotechnology Applications in Environmental Health: Big Plans for Little Particles
- April 20, 2006
[Read More]
U.S. EPA Mechanisms and Health Risks of Exposure to Ambient Particulate Matter Research Meeting
- April 18, 2006
[Read More]
US EPA NCER/NCEE Workshop Morbidity and Mortality: How Do We Value the Risk of Illness and Death?
- April 10, 2006
[Read More]
U.S. EPA STAR Fire, Climate, and Air Quality Kick-Off Meeting (morning)
- April 3, 2006
[Read More]
U.S. EPA STAR Fire, Climate, and Air Quality Kick-Off Meeting (afternoon)
- April 3, 2006
[Read More]
Small Business Innovation Research - Regional Workshops
- March 28, 2006
[Read More]
Small Business Innovation Research - Regional Workshops
- March 23, 2006
[Read More]
Small Business Innovation Research - Regional Workshops
- March 15, 2006
[Read More]
Small Business Innovation Research - Regional Workshops
- March 8-9, 2006
[Read More]
Small Business Innovation Research - Regional Workshops
- February 22, 2006
[Read More]