Science

Doing Things Your Own Way 

What's going to be your next big invention? Students and faculty are taking their ideas and building them at the Rutgers Makerspace, which has tools like a laser cutter and 3D printer to help you get the job done. Everyone is welcome. Watch and see how it works.

For over 25 years, the Eastern Regional Radon Training Center (ERRTC) at Rutgers University has been providing training in radon measurement and mitigation to professionals throughout the country. To improve the learning experience for students, the ERRTC opened a brand-new, state-of-the-art training facility on the Cook Campus in summer 2015.

“Watching the new radon training facility being built from the ground up has been really interesting,” said Program Coordinator Pamela Springard-Mayer.

The new facility was used for the first time by students attending the July 15 Radon Mitigation class.

In the past, the hands-on portions of the Rutgers three-day Radon Mitigation Proficiency Course were taught at Rutgers' Environmental Health and Safety Building (affectionately known as "the slab") on the Livingston Campus in Piscataway.

When a site is contaminated with petroleum products, there are many questions. How did it happen? When did it happen? And, most importantly, who is responsible for paying to clean it up?

This fall, Rutgers University's Office of Continuing Professional Education (OCPE) will help professionals answer those questions in its completely revamped Environmental Forensics training course.

Designed for environmental consultants, attorneys, hazardous material emergency responders and professionals in related fields, the two-day class (September 9-10, 2015) will reveal the science behind the environmental forensics of petroleum and chlorinated hydrocarbon geochemistry. Students will also learn about new trends in professional investigations.

The Wonders of Wetlands

Wetlands are essential components of our natural environment.  Providing shoreline protection, nursery for multiple freshwater and saltwater fishes, critical habitat for countless species of wildlife, storm water storage, nutrient filtration, sediment retention, niches that harbor unique species, shoreline protection and many other more subtle yet essential natural functions.  Legions of biologists, ecologists, and other scientists have studied and cataloged these diverse systems for decades.  

As the need to stem losses of these resources became more acute during the 1970’s and 1980’s, scientists endeavored to find ways in which degraded systems could be restored and new wetlands might be created.  These efforts led to some successful projects... and many not so successful projects. A few experts began to recognize that the failed sites typically had not adequately addressed replacement of hydrologic functions.

Kimberly Smith had been working for only two weeks as a process engineer when she found herself struggling with an entirely new language – the lingo of food chemistry and microbiology.

“It was like a foreign language,” said Smith, who helps manufacture soups and other foods at Campbell’s Soup.

Last summer, she radically improved her fluency with an intensive five-day Introduction to Food Science class, offered by the Office of Continuing Professional Education (OCPE) at Rutgers University.

“The course helped me understand the basic language of food product development,” she said.  Now she can better talk the multi-disciplinary talk that all good food scientists must master.

Need a place that fosters innovation and invention? The Rutgers Makerspace, located at the Center for Innovation Education on the Rutgers Livingston Campus, provides students, educators, and entrepreneurs with a hands-on learning environment that is part classroom, part workshop, and part think tank. Also known as ‘hackerspaces’, ‘fab labs’, and ‘makelabs’, makerspaces are creative laboratories where members with common interests such as engineering, computer programming, inventing, graphic design, and others gather to share resources and knowledge, network, and build innovative creations.

High-achieving high school students can experience university life, earn college credits, and get a head start on their post-secondary educations through Rutgers University’s Summer Scholars Program.

Summer Scholars, who must be high school juniors or younger, may take up to two Rutgers courses during Summer Session II (June 24-August 1), or Session III (July 8-August 14).

Students entering their junior or senior year of high school in fall 2013, who have a minimum GPA of 3.0, may apply to take introductory-level college courses. Exceptional students younger than 16 are considered on a case-by-case basis and are required to be interviewed and submit a PSAT or SAT score.

Scholarships covering 20 percent of the course tuition are available to students with a recommendation letter from their guidance counselor.

Dr. Deborah Silver, executive director of Rutgers’ Professional Science Master’s Program (PSM) and a professor in the Department of Electrical and Computer Engineering, has been elected vice president of the board of the National Professional Science Master’s Association (NPMSA).

The NPMSA promotes and supports the growth and development of professional science master’s degree programs. 

Silver has been the executive director for the past three years and is a professor in the department of Electrical and Computer Engineering. Prior to heading the PSM program, she was associate dean for continuing and professional education for the Rutgers School of Engineering.