On Friday May 5th, the EDGE Institute hosted It’s first event since Dr. Marilyn Fogel was named EDGE director. The 2017 EDGE Student Graduate Symposium featured keynote guest speaker Jan Amend, Professor at the University of Southern California and the Director of the NSF Science and Technology Center for Dark Energy Biosphere Investigations (C-DEBI). Jan’s talk was titled “The Biosphere Beneath the Ocean Floor” where he highlighted some recent findings on the microbiology in young basalt near mid-ocean ridges and related them to key geochemical and geophysical characteristics of marine sediments on a global scale. About 100 faculty, Staff and students from different departments attended this symposium.
On behalf on Mr. Michael Devirian, the EDGE Institute supported three graduate students studying in the areas related to global climate and environmental change and the associated changes to ecosystems with $800 scholarships in 2017. The following students received the award: Lorena Villanueva-Almanza, Johnathan Nye, and Elizabeth Deyett. An additional three scholars received the EDGE Institute research award, those graduate students were: Michelle Zill, Marissa Giroux and Eleinis Avila-Lovera.