Hello Everyone:
First: Happy New Year!
Second: The news:
As mentioned in last month’s blog, I was in Israel as part of a
delegation focusing on water technologies. The trip was very interesting and
productive. I found water management in Israel quite fascinating. The country
has experienced so many different phases including mostly dry land, water
transfer/distribution, conservation, wastewater reuse and now desalination. One
problem motivating the use of desalination is the concern over hormones in the
wastewater (e.g., reduced sperm count and motility in males). Each of these
phases are very strong, and I would characterize it as “water management on steroids”. I also had the opportunity to meet with other researchers at
Technion, which may lead to some interesting collaborations. Here is a picture
of me and my colleague, Auroop Ganguly at the Hadera Desalination Plant:
The Spring Semester is starting. I am teaching two classes. (1)
The environmental section of the senior design capstone class. This year we are
focusing on “community-scale solutions for reducing phosphorus inputs to the
Charles River”. (2) The surface water quality modeling graduate class.
On behalf of the Charles River Conservancy (CRC) and the Civil & Environmental Engineering Department at Northeastern University (NU), I would like to invite you you to attend the Third Annual Charles River Water Quality Workshop on February 5, 2013 from 8 AM - Noon at NU. Charles River Water Quality Workshops were held in 2010 and 2011 and, similar to previous years, this workshop will focus on sharing water quality data gathered by a variety of skateholders, including US EPA Region 1, the Massachusetts Department of Public Health, and Charles River Watershed Association, and others during the 2012 season. Following the presentations, there will be time for a broader group discussion on work and experiences during 2012 and plans for the coming year.
Below is additional meeting information. Please RSVP by January 30th (see RSVP info below).
Location: Northeastern University Snell Library Room 90SL
Date and Time: February 5, 2013 | 8 AM - Noon
Directions: http://library.northeastern.edu/about/maps-and-directions
RSVP: Please RSVP by email to to patricia@thecharles.org. Be sure to include your name, title/position, organization, and phone number in your email.
Best regards,
Ferdi
Hi Everyone:Ok, so I am off to Israel today. I am part of a delegation of about 50 people that are traveling as part of the “Massachusetts Water Innovation Mission to Israel”. We will visit some of the water infrastructure and meet with professionals and academics. I hope to learn more about water resources in this stressed region, and also make some connections for future research collaborations. If you want to learn more about this trip, you can read this article in Xconomy: http://goo.gl/ahpCZ. I also presented a research seminar at Geosyntec Consultants, an environmental engineering and science company: http://www.geosyntec.com/UI/Default.aspxI gave an overview of my research program and talked about a recent project looking at intraspecific nutrient heterogeneity. You can get my slides from here: https://www.dropbox.com/sh/81tv7ozuyu6a05x/oidkXVDlVg/2012/Geosyntec_Charles_Quota_Heterogeneity.pptxBest regards,Ferdi
Hello World,
The Northeastern CEE department is searching for a new faculty member in the area of urban water. Here is the add description:
Northeastern University seeks faculty candidates for tenured or tenure-track appointments at the assistant, associate, or full professor level in the Department of Civil and Environmental Engineering and in conjunction with interdisciplinary positions across the campus. The department is in the midst of a significant, multi-year expansion in size and scope, including faculty, facilities, and programs within several disciplines and across disciplinary boundaries. The successful candidate will be expected to demonstrate a proven ability to sustain a research program with an emphasis on interdisciplinary and translational research, teach both undergraduate and graduate classes, and be an active, recognized leader in the discipline. Applicants with a distinguished record and vision in environmental engineering and related fields will be considered for the CDM Endowed Professorship in Civil Engineering . We invite applications from individuals who can contribute to areas of civil and environmental engineering related to Urban Water and Environmental Systems Engineering. Other related interdisciplinary positions are also available via separate application and are described at http://www.civ.neu.edu/civilsearch.
https://neu.peopleadmin.com/postings/21971
Please pass this along to anyone you think may be interested, and contact me if you have any questions.
Best regards,
Ferdi
Hello People:
So last month I was at ISME in Copenhagen. It was nice to see some
friends, and also listen to presentations from people I know from the
literature. The main thing I took away from the conference is that
individual-based observations (IBO) (e.g. single cell genomics, NanoSIMS, etc.)
are really taking off. It seems that every session I visited had at least one
presentation with some sort of IBO. To me, as an individual-based modeler
(IBM), I see a lot of potential to make progress using IBMs. “IBMs for IBOs” is
a main motivation for using IBM (e.g. Hellweger and Bucci, 2009),
I am glad to announce that I will be busy with a new NSF project
with Hans Paerl (UNC), Steve Wilhelm (UTK), Greg Boyer (SUNY Syracuse), Wayne
Gardner (UT Austin) and Mark McCarthy (U Guelph) entitled “Dimensions:
Collaborative Research: Anthropogenic nutrient input drives genetic, functional
and taxonomic biodiversity in hypereutrophic Lake Taihu, China”. I am very
excited to work with a great team on an important problem. Here is a blurb on
the CEE web site: http://www.civ.neu.edu/news/index.html#hellweger2
This semester I am teaching Hydrology and am working on my yeast bet
hedging model.
Best regards,
Ferdi
Hi Everyone:
Today, I am off to Copenhagen for a meeting of the International
Society of Microbial Ecology (ISME). I am presenting a poster entitled
“adaptation of bacteria to ameliorate the metabolic burden of carrying
antibiotic resistance genes (a systems bioecology modeling analysis)”. I am
really looking forward to this meeting. There are a lot of interesting
presentations and “roundtable discussions”. You can learn more about the
conference here: http://www.isme-microbes.org/isme14/
When I get back its time to do some vacation with family. On the
agenda is a 4-day stretch of the Appalachian Trail (AT) in Vermont. It will be
an adventure...
Then its full speed into the semester. I am teaching two graduate
classes: Hydrology and Surface Water Quality Modeling. My goal for research for
the Fall semester will be to finish the yeast bet hedging model (see my
previous post)...
Farvel (goodbye in Danish),
Ferdi
Hi Friends:
The last couple of weeks I have been immersed in a new project,
which is about bet hedging in yeast. It all started with a very exciting paper
I read by Levy et al:
http://www.plosbiology.org/article/info%3Adoi%2F10.1371%2Fjournal.pbio.1001325
There is a tremendous amount of data in that paper, but the most
interesting findings (from my perspective) is that they see a correlation
between age, growth rate and stress resistance. The idea they put forward is
that old cells are best candidates for being stress resistant persistors,
because they contribute relatively less to the population growth anyway. I am
working on developing a model to investigate this question. This is one of the
most joyful times for me, when I learn about a new problem, read up on the
literature, start coding the model, etc... I feel like I am back in graduate
school.
Our summer Charles River work has started again. This year, PhD
student Xiaodan Ruan, RETs Judy Luber-Narod and Jalal Ghaemghami, and YSPs
Nicholas King and Jackie Ly will be focusing on understanding the ecology of
toxic cyanobacteria in the river. Last year’s research was hampered a bit
because we did not get a significant bloom. This year we already had a big
bloom and temperatures are high, so we expect to get more (bad for the river,
good for research).
Some updates on my web page: As you can see on my homepage
(www.systemsbioecology.org), I make use of other sites to host my stuff. For
example, I have a YouTube channel for all my videos, and my blog is here at
Blogspot. I have found this strategy to be quite useful, and I now also started
using Dropbox to host my files for Talks, CV and Models.
Best regards,
Ferdi
