Featured Stories
Site Revealed for one of the World's Most Advanced Nuclear Reactors, Set to be Built at Idaho State University
POCATELLO, Idaho, Sept. 23 -- Idaho State University posted the following news:
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Site Revealed for one of the World's Most Advanced Nuclear Reactors, Set to be Built at Idaho State University
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"Idaho is not a great place to sell energy. It's a great place to build it," he said. "And this is an example right here, of exactly that. We're going to build the energy, we're going to build the technology, we're going to build the components, and, more importantly, we're going to build the great minds and the skillset to deploy all across this country as the nuclear renaissance goes forward."
In
... Show Full Article
POCATELLO, Idaho, Sept. 23 -- Idaho State University posted the following news:
* * *
Site Revealed for one of the World's Most Advanced Nuclear Reactors, Set to be Built at Idaho State University
*
"Idaho is not a great place to sell energy. It's a great place to build it," he said. "And this is an example right here, of exactly that. We're going to build the energy, we're going to build the technology, we're going to build the components, and, more importantly, we're going to build the great minds and the skillset to deploy all across this country as the nuclear renaissance goes forward."
InApril, the Department of Energy selected Idaho State University for the Department's Nuclear Reactor Innovation Center Launch Pad USA program. In partnership with Idaho Falls-based NuCube Energy, Inc., the University plans to design and commission the Advanced Research and Test Reactor, a functional microreactor at ISU's Business and Research Park.
On Wednesday, leaders from across the state gathered at the future site of the reactor to recognize the project, the first of its kind in the nation. Along with Gov. Little, ISU President Robert Wagner, INL Deputy Director Todd Combs, NuCube CEO Cristian Rabiti, Launchpad USA Technical Program Manager Jake Rymer, Shoshone-Bannock Tribal Business Council Member Russell Haskett and ISU student Sam Jeffries spoke at the event.
The project will serve as a hub for student learning, applied research, and reactor operations. Idaho State University offers the only nuclear engineering undergraduate program in the state. The University has been meeting workforce needs for more than 60 years through its current reactor, and is well-positioned to offer education and research opportunities to help transform the energy landscape, Combs said.
Idaho State University has operated a research reactor on campus since 1965, and is one of only 24 universities in the United States with a nuclear reactor. This connection played a key role in being selected for the new reactor partnership.
"You have a rich history here at Idaho State," Combs said. "Generations of students have earned their license on that reactor, and hundreds of students will earn their operator license on the new reactor. The laboratory has a lot of workforce needs."
Rabiti said the partnership between his company and ISU was a natural one. NuCube is an advanced nuclear technology company based in Idaho Falls that develops factory-built microreactors that provide carbon-free electricity and high-temperature industrial heat.
"We are an innovation company. We are a research company. It's natural to think about a University partnership," he said. "We are a company that is focusing on changing the ways we build reactors. This is not only building a reactor. This is building an innovation partnership."
NuCube is already building that partnership, employing Idaho State University students. Jeffries, an ISU graduate student and full-time engineer spent more than a decade in engineering before coming to ISU to further his education, and is the lab manager and test engineer at NuCube.
"While balancing a full load of graduate classes with a full-time engineering position can definitely be demanding, it gives me the opportunity to immediately apply what I'm learning at ISU to the work I do at NuCube every day," he said.
Wagner said the project demonstrates ISU's commitment to the promises made in the University's Contract for Idaho -to power Idaho's energy future, train Idaho's workforce, leverage partnerships and strengthen Idaho's economy.
"For ISU, this partnership is more than a demonstration of our commitment to education," he said. "As we celebrate our 125 year anniversary we can look back and see the broad impact this institution has had on our communities and the State of Idaho."
***
Original text here: https://www.isu.edu/news/2026-fall/site-revealed-for-one-of-the-worlds-most-advanced-nuclear-reactors-set-to-be-built-at-idaho-state-university.html
Masashi Yanagisawa, M.D., Ph.D., receives Lasker Award for discovery that transformed narcolepsy care
DALLAS, Texas, Sept. 23 -- The University of Texas Southwestern Medical Center posted the following news release:
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Masashi Yanagisawa, M.D., Ph.D., receives Lasker Award for discovery that transformed narcolepsy care
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DALLAS - Sept. 09, 2026 - The Lasker Foundation has announced that UT Southwestern Medical Center sleep researcher Masashi Yanagisawa, M.D., Ph.D., is a recipient of the 2026 Albert Lasker Basic Medical Research Award for his discovery of orexin, a brain peptide that maintains wakefulness, and demonstration that the absence of its action is responsible for narcolepsy, a
... Show Full Article
DALLAS, Texas, Sept. 23 -- The University of Texas Southwestern Medical Center posted the following news release:
* * *
Masashi Yanagisawa, M.D., Ph.D., receives Lasker Award for discovery that transformed narcolepsy care
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DALLAS - Sept. 09, 2026 - The Lasker Foundation has announced that UT Southwestern Medical Center sleep researcher Masashi Yanagisawa, M.D., Ph.D., is a recipient of the 2026 Albert Lasker Basic Medical Research Award for his discovery of orexin, a brain peptide that maintains wakefulness, and demonstration that the absence of its action is responsible for narcolepsy, aprofound disorder of sleep.
Dr. Yanagisawa was a full-time faculty member for more than 20 years at UT Southwestern, where he conducted the prize-winning research. He is now a part-time Professor of Molecular Genetics at UTSW and holds a primary appointment as Director of the International Institute for Integrative Sleep Medicine at the University of Tsukuba in Japan. He is receiving the award along with Emmanuel Mignot, M.D., Ph.D., the Craig Reynolds Professor of Sleep Medicine at Stanford University, who independently identified the role of the orexin protein in controlling sleep.
Often called "America's Nobels," the Lasker Awards, established in 1945 by Albert and Mary Woodard Lasker, recognize significant advances in the understanding, diagnosis, treatment, cure, and prevention of human disease and are regarded as the country's preeminent biomedical research prize.
Dr. Yanagisawa's recognition marks the third consecutive year and sixth time that a UT Southwestern scientist has received a Lasker Award. With this honor, he joins Steven McKnight, Ph.D. (2025), Professor of Biochemistry; Zhijian "James" Chen, Ph.D. (2024), Professor of Molecular Biology; and Nobel Laureates Alfred Gilman, M.D., Ph.D. (1989), Michael Brown, M.D. (1985), Professor of Molecular Genetics, and Joseph Goldstein, M.D. (1985), Chair and Professor of Molecular Genetics, as UT Southwestern recipients.
Dr. Yanagisawa's research has led to transformational treatments in the field, including orexin-blocking drugs for insomnia and a new orexin-activating drug to treat narcolepsy Type 1 called oveporexton, which gained U.S. Food and Drug Administration approval last month. Narcolepsy is a disorder that causes extreme daytime sleepiness and sudden sleep attacks. It affects at least 1 in 2,000 people in the U.S.
"Dr. Yanagisawa's research has the potential to help the millions worldwide who suffer from debilitating sleep disorders," said Daniel K. Podolsky, M.D., President of UT Southwestern. "We are thrilled to see his discoveries that led to the development of groundbreaking therapies recognized by this year's Lasker Basic Medical Research Award."
"I am tremendously honored to receive the 2026 Lasker Award and particularly delighted to see the prestigious recognition given to the field of sleep science, which historically has received relatively little recognition from major academic awards," Dr. Yanagisawa said.
Dr. Yanagisawa discovered orexin in 1998 in his lab at UTSW while searching for molecules that stimulate so-called orphan brain receptors. His research identified two in a portion of the brain implicated in feeding; he named them after the Greek word for appetite (orexis). While studying how a deficiency in orexin genes affected eating in mice, he discovered that it caused sudden nighttime collapses resembling human narcolepsy.
Unlocking a Secret to Sleep and Wakefulness
(Credit: Lasker Foundation)
"I had the privilege of collaborating with Dr. Yanagisawa during the early days following the discovery of orexin and the orexin receptors. It was an exciting time in the field, and I witnessed firsthand his creativity, rigor, and relentless curiosity," said Joel Elmquist, D.V.M., Ph.D., Professor and Vice Chair of Research in the Department of Internal Medicine. "The work that has now culminated in the Lasker Award fundamentally changed our understanding of sleep biology and narcolepsy. Given the recent approval of drugs to treat narcolepsy, this work continues to improve the lives of patients around the world."
At the same time Dr. Yanagisawa was defining the functional effects of orexin, Dr. Mignot was working to identify the defective gene responsible for an inherited form of narcolepsy in two breeds of dogs. He zeroed in on orexin receptor-2 - the same receptor gene Dr. Yanagisawa had uncovered. Their findings were published two weeks apart in 1999.
Dr. Yanagisawa is a member of the National Academy of Sciences and a former Howard Hughes Medical Institute Investigator. He received the 2023 Breakthrough Prize in Life Sciences, making him the third UTSW researcher to do so since the award was launched in 2013.
Born in Tokyo, Dr. Yanagisawa earned his M.D. at the University of Tsukuba in 1985 and a Ph.D. from the same institution three years later. His discovery of endothelin, a hormone that causes blood vessels to contract, caught the attention of Drs. Brown and Goldstein, who recruited him to join UT Southwestern in 1991.
The Lasker Awards will be presented in New York on Sept. 17.
Dr. Brown is a Regental Professor and holds the W.A. (Monty) Moncrief Distinguished Chair in Cholesterol and Arteriosclerosis Research and the Paul J. Thomas Chair in Medicine.
Dr. Chen holds the George L. MacGregor Distinguished Chair in Biomedical Science.
Dr. Elmquist holds the Carl H. Westcott Distinguished Chair in Medical Research and the Maclin Family Distinguished Professorship in Medical Science, in Honor of Dr. Roy A. Brinkley.
Dr. Goldstein is a Regental Professor and holds the Julie and Louis A. Beecherl, Jr. Distinguished Chair in Biomedical Research and the Paul J. Thomas Chair in Medicine.
Dr. McKnight holds the Distinguished Chair in Basic Biomedical Research.
Dr. Podolsky holds the Philip O'Bryan Montgomery, Jr., M.D. Distinguished Presidential Chair in Academic Administration and the Charles Cameron Sprague Distinguished Chair in Biomedical Science.
About UT Southwestern Medical Center
UT Southwestern, one of the nation's premier academic medical centers, integrates pioneering biomedical research with exceptional clinical care and education. The institution's faculty members have received six Nobel Prizes and include 28 members of the National Academy of Sciences, 26 members of the National Academy of Medicine, and 14 Howard Hughes Medical Institute Investigators. The full-time faculty of nearly 3,400 is responsible for groundbreaking medical advances and is committed to translating science-driven research quickly to new clinical treatments. UT Southwestern physicians in more than 80 specialties care for more than 143,000 hospitalized patients, attend to more than 470,000 emergency room cases, and oversee nearly 5.3 million outpatient visits a year.
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Scientists discover metabolite fueling aggressive brain tumor growth
Brain signaling mechanism may explain clozapine weight gain
Protein linked to immune response against tuberculosis
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Original text here: https://www.utsouthwestern.edu/newsroom/articles/year-2026/sept-yanagisawa-lasker-award-narcolepsy-care.html
Researchers Develop First High-Resolution Map of Groundwater Across Brazil
PRINCETON, New Jersey, Sept. 21 -- The High Meadows Environmental Institute at Princeton University posted the following news:
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Researchers Develop First High-Resolution Map of Groundwater Across Brazil
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Princeton researchers used machine learning to construct a map of groundwater levels across the entire 3.29-million-square-mile (8.5 million km2) expanse of Brazil, from its rainforests to its alternately dry and rainy savanna. It is the first national-scale high resolution overview of groundwater depth and could help scientists study the effects of both farmland irrigation and climate
... Show Full Article
PRINCETON, New Jersey, Sept. 21 -- The High Meadows Environmental Institute at Princeton University posted the following news:
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Researchers Develop First High-Resolution Map of Groundwater Across Brazil
*
Princeton researchers used machine learning to construct a map of groundwater levels across the entire 3.29-million-square-mile (8.5 million km2) expanse of Brazil, from its rainforests to its alternately dry and rainy savanna. It is the first national-scale high resolution overview of groundwater depth and could help scientists study the effects of both farmland irrigation and climatechange.
The map, detailed in a paper published today in Environmental Research Letters, provides a clear overview of the depth of groundwater in Brazil, which has the largest supply of renewable freshwater resources in the world. Groundwater helps sustain 90% of Brazil's rivers and supplies more than half its municipalities. It supports Brazil's growing agriculture industry with irrigated areas expected to grow by more than 70% by 2040. But monitoring is limited - Brazil is slightly larger than the continental U.S., but is home to fewer than one-fifth as many well observations.
First author Maria Fleury ('22, *26), a graduate student in Civil and Environmental Engineering, spent a year assembling data from those wells along with statistics on factors that can affect groundwater such as elevation, slope, proximity to streams, rainfall, temperature, soil composition and hydraulic conductivity, which refers to how easily water moves through soil, rock and other underground materials. She then spent an additional year completing the project, including training, testing and understanding the model using explainable AI techniques.
For Fleury, a native of Rio de Janeiro, doing research on her home country was meaningful enough to make her want to come back to Princeton for her graduate work with Reed Maxwell, her mentor and one of the authors of the study. Maxwell is the William and Edna Macaleer Professor of Engineering and Applied Science at Princeton and a professor of civil and environmental engineering and the High Meadows Environmental Institute.
"In my research journey, it's been really important to me to study something that I care about. Staying connected to Brazil has been a key part of that," she said.
The model created a digital map with a resolution of 90 meters, meaning that it divides the map of Brazil into approximately two-acre grids and estimates the groundwater depth for each grid. The end product is made up of more than one billion separate grids.
Researchers used modeling experiments to show that the location of a well can matter more than the number of wells. The map was able to encompass Brazil's widely different climates, from the rainforests with their rich diversity of plants and animals, to the savanna of the Cerrado region, which has both a long dry season and a wet season.
The model found that half of Brazil has groundwater within 39 feet (12 m) of the surface, but estimated depths vary widely with the deepest groundwater estimated at 1,380 feet (420 m). The map uses techniques pioneered by Maxwell's research group. He and other researchers used similar techniques in a January 2026 study of the groundwater of the United States that produced a detailed map. Yueling Ma, a former postdoctoral researcher who worked with Maxwell, was the lead author of the U.S. study and co-author of the Brazil paper.
"Most of the equatorial and subtropical world has very few groundwater measurements, so a technique like this gives us a real path to understanding water availability in places we couldn't before."
Fleury said she plans to continue studying groundwater in Brazil and would like to expand her research. "Understanding the hidden system of groundwater is critical, especially in a changing climate," Fleury said. "As we see more extended dry periods, humans are increasingly relying on groundwater. Having information about how much groundwater there is, and how it is being impacted, is essential if we are to manage it."
The research was funded by the National Science Foundation's Convergence Accelerator Program.
***
Original text here: https://environment.princeton.edu/news/researchers-develop-first-high-resolution-map-of-groundwater-across-brazil/
Inala University Study Hub reaches 200 students as local demand grows
TOOWOOMBA, Australia, Sept. 21 -- The University of Southern Queensland posted the following news:
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Inala University Study Hub reaches 200 students as local demand grows
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The Inala University Study Hub has welcomed its 200th student just eight months after officially opening, marking a significant early milestone for the new tertiary education facility in Brisbane's southwest.
That student is Leanne, a local who has swapped a decades-long career as a chef for a new path studying law.
Her journey reflects the diversity of students using the Hub and the different pathways bringing people
... Show Full Article
TOOWOOMBA, Australia, Sept. 21 -- The University of Southern Queensland posted the following news:
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Inala University Study Hub reaches 200 students as local demand grows
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The Inala University Study Hub has welcomed its 200th student just eight months after officially opening, marking a significant early milestone for the new tertiary education facility in Brisbane's southwest.
That student is Leanne, a local who has swapped a decades-long career as a chef for a new path studying law.
Her journey reflects the diversity of students using the Hub and the different pathways bringing peopleto tertiary education.
Centre Manager Dr Su-Ann Tan said the milestone demonstrated the value of providing flexible study support close to home, particularly in helping strengthen tertiary participation and educational equity.
"The Hub is a relational space where trust is built, students feel genuinely known and a stronger sense of belonging can develop," Dr Tan said.
"For many students, it also provides something they don't have at home - a quiet, local place to study, connect with supportive people and feel part of a learning community."
More than 60 per cent of students using the Hub live in surrounding postcodes, reinforcing its role as a local learning space. Well over 50% are also the first in their family to undertake tertiary study.
The first 200 students are studying across 23 different institutions, from vocational education through to postgraduate and research degrees, and represent more than 24 languages and dialects.
Health, education and engineering have emerged as the most popular fields of study.
Master of Education student Deb said the Hub helped her separate study from the demands of everyday life.
"I love the Inala Study Hub. It is comfortable, welcoming, relaxing and extremely well set up and resourced," Deb said.
"The atmosphere puts me 'in the zone' to focus on study. As soon as I walk through the door, I feel everything else fall away mentally and I am ready to get into my learning."
Bachelor of Games Design student Toby said having a dedicated study space close to home had made a significant difference.
"The Inala University Study Hub has provided exactly the study space I needed. My university is far away from home and I could never really concentrate at home," Toby said.
"It has amazing facilities, supportive staff and a welcoming atmosphere. I plan to study here for a long time and am proud to call it my study space."
Students enrolled at any Australian tertiary institution can access the Hub's free, campus-style facilities and support, including secure study spaces, high-speed Wi-Fi, computers, printing, academic learning advice, student support, career guidance, peer activities, and community connections.
The Inala University Study Hub is delivered by the University of Southern Queensland (UniSQ) and funded through the Australian Government's Suburban University Study Hubs program, which aims to improve access to tertiary education through local study spaces, support services and opportunities to connect.
Dr Tan said reaching 200 students was an encouraging early indication of the Hub's impact.
"This milestone is just the beginning of what we hope the Hub can achieve as we continue to build a student-led environment where students feel supported, confident and connected throughout their study journey," she said.
***
Original text here: https://www.unisq.edu.au/news/2026/09/inala-200-students
What's keeping schoolchildren from eating local foods?
ITHACA, New York, Sept. 20 -- Cornell University posted the following news:
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What's keeping schoolchildren from eating local foods?
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To get locally-grown food onto a schoolchild's lunch tray, communities need supply chains that sort, process and package local farm products. They don't always exist.
Becca Jablonski, visiting associate professor at the Charles H. Dyson School of Applied Economics and Management, part of the Cornell SC Johnson College of Business, contributed to a new report from the U.S. Department of Agriculture's Economic Research Service (USDA ERS) that analyzed farm-to-school
... Show Full Article
ITHACA, New York, Sept. 20 -- Cornell University posted the following news:
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What's keeping schoolchildren from eating local foods?
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To get locally-grown food onto a schoolchild's lunch tray, communities need supply chains that sort, process and package local farm products. They don't always exist.
Becca Jablonski, visiting associate professor at the Charles H. Dyson School of Applied Economics and Management, part of the Cornell SC Johnson College of Business, contributed to a new report from the U.S. Department of Agriculture's Economic Research Service (USDA ERS) that analyzed farm-to-schoolfood procurement pathways. As part of Climate Week NYC, Jablonski will also present an interactive dashboard illustrating food procurement tradeoffs to administrators, researchers and policymakers from 2:35-3:35 p.m. on Sept. 24.
Schools participating in the USDA ERS report spent an estimated $1.8 billion on local food in 2022 and 2023. With more than half of U.S. schools participating in farm-to-school activities, it's become the most frequently enacted regional food policy. This practice has shown economic benefits to farmers, schools and the communities surrounding them, but research is still limited.
Read the full story on Cornell Business News.
Nina Collavo is a staff writer for the Cornell SC College of Business.
***
Original text here: https://news.cornell.edu/stories/2026/09/whats-keeping-schoolchildren-eating-local-foods
(TNSmrp)
Researchers Develop First High-Resolution Map of Groundwater Across Brazil
PRINCETON, New Jersey, Sept. 20 -- The High Meadows Environmental Institute at Princeton University posted the following news:
* * *
Researchers Develop First High-Resolution Map of Groundwater Across Brazil
*
Princeton researchers used machine learning to construct a map of groundwater levels across the entire 3.29-million-square-mile (8.5 million km2) expanse of Brazil, from its rainforests to its alternately dry and rainy savanna. It is the first national-scale high resolution overview of groundwater depth and could help scientists study the effects of both farmland irrigation and climate
... Show Full Article
PRINCETON, New Jersey, Sept. 20 -- The High Meadows Environmental Institute at Princeton University posted the following news:
* * *
Researchers Develop First High-Resolution Map of Groundwater Across Brazil
*
Princeton researchers used machine learning to construct a map of groundwater levels across the entire 3.29-million-square-mile (8.5 million km2) expanse of Brazil, from its rainforests to its alternately dry and rainy savanna. It is the first national-scale high resolution overview of groundwater depth and could help scientists study the effects of both farmland irrigation and climatechange.
The map, detailed in a paper published today in Environmental Research Letters, provides a clear overview of the depth of groundwater in Brazil, which has the largest supply of renewable freshwater resources in the world. Groundwater helps sustain 90% of Brazil's rivers and supplies more than half its municipalities. It supports Brazil's growing agriculture industry with irrigated areas expected to grow by more than 70% by 2040. But monitoring is limited - Brazil is slightly larger than the continental U.S., but is home to fewer than one-fifth as many well observations.
First author Maria Fleury ('22, *26), a graduate student in Civil and Environmental Engineering, spent a year assembling data from those wells along with statistics on factors that can affect groundwater such as elevation, slope, proximity to streams, rainfall, temperature, soil composition and hydraulic conductivity, which refers to how easily water moves through soil, rock and other underground materials. She then spent an additional year completing the project, including training, testing and understanding the model using explainable AI techniques.
For Fleury, a native of Rio de Janeiro, doing research on her home country was meaningful enough to make her want to come back to Princeton for her graduate work with Reed Maxwell, her mentor and one of the authors of the study. Maxwell is the William and Edna Macaleer Professor of Engineering and Applied Science at Princeton and a professor of civil and environmental engineering and the High Meadows Environmental Institute.
"In my research journey, it's been really important to me to study something that I care about. Staying connected to Brazil has been a key part of that," she said.
The model created a digital map with a resolution of 90 meters, meaning that it divides the map of Brazil into approximately two-acre grids and estimates the groundwater depth for each grid. The end product is made up of more than one billion separate grids.
Researchers used modeling experiments to show that the location of a well can matter more than the number of wells. The map was able to encompass Brazil's widely different climates, from the rainforests with their rich diversity of plants and animals, to the savanna of the Cerrado region, which has both a long dry season and a wet season.
The model found that half of Brazil has groundwater within 39 feet (12 m) of the surface, but estimated depths vary widely with the deepest groundwater estimated at 1,380 feet (420 m). The map uses techniques pioneered by Maxwell's research group. He and other researchers used similar techniques in a January 2026 study of the groundwater of the United States that produced a detailed map. Yueling Ma, a former postdoctoral researcher who worked with Maxwell, was the lead author of the U.S. study and co-author of the Brazil paper.
"Most of the equatorial and subtropical world has very few groundwater measurements, so a technique like this gives us a real path to understanding water availability in places we couldn't before."
Fleury said she plans to continue studying groundwater in Brazil and would like to expand her research. "Understanding the hidden system of groundwater is critical, especially in a changing climate," Fleury said. "As we see more extended dry periods, humans are increasingly relying on groundwater. Having information about how much groundwater there is, and how it is being impacted, is essential if we are to manage it."
The research was funded by the National Science Foundation's Convergence Accelerator Program.
***
Original text here: https://environment.princeton.edu/news/researchers-develop-first-high-resolution-map-of-groundwater-across-brazil/
Ole Miss Recognized for Sustainability, Conservation Efforts
OXFORD, Mississippi, Sept. 20 -- The University of Mississippi posted the following news:
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Ole Miss Recognized for Sustainability, Conservation Efforts
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OXFORD, Miss. - The Mississippi Department of Environmental Quality has recognized the University of Mississippi for its commitment to sustainability and conservation.
John Brugge, director of the Office of Sustainability, accepted the recognition at the enHance Environmental Stewardship Workshop and Awards Luncheon last month in Jackson.
Ole Miss joined enHance, a state initiative designed to support environmental leaders across Mississippi,
... Show Full Article
OXFORD, Mississippi, Sept. 20 -- The University of Mississippi posted the following news:
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Ole Miss Recognized for Sustainability, Conservation Efforts
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OXFORD, Miss. - The Mississippi Department of Environmental Quality has recognized the University of Mississippi for its commitment to sustainability and conservation.
John Brugge, director of the Office of Sustainability, accepted the recognition at the enHance Environmental Stewardship Workshop and Awards Luncheon last month in Jackson.
Ole Miss joined enHance, a state initiative designed to support environmental leaders across Mississippi,as part of the 2026 cohort. All participating organizations commit to making environmental improvements beyond standard regulatory requirements. Ole Miss joined the imitative at the steward level.
"For us, sustainability is not just about our campus," Brugge said. "What we're trying to do is become a leader in Oxford, the region and the state. We want to set and maintain the new Mississippi standard."
Since joining the administration last year, Brugge has initiated multiple new projects to promote sustainability on campus, including new recycling standards and signage, revitalizing the campus community garden, and creating new dragonfly and damselfly habitats.
Involving the community in every step of the process is important, said Bebe Falkner, a senior Southern studies and interdisciplinary studies major from Christiana, Tennessee. Falkner works in the Office of Sustainability and joined Brugge in Jackson to accept the award.
"I think that's getting to the heart of what Southern sustainability is," Falkner said. "Getting face-to-face conversations with individuals in our community about what they want to see and how they want to move forward is so important to understanding how we approach sustainability in a way that's not intimidating.
"We want to look at our community and culture and cultivate something together."
Working alongside groups such as the Department of Landscape Services and the Department of Biology, many of the office's efforts are already becoming a part of everyday life for members of campus, from improved recycling bins to gardens that invite community involvement and support local bees, butterflies, moths, beetles and birds.
"You can see them across campus," Brugge said, referring to the many pollinator gardens maintained by UM Landscape Services. "It's helpful for pollinator insects, but it's also just something you can do in your backyard.
"Most people love a pollinator garden, but what you don't hear about as often is a predator garden."
Through funding from the National Wildlife Federation and the 2026 Mutual of Omaha's Wild Kingdom Grant Program, the sustainability office is working to bring an aquatic predator habitat to campus.
A water feature behind the Residential College South will soon be home to a host of dragonflies and damselflies.
"Dragonflies are some of the most effective predators of mosquitoes, wasps, horseflies and even other dragonflies," he said. "But dragonflies are also losing their habitats, especially in places like cities.
"What we hope to demonstrate is that by reestablishing a predator habitat, we can lower the population of pest insects while serving an endangered species."
The grant will offer Brugge and his students a chance to monitor both the aquatic habitat on campus and one being developed at the UM Field Station to understand how reintroducing predator species affects local wildlife and communities.
The office also recently partnered with Oasis Venture Holdings, an American aluminum manufacturing company, to offer reusable aluminum cups made with recycled materials. The cups, which bear the Ole Miss logo, are in the style of disposable plastic drinkware, but are meant for reuse.
The cups are available for purchase via donation, with all proceeds benefiting the university's Sustainable Ole Miss fund.
"If we want people to stop using single-use plastic waste, we have to give them a better option," Brugge said. "That sounds like a small thing, but being sustainable often means making better small choices, and you have to start somewhere.
"That's our goal: we want to make it easier for our campus to take that first step."
Top: Bebe Falkner (left), an Ole Miss senior who works in the Office of Sustainability, and John Brugge (right), the sustainability office's associate director, accept an award from Mike Freiman, director of the Mississippi Department of Environmental Quality's Office of Pollution Control, during a luncheon in Jackson. Ole Miss was recognized as a member of the 2026 cohort of enHance, a voluntary program to support sustainability efforts in the state. Submitted photo
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Original text here: https://olemiss.edu/news/2026/09/ole-miss-recognized-for-sustainability-conservation-efforts/index.html
