College of Earth, Life, and Health Sciences

A University of Maine professor helped develop an observation protocol that can document college instruction and student learning of science, technology, engineering and mathematics (STEM). Michelle Smith, assistant professor in UMaine’s School of Biology and Ecology and a member of the Maine Center for Research in STEM Education, designed the classroom observation protocol with three […]

Seventeen University of Maine nursing students and one faculty member will travel to Belize on March 1 to help administer medical aid to villages throughout the province of San Ignacio during spring break. On their medical mission trip, the students of the UMaine group Nursing International will bring 250 pounds of medical supplies, most of […]

Farm Credit, an agricultural lending collective, has been serving Maine farmers, fishermen, and forest workers for nearly a century.  UMaine graduates who pursue a career at Farm Credit help local small-business owners tap our state’s natural-resources economy. Click here to read more about Farm Credit’s legacy at the University of Maine.

University of Maine researchers have designed a handheld device that can quickly detect disease-causing and toxin-producing pathogens, including algal species that can cause paralytic shellfish poisoning. The device — a colorimeter — could be instrumental in monitoring coastal water in real-time, thereby preventing human deaths and beach closures, says lead researcher Janice Duy, a recent […]

Understanding more about the relationship between weather and maple sap flow, and how Maine syrup producers will adapt to climate change is the focus of research being conducted by a University of Maine graduate student. Jenny Shrum, a Ph.D. candidate in the ecology and environmental sciences graduate program in the UMaine School of Biology and […]

A team of University of Maine scientists studying nearly 11,700-year-old ice cores from Greenland found that history is repeating. Paul Mayewski, director and distinguished professor of UMaine’s Climate Change Institute, says today’s climate situation in the Arctic is equivalent to, but more localized, than the warming during the Younger Dryas/Holocene shift about 11,700 years ago. […]

Finding more efficient ways to serve Maine landowners by incorporating social work strategies — including effective communication and resource- linking skills — into forest management is the goal of a collaborative project between researchers at two schools in the University of Maine College of Natural Sciences, Forestry, and Agriculture. Jessica Leahy, an associate professor of […]

To female coastal plain swamp sparrows, male bill size matters. When looking for a mate outside of their pair bond, female coastal plain swamp sparrows (Melospiza georgiana nigrescens) choose males with large bills, according to a University of Maine-led study conducted along Delaware Bay. Small-billed males are more at risk of being cheated on by […]

University of Maine graduate student is researching ways to use lobster shell waste to create a pigment extract as a green alternative to synthetic versions found in fish food. Beth Fulton, a Ph.D. student in food science, is working with other researchers on the project that aims to use environmentally friendly solvents and methods to […]

Understanding how forests function as complex adaptive systems and predicting the future characteristics of Maine’s woods are goals of a project by a team of University of Maine researchers. The study also aims to improve an open-source forest ecosystem model to help make project insights more transferable to research in other forests. Erin Simons-Legaard, a […]