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Carla Ramsdell, pre-engineering advisor, practitioner in residence, Department of Physics and Astronomy. Photo by University Communications.

Food physicist offers Earth Day cooking tips
Jun 9, 2022

Cooking may never be the same.

That, at least, is the hope of food physicist and educator Carla Ramsdell of the Department of Physics and Astronomy in Appalachian State University’s College of Arts and Sciences.

College News, Faculty and Staff, Sustainability
Senior Mailyn Greig-Ratz, a sustainability ambassador with the Office of Sustainability. Photo submitted.

Student Spotlight: Mailyn Greig-Ratz
Apr 20, 2022

Mailyn Greig-Ratz is a senior majoring in food outreach studies and minoring in public health, American Sign Language and photography. She is originally from Münster, Germany, grew up in Puerto Vallarta, Mexico and moved to the US in 2010.

College News, Students, Sustainability, Outreach and Community Engagement
Appalachian Regional Commission’s 15 participating Appalachian universities in the 2021 Appalachian Teaching Project, including App State. Map courtesy of ARC.

A critical perspective on food from the classroom to the community
Feb 2, 2022

Eighteen of Appalachian State University’s Watauga Residential College students participated in the 21st annual Appalachian Teaching Project (ATP) Symposium, a regional economic development conference sponsored by the&nbs...

College News, Students, Outreach and Community Engagement, Grants and Research, Sustainability, Support
Dr. Sarah Carmichael, professor in the Department of Geological and Environmental Sciences at Appalachian State University, is a geochemist and a National Geographic Explorer. She specializes in Devonian period research, studying the causes and effects of mass extinction events that occurred 350–417 million years ago. She is pictured during a field expedition in Mongolia in 2018, where she and her team evaluated specimens preserved in volcanic rocks. Photo by Felix Kunze

App State research team examines ancient evidence in mass extinctions
Jan 12, 2022

Appalachian State University’s Dr. Sarah Carmichael describes her job as similar to that of a crime scene investigator — and the evidence she examines is more than 350 million years old.

College News, Faculty and Staff, Students, Grants and Research, Sustainability
Dr. Baker Perry, professor in Appalachian State University’s Department of Geography and Planning, right, and his expedition team member Dr. Tom Matthews, work on the automated weather station at the Mount Everest Base Camp. Perry and Matthews were members of the 2019 National Geographic and Rolex Perpetual Planet Everest Expedition. Learn more at www.natgeo.com/everest. Photo by Freddie Wilkinson, National Geographic.

App State leads climate research at the top of the world
Dec 16, 2021

Appalachian State University has stepped onto the world stage as the lead institution to coordinate the operation and maintenance of weather stations at the highest elevation on the planet — Mount Everest.

College News, Faculty and Staff, Sustainability, Global Learning, Grants and Research, Students
An aerial image of the Toolik Field Station on Alaska’s North Slope, where Dr. Sarah Evans and Appalachian State University undergraduate students will collect samples of thawing permafrost during the summers of 2022, 2023 and 2024. Their research, funded by a National Science Foundation grant, aims to provide insight on how the release of carbon from thawing permafrost is advancing climate change. Evans is an assistant professor in App State’s Department of Geological and Environmental Sciences. Photo by Q

Dr. Sarah Evans, App State students to explore how water patterns in melting permafrost affect climate change
Nov 4, 2021

Small trickles of water traveling through Alaska’s permafrost — subsurface soil that remains frozen throughout the year — carry clues that could unlock a greater understanding of climate change and its advancement.

College News, Faculty and Staff, Grants and Research, Students, Sustainability
The Department of Rural Resilience and Innovation (RRI) in partnership with Research Institute for Environment, Energy, and Economics (RIEEE) has awarded seed grants to five collaborative research projects.

Rural Resilience and Innovation Inaugural Seed Grants
Nov 3, 2021

The Department of Rural Resilience and Innovation (RRI) in partnership with Research Institute for Environment, Energy, and Economics (RIEEE) has awarded seed grants to five collaborative research projects.

College News, Faculty and Staff, Grants and Research, Outreach and Community Engagement, Sustainability
Dr. Christine Ogilvie Hendren is the director of Appalachian State University’s Research Institute for Environment, Energy, and Economics and professor of geological and environmental sciences. Photo by Chase Reynolds

App State joins NSF research effort to reduce phosphorus dependence, losses
Sep 22, 2021

Phosphorus is an essential element and a critical nutrient in global food systems, where it is used in fertilizers to improve crop yields. But “the current phosphorus cycle is linear and broken on both ends,” said Dr.

College News, Faculty and Staff, Grants and Research, Sustainability
Solar-powered ROSE glides by a wind farm during the first leg of the 2021 American Solar Challenge. Photo by Kyla Willoughby

App State's Team Sunergy wins big in US solar racing challenge — No. 1 in Cruiser Class
Aug 13, 2021

Appalachian State University’s solar vehicle team, Team Sunergy, blazed through the 2021 American Solar Challenge (ASC) — finishing in first place for multiple-occupant vehicles (MOV), winning all three stages of the race from Missouri to New Mexico and clocking a total of 964.8 mile

College News, Sustainability, Students, Faculty and Staff, Awards and Honors, Grants and Research
Dr. Matt Estep, a plant geneticist and associate professor in Appalachian State University’s Department of Biology, performs fieldwork at Rich Mountain Bald — part of the Tater Hill Preserve located in northern Watauga County. The preserve is a plant conservation project owned and managed by the North Carolina Department of Agriculture’s Plant Conservation Program. Photo by Ellen Gwin Burnette

App State genetic diversity study to inform US Fish and Wildlife conservation efforts for endangered NC plant
Jun 30, 2021

Spreading avens, a rare plant that thrives in Western North Carolina — at elevations of more than 4,000 feet — is in danger of extinction.

College News, Faculty and Staff, Grants and Research, Sustainability