As we enter a new year in 2025, we reflect on the many accomplishments of our faculty, staff, students and partners. Please enjoy this collection of top news and multimedia from 2024. Visit our website for more!
Responding to Hurricane Helene
In response to the devastation across western North Carolina caused by Hurricane Helene, UNC-Chapel Hill has mobilized efforts to serve our state.
IE's Center for Public Engagement with Science led multiple efforts including developing a website of resources, a day of hands-on learning for elementary students displaced by flooding, collecting donations and more.
Carolina ranks 9th among all top U.S. research institutions
Research spending at Carolina has topped $1.55 billion, fueling the state’s economy, powering new discoveries, driving innovation, and creating a better quality of life for people in North Carolina and beyond. This is the eighth year in a row the University’s research activity totaled over $1 billion, and research expenditures increased across all of Carolina’s funding sources.
We are proud to be part of the UNC Research enterprise. Learn more about the research that happens across the university, including a project run by our Carolina Drone Lab.
Mapping marsh futures
This past summer, researchers from the Carolina Drone Lab — a collaborative research unit within the UNC Institute for the Environment — visited four marsh sites along the Currituck Sound as part of a study on the applications of drone technologies for coastal resilience and habitat monitoring.
They are partnering with Elizabeth City State University (ECSU) and Audubon of North Carolina to aid in understanding the status of the marshes and the future management of the sound.
Environmental law scholarship for undergraduates named in honor of outgoing board chair Bryan Brice ’85, ’90
A new scholarship at the UNC Institute for the Environment (IE) will give University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill undergraduate students the opportunity to get internship experience in the field of environmental law thanks to the family of outgoing IE Board of Visitors (BOV) Chair F. Bryan Brice, Jr.
Burley, Cowan awarded IE’s 2024 Environmental Justice Graduate Research Scholarships
This year, the UNC Institute for the Environment awarded two $25,000 Environmental Justice Graduate Research Scholarships to Ph.D. students Katherine Burley (left) and Kristen Cowan (right).
The scholarships will help fund Burley’s investigation of heat exposure and heat-related health outcomes in marginalized North Carolina communities and Cowan’s dissertation looking at associations between wildfire smoke exposure and poor health outcomes among people who are incarcerated.
UNC Cleantech Summit celebrates 10th anniversary with banner line-up of speakers, panelists
The 10th annual UNC Cleantech Summit brought together educators, students and professionals in the cleantech industry for a two-day event at UNC’s Friday Conference Center from March 21 to March 22. The summit, co-hosted by the UNC Institute for the Environment and the Ackerman Center for Excellence in Sustainability at the UNC Kenan-Flagler Business School, is the United States’ largest university-hosted cleantech conference.
“We want to build this area by encouraging students to follow careers with the idea that the students who attend today may become the entrepreneurs of tomorrow,” said Greg Gangi, IE's associate director of clean technology and innovation and teaching professor.
Second annual Champion Sustainability Game celebrates athletics' sustainability successes
North Carolina’s football home opener on Sept. 7 against Charlotte marked the second annual Champion Sustainability Game. The game highlighted many of UNC’s sustainability accomplishments including Carolina's inaugural athletics sustainability report.
Mike Piehler, director of the UNC Institute for the Environment and chief sustainability officer was featured in an in-game video and halftime radio interview with Chancellor Lee Roberts and Senior Associate Athletic Director Rick Steinbacher.
The partnership is made possible by Hanesbrands’ $1 million foundational gift to the university to advance sustainability.
From riverbanks to labs
Eloise MacLean’s interest in environmental work initially started with an appreciation for nature. MacLean '25 grew up in Pittsboro, North Carolina, playing in the Haw River each summer, and has loved to be outdoors as long as she can remember. During the school year, she spends a lot of time working in campus gardens.
Tayton Alvis '25 has a similar story. He began fishing regularly during the COVID-19 pandemic and has since become an avid fisherman, but, in his own words, “It’s not for sport, it’s a way to learn more about the fish.”
Both MacLean and Alvis spent this summer in environmentally focused internships that were funded by the Pavel Molchanov Scholars Program, an endowed internship program at the UNC Institute for the Environment.
All the light we cannot see
Light pollution disrupts the natural cues of day and night, which can confuse circadian rhythms and negatively affect sleep patterns in nearly all living organisms, including humans. It can also affect growth and flowering patterns for trees and plants and can lead to changes in behavior, foraging, and breeding among insects, turtles, birds, fish, reptiles, and other species. Artificial light is especially disorienting during migration. In October 2023, a building in Chicago killed nearly 1,000 birds in one night.
Undergraduates at the UNC Outer Banks Field Site study how artificial light at night affects wildlife and share their results with community members.
Announcing the Institute for Risk Management and Insurance Innovation
Earlier this fall, UNC Research announced the formation of a new pan-campus center—the Institute for Risk Management and Insurance Innovation (IRMII). A major mission of this center will be to accelerate research on evaluating and managing risk. Greg Characklis, the founding director of the Center on Financial Risk in Environmental Systems (CoFiRES), will lead IRMII. Since 2017, CoFiRES has been jointly housed between the UNC Institute for the Environment (IE) and the Department of Environmental Sciences and Engineering in the Gillings School of Global Public Health. CoFiRES will be absorbed into the new institute and serve as a platform to facilitate IRMII’s rapid development. IRMII will be housed on the third floor of Carolina Square at 123 West Franklin Street, near IE.
New white paper on private wells offers policy recommendations to protect clean drinking water in North Carolina
In North Carolina, one in four households relies on a private well as their primary source of drinking water. The state has the highest number of private wells in the nation, yet a lack of regulation poses serious public health concerns. Further compounding the problem, most private well owners are not getting their wells tested, leaving them vulnerable to the health impacts of consuming contaminated water.
A new white paper published in the UNC Dataverse by Carolina researchers offers three policy recommendations to protect community members who rely on private wells for drinking water and addresses policy gaps contributing to health inequalities across the state.
Curbing air pollution control devices would cost thousands of lives and billions of dollars
Air pollution control devices (APCDs) prevented up to 9,000 deaths and saved up to $100 billion in health costs in 2023, according to new estimates published in an American Journal of Public Health editorial. Sarav Arunachalam, research professor and deputy director of the UNC Institute for the Environment, contributed the commentary.
This summer’s heat won’t affect everyone equally – UNC researchers map heat stress disparities in Durham
North Carolina experienced record heat last summer, the Triangle was no exception. Extreme heat can be taxing on the mind and body, but its effects aren't felt equally.
The Data-Driven EnviroLab (DDL) at UNC’s Institute for the Environment is actively evaluating disparities in heat stress in Durham through lenses of environmental and climate injustice.
Led by Angel Hsu, director of the DDL and associate professor of public policy, they will utilize direct air temperature measurements, machine learning and microclimate modeling to generate data that reflects real heat disparities felt by pedestrians.
In memoriam: Richard N.L. “Pete” Andrews (’70, ’72) leaves legacy of environmental leadership, service
Richard N.L. Andrews, 79, fondly known by colleagues and friends as “Pete” died unexpectedly, May 5, 2024. Andrews had a distinguished career in environmental policy as a professor and mentor, but also was known for his leadership in creating and growing interdisciplinary environmental research, education and public service opportunities at Carolina and around the world.
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Top image: Flooding from Hurricane Helene in western N.C. | Adobe Stock.