During the fall of 2010, seven students participated in an independent study with Environmental Studies Director Phil Camill  and Program Manager Eileen Johnson in response to a request for a municipal-scale sea level rise impact analysis framework for coastal Maine. The project focused on the communities of Brunswick and Harpswell and involved community presentations and feedback throughout the process.

Building upon the fall independent study, Maryellen Hearn ’11 and Krista Bahm ’11 worked with Camill and Johnson to refine the analysis, and their study, “Using a Boundary Organization Approach to Develop a Sea Level Rise and Storm Surge Impact Analysis Framework for Coastal Communities in Maine,” was published in the Journal of Environmental Studies and Sciences. (The study is available to Bowdoin students, faculty and staff through the Bowdoin Library subscription to JESS.)

“Most people think that the rocky, steep coast line of New England is less susceptible to sea level rise,” say Camill. “But, we found that there can be substantial potential impacts to transportation networks, property and intertidal ecosystems.”

“The independent study was a great learning opportunity for the students and a valuable service to community, state and local partners” says Johnson.

In addition to presenting findings, this work provides a template for other coastal communities in New England and is an example of the kinds of community based scholarship happening at Bowdoin.

MIT researchers have devised a new way of computing an important algorithm, a discovery that has the potential to speed up much of our technology, from computers to medical equipment, and make it cheaper, too.

To do this, they figured out how to speed up the calculation of Fast Fourier Transforms — the “most important algorithm of our lifetime.” FFTs reduce complicated signals, like sound waves, to a fairly short list of numbers.

This breakthrough, Fast Company says, could lead to 3-D rendering on tablets, more accurate self-driving cars, highly detailed weather models, and more efficient image, sound and video compression techniques.

Dhiraj Murthy

Social media has become a battleground for warring candidates seeking the Republican presidential nomination, prompting new research by Assistant Professor Sociology Dhiraj Murthy.

Working with Stephanie Bond ’13 and lab programmer Alexander Gross, Murthy is researching urban American responses to Republican primary candidates on Twitter.

The team has developed a tool to visualize tweets from the most populous urban American cities. Read more about the research and check out the visualization tool.

As part of the redevelopment of the decommissioned Brunswick Naval Air Station, the Town of Brunswick will receive more than 1,000 acres designated for conservation and recreational purposes. In anticipation of this transition, Brunswick is developing an Open Space Management Plan for the area.

Environmental studies majors Michael Lachance ’13, Christopher “Woody” Mawhinney ’12 and Francis Joyce ’12 had the opportunity to get in on the ground floor of this experience by working with staff from both the town and the National Park Service.

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The partnership provided a chance for students to be learn more about the redevelopment of the site while bringing valuable resources to the town’s planning process.

In the summer of 2011, Lachance, a Community Matters in Maine/Psi Upsilon Fellow, conducted an extensive inventory of the existing trails and roads throughout the portion of the former base that will be conveyed to the town.

Using GIS and GPS technology, Lachance was able to provide a map and a series of detailed reports on site conditions. At the end of the summer, he presented his work to the town council and made recommendations on future development of the property.

“My fellowship with the Town of Brunswick gave me an exciting opportunity to combine my interests in economics and the environment,” says Lachance.

“I was able to work independently on the redevelopment of the Brunswick Naval Air Base, a significant and meaningful project that will be a tremendous asset to the community in the future.”

Building upon Lachance’s work, Mawhinney and Joyce conducted an analysis that considered constraints to trail development to determine whether to redevelop some or all of the pre-existing trails.

The students produced materials that will be used as part of the public participation process by the town’s planning committees. The students presented their results to a community forum held at the end of the spring semester.

”I really enjoyed working with staff from the Town of Brunswick on the project to help build an understanding about the former NASB parcel development that I have heard so much about,” says Mawhinney.

“Working with the Bowdoin students is a wonderful example of the collaboration between young leaders and community professionals on projects of significance,” says Denise Clavette, a special projects assistant for the town who worked with all three students throughout the planning process. “Thank you to Bowdoin for providing the Town of Brunswick with this opportunity.”

The development of the plan will be carried out over the course of the next several months, and next summer’s Psi Upsilon fellow will get the opportunity to become part of this process as well.

The Psi Upsilon Environmental Fellowship program is a component the Community Matters in Maine Summer Fellowship program managed jointly by the Environmental Studies Program and the McKeen Center for the Common Good.

The program places students with environmental and social service organizations, providing students with the opportunity to link work and community-based service and research to their academic experience, while strengthening the college’s community partnerships. Click here for more information about the program.

In addition to the Community Matters in Maine Fellowship Program, Bowdoin College offers many research and stipended summer fellowship opportunities for students through the Office of Student Fellowships and Research, McKeen Center, and Bowdoin Career Planning.

Students returning to campus this week should notice that their laptops, iPads, Androids and other wireless gadgets are running more quickly and smoothly—an issue that students made a top priority for the college.

Over winter break, Bowdoin’s IT department responded to student wishes by upgrading the college’s wireless system, replacing every access point with the latest technology from Cisco. The new access points, which look like white plastic boxes with small blue, red or green LED lights, connect Bowdoin’s network with wireless devices. They’ve been placed in 95 buildings and at more than 400 locations across campus, a number that will be expanded as the wireless needs of the campus grow and change.

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The initiative to update the system came after students experienced increasing difficulty with the wireless signal. “Students complained that the network was slowing down in dorms and places of a lot of activity,” Bowdoin CIO Mitch Davis says. “What we wanted to avoid was having any downtime when too many people were working on devices.”

The college’s decision to invest in a state-of-the art wireless system was spurred on in particular by a small group of students who advise the IT department on student issues. Last year, this advisory committee sent out a survey asking students for their input on what would improve campus life. Wireless connectivity came back as one of the biggest issues, according to Chris Kan ’13, who’s been on the IT student committee since his first year at Bowdoin.

“The wireless was always slow but it was getting a lot worse,” Kan said, as more devices taxed the system. “Everyone now has a cellphone and a laptop.”

Bowdoin College Network Manager Jason Lavoie says when the old wireless system was built seven years or so ago, no one foresaw the quick rise of wireless gadgets. “We didn’t anticipate so many simultaneous users and streaming videos back then,” he said.

These days, the collage sees a peak of 2,200 simultaneous users, whereas a year ago it was 1,400. Plus, Lavoie says bandwidth utilization has increased by a factor of 2 or 3 in that time period, meaning that each user is also using the network more heavily.

So while there was a growing need for change, it took students to jump start the project, Lavoie says. “The awareness brought up by the student body really helped sell the project. Just me saying there’s going to be problems wasn’t enough. Students saying, ‘This is something we really need,’ was,” he said.

Kan says the IT student advisory committee, which includes him and Matt Glatt ’14 at the moment, serves as a bridge between the IT department and students. “We know about IT but it’s sometimes hard for IT to know what students want,” he said. So far, he says Bowdoin has been responsive to his and his peers’ recommendations. “Bowdoin is a small college, and it’s easy to get changes done here. And IT is really good at receiving input.”

Some of the biggest names in business are also those of the philanthropists best poised to make a difference in the coming year.

From the third-generation Buffett to the widow of Apple co-founder Steve Jobs, see how the charitable giving torch is being passed and how these 10 donors may light the way to a brighter future.

Learn how Bowdoin students are making a difference with help from the Joseph McKeen Center for the Common Good.

Larry Bock, a member of the Bowdoin College Class of 1981, has long been concerned about the declining number of young Americans entering the fields of science, technology, engineering and mathematics. That’s why he founded the USA Science & Engineering Festival, the nation’s largest celebration of science and engineering. Bowdoin was a partner in the inaugural event in 2010 that attracted over 500,000 people, including neuroscience students from Bowdoin and the College’s acclaimed robotics team, Northern Bites. On this New Year’s Day, Bock is asking Americans from across the country to make a resolution to participate in the 2012 event, scheduled for April.

What a difference a decade can make! Katie Grote ’02 remembers the days when energy efficiency wasn’t exactly top of mind among Bowdoin students. Today, says Grote, the College has become “a national leader in college campus efficiency” by using time-tested marketing techniques to change behavior.

What do Steve Jobs, the Arab Spring, the Japanese earthquake, Occupy Wall Street, Penn State, crazy weather, and Osama Bin Laden have in common? They all made headlines in 2011 and they’re all part of a stunning collection of photographs of the year about to end published in three parts by The Boston Globe.

The Year in Pictures – Part I

The Year in Pictures – Part II

The Year in Pictures – Part III

Photo courtesy of Scandinavian Wildlife Park.

The Huffington Post features new pictures of the über-photogenic polar bear cub, Siku.

Scandinavian Wildlife Park in Denmark is raising the month-old cub, which was removed from his mother after she failed to feed him.

Image: Fathom Information Design/Fathom.com

The earth’s population recently passed the 7 billion mark. If that’s hard to picture, this map called Dencity, composed by Fathom Information Design, may help by depicting population density using circles of different color and size. It also highlights the 20 largest cities in the world, only one of which is in the U.S. See a full-size version of Dencity.

Twitter was, well, atwitter with Bowdoin tweets in 2011 — everything from Polar Bear sightings and campus yearnings (the food really is that good) to a famous author’s kind words. Don’t be left out of the conversation, go to twitter.com/bowdoincollege and follow Bowdoin on Twitter. Also check out Bowdoin Social for links to other Twitter accounts and social media.

Charlie Largay ’78 has his head in the cloud — and that means good news for the community. He and his wife, Maureen, run Resilient Tier-V, a data security company at Brunswick Landing, the former Brunswick Naval Air Station.

Resilient provides the infrastructure that supports “the cloud,” ensuring the security of data stored on the Web.

“We have more fiber (optics) in here than probably, with the exception of a few government facilities, and maybe the NYSE, we have more fiber than probably 90 percent of the larger facilities on the East Coast, and more than most cities,” Largay tells The Times Record.

The Largays say they’re committed to creating a world-class data center and  are “ready to do a very big set of hires.” Resilient is working with the College and other schools to develop the work force Largay says he will need. Read the Times Record article.

It was a subtle joke in 1978's "Superman," when Christopher Reeve, as Clark Kent, offers a dismayed look at the then-modern iteration of the classic telephone booth. Now, as cellphones have become de rigueur even among elementary school students, the nearly anachronistic phone booth — if you can still find one with four walls — is nearly obsolete but for shedding one's clothes in favor of superhero tights on your way to foiling Lex Luthor. Photo: Warner Bros. Pictures.

If you’ve had to explain to your children that once upon a time, telephones were tethered to the wall with a curly cord, this one is for you. Forbes has compiled a list of 10 Things Our Kids Will Never Worry About Thanks to the Information Revolution.

Phil Camill

The degree to which thawing permafrost will accelerate global warming is explored in  “As Permafrost Thaws, Scientists Study the Risks,” the New York Times article that references a recent study to which Phil Camill, Bowdoin’s Rusack Associate Professor of Environmental Studies and Earth and Oceanographic Science, and director of  the Environmental Studies Program, contributed.

Camill is one of 41 scientists from around the globe forming the Permafrost Carbon Research Network, which met this summer. Their findings were published in the journal Nature and cited in media outlets across the country.

“They estimated that if human fossil-fuel burning remained high and the planet warmed sharply, the gases from permafrost could eventually equal 35 percent of today’s annual human emissions,” reports the Times.

Just in time for the holidays, TIME unveils its best stuff of the year about to end. From books, to movies, to tweets—even the best people NOT running for president—it’s all here.