Natural Resources and Textiles Colleges Co-Host Global Health Special Event

Posted on October 24, 2011 by

Speaker: Elizabeth Scharpf, CEO, Sustainable Health Enterprises (SHE)
Date: Wed., Oct. 26 at 5:00 p.m.
Location: College of Textiles, Rm. 2207 (parking available adjacent to the building)
RSVP: ncstateglobalhealth@gmail.com by 5:00 p.m. on Monday, Oct. 24

NCSU Global Health Initiatives in the Office of International Affairs, along with the College of Textiles and the Department of Forest Biomaterials in the College of Natural Resources, invite you to a special event featuring Elizabeth Scharpf, a noted social entrepreneur and CEO of Sustainable Health Enterprises (SHE). The topic of her presentation will be: The Period Problem: Challenges and Opportunities in the Creation of Market-Based Solutions for Low-Resource Settings

Ms. Scharpf will also address the ways in which she has worked with University students and faculty to co-develop solutions. There will be refreshments in the College of Textiles Atrium following the presentation. For more information on Elizabeth and SHE, please read below. Faculty are invited to a drop-in with Elizabeth in Withers 331 on Oct. 26 from 10:30 – 11:30 (please RSVP). Elizabeth will have limited availability to meet individually with faculty or student groups between 2 – 4 p.m., location TBD. Please contact Marian McCord at ncstateglobalhealth@gmail.com to request a meeting.

Demonstration: 1 p.m. Biltmore Hall – Pulp and Paper Labs

Researchers in the Department of Forest Biomaterials will demonstrate the processes they have been working on with SHE for more than a year.
The service project takes locally-available banana stem fiber and turns it into a surprisingly-absorbent fluff material that seems suitable for the
manufacture of hygienic devices. Two simple steps turn the coarse, twine-like stem material into a woolly mass. The simplicity of the process means that the local people can start up a cottage manufacturing facility and make their own hygiene devices. For more information on the Demonstration contact Dr. Med Byrd at med_byrd@ncsu.edu.

About SHE
Sustainable Health Enterprises (SHE) is a social venture using market-based approaches to address social problems in developing countries. Its first initiative, she28, is addressing girls’ and women’s lack of access to affordable sanitary pads when they menstruate causing them to miss school and/or work–up to 50 days per year. she28 helps women start their own businesses distribute and eventually manufacture affordable, eco-friendly sanitary pads by sourcing local, inexpensive, raw materials (e.g., banana fibers), establishing manufacturing systems, and leveraging existing distribution networks. Echoing Green, one of the premier seed funders of social enterprises, named SHE one of the 20 most innovative social ventures worldwide (out of 1,500 applicants). Harvard Business School named SHE founder, Elizabeth Scharpf, its first Social Enterprise Fellow. President Clinton recognized SHE for its accomplishments at the Clinton Global Initiative. In October 2010, Elizabeth won the Curry Stone Design Prize, a $100,000 grant started by UK architect, Clifford Curry, and his wife, H. Delight Stone, and awarded annually to a designer making a global impact in the education, water, health, food, social justice, energy or peace promotion field.

About Elizabeth Scharpf
Founder and Chief Instigating Officer of SHE
Elizabeth is an entrepreneur who has spent most of her professional career starting up ventures or advising businesses on growth strategies in the health care industry. She has spent time as a strategic management consultant at Cambridge Pharma Consultancy as well as stints at the Clinton Foundation and the World Bank in Asia and East Africa, respectively. Elizabeth has an MBA from Harvard Business School, an MPA in international development from Harvard’s Kennedy School of Government, and a BA from the University of Notre Dame. Despite all the academic acronyms, she thinks her best education has come from talking with those sitting next to her on buses around the world.

Calvo to Deliver NC State 2011 Borlaug Lecture

Posted on October 19, 2011 by

Dr. Julio César Calvo Alvarado, the Rector (President) of Instituto Tecnologico de Costa Rica, will deliver the 2011 Borlaug Distinguished Lecture on Global Service to Society and Environment at NC State University. The event is open to the campus community and will be followed by a reception and an open circle discussion with President Calvo.

TOPIC: Costa Rica: In the Path of Environmental Sustainability. Lessons Learned.
WHEN: 3:30pm on Monday October 31, 2011
WHERE: Talley Student Center Ballroom, NC State University Campus.

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Additional opportunities to interact with Dr. Calvo

“Forestry Development in Costa Rica” – an open campus disciplinary seminar with Dr. Clavo willl be held from 10:15-11:30 am in Room 1214, Jordan Hall Addition.
College of Natural Resources Roundtable with Dr. Calvo for CNR students and faculty on Tuesday, November 1st from 2:00-3:30pm in Room 4024 Biltmore Hall (The Hines Room).

About Dr Calvo and TEC

Dr. Calvo is President of Instituto Tecnológico de Costa Rica (TEC), a national autonomous institution, with ca. 6500 students. TEC has undergraduate and graduate programs in a comprehensive array of disciplines: Business, Natural and Social Science and Humanities, and engineering in Agricultural, Forest, Electromechanical, Computer, Construction, Industrial, Design, Production, and Materials Sciences.

Dr. Calvo received his Ph.D in 1991 from Dept. of Forestry at NC State, working under the direction of Professor emeritus James Gregory. He has received Fulbright-LASPAU and NSF Fellowships, and been honored by SIGMA XI, and Agriculture and Forestry Honor Societies. In 1982 he earned an M.S. from SUNY College of Environmental Science and Forestry-Syracuse, and in 1978 his first degree in Forest Engineering from TEC. Professor Calvo works in forest hydrology, natural resources, forest ecology and remote sensing. Previously he was Chairman of the TEC School of Forestry 1983-1987, and again from 2007-2011. From 1997-2002 he was Executive Director of the Tropical Science Center, Costa Rica, and responsible for a Biological Reserves Network, including the Monteverde Cloud Forest Station.

The Noman E. Borlaug Distinguished Lecture on Global Service to Society and the Environment is co-sponsored annually by the College of Natural Resources (CNR) and the College of Agriculture and Life Sciences (CALS) at NC State University.

$4 Million Grant Will Help Ramp Up Southeast Biofuel Production

Posted on October 11, 2011 by

North Carolina State University will use a $4 million grant to study the most efficient, cost-effective and environmentally friendly ways of producing biofuels from trees and from forest harvesting residue.

NC State’s College of Natural Resources is part of the Southeast Partnership for Integrated Biomass Supply Systems, a collaboration of several universities and industry partners who will work on all aspects of the “biofuels pipeline” between the forests where the trees – the biomass feedstock – are grown and the “biorefineries” where the biofuels are produced. The partnership is funded for five years with a $15 million grant from the U.S. Department of Agriculture’s National Institute of Food and Agriculture.

The research includes understanding the challenges of storing and transporting the biomass, and studying new developments in the production of biofuels. It also includes developing and deploying measures of the environmental and economic impacts of producing biofuel, says Dr. Steve Kelley, professor and head of NC State’s Department of Forest Biomaterials and the principal investigator for the NC State portion of the grant. He adds that the entire biofuel production process must be efficient, scalable and sustainable.

“The Southeast is a veritable ‘wood basket’ that can produce much of the feedstock that shows great promise for production of biofuels,” Kelley says. “Besides the obvious need for energy security, this project will develop economic and environmental measures that can inform the public discussion at the community level, and allow individual communities to evaluate their prospects for job creation and landowner income. We want to create the infrastructure capable of providing the backbone for increased biofuel capacity.”

The partnership will also study the best ways of informing and training forest landowners and local businesses on the “hows” and “whys” of producing, harvesting and transporting different varieties of biofuel feedstock.

The partnership grant was one of five USDA-NIFA grants recently announced – totaling more than $136 million – aimed at developing regional, renewable energy markets, generating rural jobs and reducing U.S. dependence on foreign oil.

Joining Kelley as investigators on the grant are Drs. Robert Bardon, Vincent Chiang, Sudipta Dasmohapatra, Barry Goldfarb, Fikrit Isik, Hasan Jameel, Steve McKeand, Dan Robison, Sunkyu Park, Jose Stape, Richard Venditti and Ross Whetten. They are all faculty members in NC State’s College of Natural Resources.

For more information contact: Mick Kulikowski | NCSU News Services | 919.515.8387

Vibrant Foliage On Tap for Fall

Posted on October 11, 2011 by

Despite a hot, dry summer across much of the state, this fall will still feature the vibrant colors that residents have come to expect, according to North Carolina State University forestry and environmental resources professor Dr. Robert Bardon.

“The good news is that the trees aren’t currently being stressed by drought or other conditions, and the recent turn in the weather – with sunny, mild days and cool nights – is perfect for color production,” Bardon says.

During the spring and summer, leaves manufacture most of the food necessary for a tree’s growth. The food-making process occurs in cells that contain the pigment chlorophyll, which gives the leaves their green color. The leaves also contain other pigments that are masked most of the year by the greater amount of chlorophyll.

In the fall, partly because of the changes in the period of daylight and changes in temperature, the leaves stop their food-making process. As the chlorophyll breaks down, the green color disappears and yellow colors surface. Other chemical changes create additional pigments that vary from yellow to red to blue.

The result is a parade of color that begins in the state’s northwestern corner in late September, then makes its way across North Carolina in a southeasterly direction. Due to the state’s varied geography, North Carolinians enjoy a color season that often lasts from the end of September until the middle of November.

Bardon predicts that the peak for Wake County will occur near the end of October, but early birds who want to get a jump on enjoying the season can probably already find some nice color in the upper elevations in places like Mt. Mitchell, Boone, or Blowing Rock.

Check The Weather Channel’s Fall Foliage Map>>>

Fall Foliage In the North Carolina Mountains >>>

More about Extension Forestry at NC State>>>