UA In the News — May 17

University of Alabama to host creative writing camp for high schoolers
Tuscaloosa News – May 16
High school students are invited to attend a creative writing camp, held next month on the University of Alabama campus. Tuition is free and the camp is open to rising high school freshmen through graduating seniors who are interested in creative writing. Instructors will be writers who are graduate students in UA’s master of fine arts in creative writing program. The camp will feature writing workshops in fiction, poetry and non-fiction. At the end of the camp, each student will give a public reading and publish an anthology of their work.

UA research could counter climate change
ABC 33/40 (Birmingham) – May 16
Two University of Alabama professors are being recognized internationally for work they say may counter climate change.

In Latin America, Forests May Rise to Challenge of Carbon Dioxide
New York Times – May 16
A new study reports that recently established forests on abandoned farmland in Latin America, if allowed to grow for another 40 years, would probably be able to suck at least 31 billion tons of carbon dioxide out of the atmosphere. That is enough to offset nearly two decades of emissions from fossil-fuel burning in the region. Abandoning additional pastures and allowing them to revert to tropical forest could soak up another seven billion tons of the gas, the scientists found. Their paper, published in Science Advances, offers the most detailed estimates to date for a promising approach to combating climate change.

Speaker set for Memorial Day program in Tuscaloosa
Tuscaloosa News – May 16
A Memorial Day program will be held May 30 at Veterans Memorial Park in Tuscaloosa. Army Lt. Col. Jonathan L. Goode, will be the guest speaker. Goode enlisted in 1988 and he has served tours of duty in Egypt, Kuwait, Iraq and Afghanistan. He now serves as the professor of military science for the University of Alabama Army ROTC program.

University of Alabama graduate school dean named
Tuscaloosa News – May 16
The dean of the graduate school at the University of Kentucky has been named to the same position at the University of Alabama, beginning in July. Susan Carvalho, a professor of Hispanic studies and interim associate provost and dean of UK Graduate School, has been named associate provost and dean of UA’s Graduate School, effective July 1. UA announced the appointment on Monday. Carvalho will replace current Graduate School Dean David Francko, who is retiring.

Supercomputing Helping Clean Up Waste From WWII]
HPC Wire – May 16
More than seven decades after the end of WWII, radioactive waste from the Manhattan Project is still awaiting cleanup. Progress at sites around the country—the largest is Hanford in southeastern Washington—has been slow, costly and plagued with problems … Now a coalition of scientists is using GPU-accelerated supercomputing to better understand the radioactive materials inside storage tanks and find safe, inexpensive ways to remove and store them. “When they built atomic weapons, nobody knew how dangerous this stuff was,” said David Dixon, a chemistry professor at The University of Alabama who is principal investigator on the project.

Work could be on the way for hundreds of laid off miners
NBC 5 ( Memphis) – May 16
State leaders are pushing to get millions of dollars to help laid off mine workers transition into other fields. It’s no secret, coal mining isn’t what it used to be. Due to declining market conditions, waves of layoffs continue to hit cities and towns hard across the country … Senator Allen says the grants could even help laid off miners go back to school and get a degree in another trade. This weekend, communities are invited to the Bryant Conference on the University of Alabama campus to learn more about these grants. The free workshop is from 9 a.m until 3:30 p.m. Lunch is provided and registration is