Melanie Muller of Hamden, Conn., a Commonwealth Honors College freshman majoring in mathematics and English at the University of Massachusetts Amherst, has been awarded $1,000 by the National Wildlife Federation (NWF) Campus Ecology Fellowship to conduct a feasibility study on converting the local Pioneer Valley Transit Authority (PVTA) campus bus system to biodiesel fuel.
Muller’s study will look at the local availability of biodiesel fuel and will include a carbon impact assessment. In nominating her proposal to the NWF, UMass Amherst’s advisory committee on sustainability noted that Muller’s work is expected to provide important information on the feasibility of reducing the campus’s carbon footprint by converting buses to biodiesel. If her study suggests this would be economically and physically feasible, Environmental Performance Advisory Committee members noted, they could decide to seek funding to adopt her recommendations.
"Our local public transport is already pretty sustainable, and finding a way to make it even more so will be great. I’ve been interested in sustainability for a long time. I’m excited to start working on this," says Muller.
Muller’s research interests center on studying and working on solutions to environmental problems. She also hopes to put her communications skills to use in educating and informing others about scientific developments. In her first semester at UMass Amherst, she studied arsenic concentrations in rice with Professor Julian Tyson’s chemistry research group.
For the NWF fellowship, the freshman will be working with Susan Leschine, a microbiology professor and discoverer of the Q microbe, a bacterium that converts cellulose to ethanol. Leschine says, "What a wonderful honor for Melanie! She was successful because of her carefully prepared and thoughtful proposal. I look forward to working with her and seeing her ideas become a reality."
Leschine is a research faculty member in the Integrated Concentration in Sciences (iCons), a new interdisciplinary undergraduate science program in which Muller is enrolled with 39 other honors students. iCons scholars learn to integrate various science, technology, engineering and mathematics fields to work in teams to solve problems, communicate across disciplines, develop leadership skills and pursue entrepreneurship. It launched in January at the start of the current semester. The NWF fellowship program supports sustainability initiatives on college campuses.
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