Astrophysicists from UNH’s Space Science Center (SSC) have created the first online system for predicting and forecasting the radiation environment in near-Earth, lunar, and Martian space environments. The near real-time tool will provide critical information as preparations are made for potential future manned missions to the moon and Mars.

“If we send human beings back to the moon, and especially if we’re able to go to Mars, it will be critical to have a system like this in place to protect astronauts from radiation hazards,” says associate professor of physics Nathan Schwadron of the UNH Institute for the Study of Earth, Oceans, and Space (EOS), which houses the SSC.

Schwadron is the lead developer of the new web-based tool known as PREDICCS, which for the first time integrates numerical models of space radiation, a host of real-time measurements being made by satellites currently in space, and “propagation codes” that can accurately project radiation levels out as...

You know how there are some restaurants that have a note on their menus letting patrons know they can meet special dietary needs? UNH’s dining halls can do that. No—not just can, do. On a daily basis. For more than six years now, UNH Dining—which serves more than 100,000 meals a week-- has been providing gluten-free food in all three of the dining halls. Each has separate refrigerator areas for gluten-free items as well as separate gluten-free cooking stations, cutting boards, and utensils.

That’s an important distinction for someone with celiac disease. The separate-everything avoids the risk of the cross-contact contamination of gluten, which causes inflammation and other complications in people suffering from the disease.

“There are many foods that are naturally gluten-free but you still have to have separate areas to avoid cross-contact. For instance, peanut butter is gluten-free but it can’t be spread using the same knife that was used on regular wheat bread,”...

New Hampshire business professionals with an interest in corporate social responsibility and sustainability are in for a treat: Walt Freese, Stonyfield’s president and chief executive officer (CE-Yo), will be an instructor in the certificate in corporate sustainability program at UNH in November.

The program will be held Nov. 7-9, 2012. The certificate in corporate sustainability is a collaboration of the Whittemore School of Business and Economics, New Hampshire Businesses for Social Responsibility (NHBSR), and UNH’s Sustainability Institute.

Freese and Tom Kelly, chief sustainability officer at UNH, will team-teach a course on trends in sustainability and will explore sustainability’s pertinence to businesses of all sizes. Through a mix of lecture and discussion, participants will review the context, history, and key drivers of sustainability.

Freese took the helm of Stonyfield from founder Gary Hirschberg in January 2012. Freese is former CEO of Ben &...

The National Center on Inclusive Education (NCIE) at UNH’s Institute on Disability has received a $825,000 subcontract as part of a five-year, $24.5 million grant from the U.S. Department of Education, Office of Special Education Programs to the University of Kansas.  

The NCIE will work with the University of Kansas and other national partners to establish the Schoolwide Integrated Framework for Transformation (SWIFT) Center, a national technical assistance center for inclusive education. SWIFT is dedicated to promoting the inclusion of students with disabilities in their neighborhood schools while also increasing the academic achievement of all students. The center will assist educators, administrators, schools, and state education agencies in implementing evidence-based inclusive education practices. 

The NCIE’s Mary Schuh, along with colleagues from the Maryland Coalition for Inclusive Education (MCIE), will lead the effort to create a national...

Natalie Zemon Davis, who is considered who is considered one of the greatest living historians, will present the 2012 Dunfey lecture Thursday, Oct. 18, discussing how slaves and masters in 18^th century Suriname communicated with each other.

"Dealing with Strangeness: Language and Information Flow in an Early Modern Slave Society" will be held from 5 to 6 p.m. in MUB, Theatre I. The lecture is free and open to the public.

According to Jeffry Diefendorf, professor of history and the Pamela Shulman Professor of European and Holocaust Studies, Davis was the second woman elected as president of the American Historical Association. 

“The election of Davis marked both the greater influence of women historians in our profession and the rising interest in micro-history....

The angel investor market in the first two quarters of 2012 showed signs of steady recovery since the correction in the second half of 2008 and the first half of 2009, with total investments at $9.2 billion, an increase of 3.1 percent over the same period in 2011, according to the Center for Venture Research at UNH. 

A total of 27,280 entrepreneurial ventures received angel funding during the first half of 2012, a 3.7 percent increase from the same period in 2011, and the number of active investors in Q1 and Q2 2012 was 131,145 individuals, a 5 percent increase from Q1 and Q2 2011. The increase in total dollars and the matching increase in total investments resulted in an average deal size of $336,390 in the first half of 2012, comparable to the deal size in the same period in 2011 of $338,400. 

“These...

This story first appeared in the fall 2012 Center for Humanities newsletter.

In September, Siobhan Senier, associate professor of English, began a full-term appointment as the James H. Hayes and Claire Short Hayes Professor of the Humanities, commonly known as the Hayes Chair. Through the end of academic year 2016, Senier will continue her work on the literature and culture of Native people in New Hampshire and throughout New England.

“In 2011, New Hampshire convened the first Commission on Native American Affairs to recognize and promote the historic and cultural contributions of Native Americans to the state and to further the needs of New Hampshire’s Native American community through state policy and programs. So this is an auspicious moment for UNH, as the state’s...