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Peter T. Paul College of Business & Economics

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Thursday, August 21, 2025 - 4:15pm

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More Than a Building: The Enduring Legacy of UNH’s Thompson Hall

ket1007 — Tue, 19 Aug 2025 16:17:21 +0000

Think you know T-Hall? Think again! Step inside UNH’s most historic building and true campus landmark. From its surprising past as a gymnasium and library to hidden time capsules, hurricane damage, and mysterious missing stained glass windows, T-Hall has seen it all. Alum and former UNH Facilities Project Manager Brenda Whitmore '81, '02G, tells fascinating tales of founder Ben Thompson, quirky campus legends, and the heritage behind the building that’s been at the heart of UNH since 1893. Whether you’re a Wildcat alum, student, or history buff, discover the spirit and legacy of T-Hall, a place that’s been keeping UNH’s stories alive for more than a century.

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Join our video tour of one of UNH's most iconic landmarks

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Tuesday, August 19, 2025 - 12:15pm

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UNH Researcher Joins $152M Project to Advance AI for Scientific Research

bhf2 — Tue, 19 Aug 2025 16:09:54 +0000

Samuel Carton, assistant professor of Computer Science.

As artificial intelligence technologies rapidly advance, AI’s applications for scientific research hold extraordinary promise to accelerate scientific discovery. Now, a UNH researcher will help create a fully open suite of advanced multimodal AI language models specifically designed to support the U.S. scientific community as part of a major $152 million partnership between the National Science Foundation and technology company NVIDIA.

With a sub-award of more than $500,000, co-principal investigator Samuel Carton, assistant professor of computer science, will help manage a community of scientist-users and use their feedback to guide the design of interfaces to the new models. The award will also fund his own research in the use of AI to accelerate the discovery of new materials.

“Everyone agrees that generative AI has game-changing potential for scientific research,” Carton says, “but to really capitalize on that potential we need fully open models designed from the ground up, with scientist feedback, to support scientific innovation.”

Supporting the Open Multimodal AI Infrastructure to Accelerate Science (OMAI) project and led by the Allen Institute for AI (Ai2), the public-private investment aligns with the priorities of the White House’s AI Action Plan to enhance the nation’s AI leadership.

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Samuel Carton is researcher in National Science Foundation-NVIDIA partnership

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Beth Potier

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Tuesday, August 19, 2025 - 12:00pm

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UNH Again Recognized as Center of Excellence in Cyber Defense Education

ket1007 — Tue, 19 Aug 2025 15:48:36 +0000

The �鶹app has once again been designated as a National Center of Academic Excellence in Cyber Defense (CAE-CD) by the National Security Agency and the Department of Homeland Security.

“This redesignation affirms UNH’s commitment to cybersecurity education as well as workforce empowerment by helping organizations manage their cybersecurity risks at a local, state and national level,” said Mike Decelle, dean of UNH’s College of Professional Studies.

UNH was the first institution in New Hampshire to receive the designation in 2019, this latest redesignation extends that status until 2030.

UNH continues to be selected based on its strong degree programs, exceptional faculty, active student engagement in cyber security and outreach to share cyber defense expertise with other organizations. The university offers a wide array of programs, including bachelor’s degrees in homeland security, computer science with a concentration in cybersecurity, as well as an online master’s degree in cybersecurity policy and risk management (CPRM) and a master’s in cybersecurity engineering, both offer the flexibility of full-and part-time enrollment for working professionals.

“Managing cybersecurity can often feel like drinking from a firehose,” said Maeve Dion, associate professor of security studies and program coordinator for UNH’s cybersecurity policy and risk management. “Organizations can find themselves in a constant state of change and our graduates are able to help businesses anticipate, respond to and recover from cyber risks while sustaining the systems needed for organizational success and growth.”

To build on that support and cultivate future cybersecurity leaders to strengthen engagement with communities, UNH operates the UNH Center for Cybersecurity Leadership, Education, and Outreach (CCLEO) which focuses on cybersecurity education and training as well as external outreach and support to businesses and government agencies in New Hampshire and beyond. The center showcases faculty and student research, fosters collaboration and provides cybersecurity resources for academia and industry.

Students in UNH’s interdisciplinary cybersecurity programs apply their skills through capstone projects, course assignments and internships, contributing to the cybersecurity and digital resilience of both private and public sector organizations. These hands-on experiences prepare graduates for careers in homeland security, intelligence, counter-terrorism, law enforcement, risk management, emergency management, community disaster resilience and cybersecurity.

“Cyber risk management is about foreseeing future changes and managing the risk, resilience and growth that are at the heart of agile and learning organizations,” said Terrence O’Sullivan, associate professor and department chair of security studies.

UNH’s fully online CPRM program is designed for mid-career or management-level professionals from technical, business, or risk and compliance fields. CPRM graduates bring cybersecurity know-how into enterprise risk management leadership and processes across private and public organizations, large and small.

“The bar for this designation has continued to rise as cybersecurity education and careers move toward professionalization,” said Karl Grindal, assistant professor in security studies. “UNH’s ability to meet the program’s increasingly rigorous criteria reflects the strength of the program’s interdisciplinary approach and commitment to protecting the National Information Infrastructure.”

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UNH was first institution in New Hampshire to receive the designation in 2019

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Maeve Dion, associate professor of security studies and program coordinator for UNH’s cybersecurity policy and risk management, teaches a class at UNH Manchester in 2017.

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Hetzel Hall Turns 100 in Style After Major Renovation

ket1007 — Tue, 19 Aug 2025 15:35:13 +0000

Any question as to how deep Kristin Carpenter’s connection to UNH’s Hetzel Hall runs can be answered by a group messaging thread her children share with their friends.

Carpenter met her husband, Kevan, in Hetzel when she was an RA there in the 1990s, and both just retired from UNH on the same day this spring after long careers on campus. The pair also met a group of lifelong friends while living in the building, friends they still get together with multiple times each year.

Like Kristin and Kevan, many of those friends have started families, and their kids have grown close over the years and stay connected in part through a group thread affectionately titled “Children of Hetzel.”

“It’s a pretty long backstory,” Carpenter admits, regarding her decades-long ties to the building.

And thanks to a recently completed full-scale renovation that allowed Hetzel to re-open for the first time since the COVID-19 pandemic, incoming Wildcats will now have the opportunity to author similar personal stories.

A dorm room inside renovated hetzel hall.

Hetzel celebrated its 100th birthday in grand style this spring, as the interior overhaul was officially unveiled and the building welcomed student residents for the first time since being shut down during the pandemic.

It was the first significant renovation in the building’s 100-year history. The official grand opening ceremony to the public was held Saturday, June 7 during spring reunion, welcoming more than 70 guests.

“Everything on the inside of the building was dramatically changed from what it was before,” says Andy Petters, director of housing at UNH. “The university embarked on this full-scale renovation, and in partnership with the design team and contractor did a really wonderful job of gathering feedback from students, from across the university and from housing and residential life staff to really make sure the scope of the project aligned with the needs of students in 2025.”

Carpenter, who retired from her role as associate director of residential life this spring after a 30-year career at UNH, was involved at various stages in the planning of the overhaul and was able to tour the renovated building after it opened with many of the friends she made during her time at UNH. And although things certainly looked different than they did when she first moved in during January of 1990, she was thrilled to see the building with some new life.

“If anything, that experience I had with my friend group, I would want that building to be able to provide that for future generations,” Carpenter says.

Feedback from those future generations played a key role in the renovation, Petters says, as the university – along with contractor Wright Ryan and Lavallee Brensinger Architects – sought out student input in hopes of modernizing the building in a way that best appealed to the generation that would be living there.

The result is a building featuring more single bedrooms, more private bathrooms and a kitchen space near the first-floor lounge area designed to encourage gatherings among residents. The building also now features air conditioning, an amenity Carpenter says she and her friends would have loved to have back the 90s.

“It was all about interviewing students and getting feedback from them, figuring out the things they want to see in their UNH experience and how they want to live and experience their life here,” says Katie Bartholomew, director of residential life.

Another addition to the building was an elevator, which created one of the more unique challenges of the renovation, Petters says, as giant steel beams had to be placed underneath the building so it could rest on them as space for the elevator shaft and other utilities was created.

There is laundry on the first and third floor – and laundry is now included in housing at UNH, Petters notes – and the updated bathrooms feature barn-style sliding doors in several areas to create additional flexibility and opportunities for privacy.

The first cohort of students to move into the renovated space arrived in January 2025 and was made up primarily of students new to UNH, either transfers or first-year students beginning in the spring. The upcoming academic year will mark the first full school year that the updated building will be occupied.

Feedback from those first residents was overwhelmingly positive.

“They loved it, and some of them chose to return there as residents this coming year,” Petters says. “Students by-and-large want to be in Hetzel, it was a very popular building selection choice for first-year students, and it filled more quickly than any other building.”

That success can serve as a model for future residence hall renovations, Petters and Bartholomew say, as Hetzel is likely to serve as something of a blueprint for other potential upcoming projects.

“Hopefully this is the beginning of many other buildings that we’re able to add some more life and longevity to,” Petters says.

Modernizing a century-old building while trying to preserve some historic charm is a difficult balancing act. While the exterior of Hetzel Hall received a new roof and new windows among other improvements, all of the upgrades were made with every effort to maintain the historical look and feel that people have come to associate with a building considered a “cornerstone of UNH’s campus,” Petters says.

That tug of war between modern and nostalgic is what made the Hetzel renovation project a complicated one for Carpenter emotionally. But given the outdated interior and desire to better meet student needs she was ultimately 100% on board, particularly in regards to the focus on communal spaces that encourage socializing and camaraderie (Petters says Carpenter was a key advocate for particular door holds used in the building that can prop doors open – unless there’s a fire alarm – to facilitate interacting with neighbors.)

After all, it was the social aspect of her Hetzel experience that created the connections she has cherished and strengthened for more than three decades of her life.

“It was a little bittersweet, but the associate director of residential life in me very much understood and supported the need, and the community builder in me very much knew that the lounge space, the public spaces and gathering spaces were going to be so vital for the ability of the people in the building to build relationships,” she says. “It’s so exciting to see.”

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Modernized building ready to welcome students for new academic year

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Four Recent Grads Secure Fulbright Grants to Study Internationally

ket1007 — Tue, 19 Aug 2025 15:26:17 +0000

Four recent UNH graduates were named Fulbright recipients this spring, earning grants that will allow them to further their education in Scotland, Jordan, Germany, and Taiwan, respectively.

Jake Gehrung ’20, Silas McIntire ’23, Sydney Seaver ’24 and Madison Smith ’23 received the recognition. Additionally, Lina Adjout ’21 was recognized as an alternate.

The Fulbright program is “the flagship international educational exchange program sponsored by the U.S. government and is designed to increase mutual understanding between the people of the United States and the people of other countries,” according to the program website. The Program operates in more than 160 countries worldwide.

Jake Gehrung.

Gehrung, from Walpole, New Hampshire, received the Fulbright to pursue a MSc in sustainable engineering: renewable energy systems and the environment (RESE) at the University of Strathclyde in Scotland beginning in September. He graduated from UNH with a degree in environmental science – ecosystems and has been working as an energy engineer at Resilient Buildings Group for four years.

Gehrung has studied abroad multiple times and says he gained a “deeper appreciation for global approaches to addressing challenges” each time. He’s hoping to continue that trend in Scotland, where he says he will be able to learn from the unique renewable energy microgrids scattered across the country.

“With a growing interest in sustainable energy system innovation, I knew I wanted to pursue my energy engineering degree in a country where I could study live examples of the latest solutions,” Gehrung says. “This grant is a critical step for me to become a professor in this field and continue fostering international collaboration on energy innovation.”

He says the grant will help prepare him for his Ph.D. and later career pursuits in energy research by giving him the chance to explore topics in energy system engineering, hone his research skills and develop new relationships with academics.

silas mcintire.

McIntire, from Eliot, Maine, received the Fulbright to serve as an English teaching assistant in Jordan beginning in September. He graduated from UNH with a degree in linguistics and has been teaching as an English as a second language (ESL) teacher in Rochester, New Hampshire, for the past year. A first-generation college student, McIntire took a gap year before beginning college, during which he volunteered as a teacher in Tanzania.

“For me, receiving the Fulbright grant is honestly a bit surreal,” McIntire says. “I'm a first-generation university graduate from a family with deep ties to the local blue collar community. My father spent his 42-year career at the local grocery retail chain Market Basket, and we were both involved in a historic labor strike with the company in 2014. As a Fulbright grantee I'll have the opportunity to engage in cultural exchange and citizen diplomacy, sharing that commitment to worker solidarity and corporate transparency as a core tenet of my sense of American culture with young Jordanians really means the world.”

While McIntire hasn’t yet received his specific placement, he will serve as an English teaching assistant at a charitable organization and school, working mostly with disenfranchised youth. He says he’s most excited about developing relationships with his students and the cultural exchange that will follow.

“The true value of the program is the first-hand experience. When I go on to work in international education policy, social justice and advocacy, or public affairs, I’ll be able to remember my Jordanian students and remember to put the needs of people like them above any bureaucratic bottom line,” McIntire says. “That humanization and understanding will be infinitely more helpful to my professional goals than any advanced degree.”

sydney seaver.

Seaver, a Dover, New Hampshire native, received the Fulbright to serve as an English teaching assistant in Taiwan. She majored in linguistics at UNH and hopes to teach abroad for several years before returning to the U.S. for graduate study in linguistics.

Beginning in early August, Seaver and other Fulbright recipients will be taking part in an intensive training program designed to help the recipients find success during their placements, she says. She is looking forward to the opportunity to build on some of what she learned at UNH while taking Chinese classes along with linguistics courses.

“I found great interest in the process of the acquisition and learning of another language’s phonetics. I hope to use this experience to learn more about students’ English phonetic acquisition processes and the pedagogy and further develop future research on perception of phonetic sounds while learning, preferably while attaining a Master’s degree,” she says. “I am most excited for the opportunity to engage with and learn about a beautiful and rich culture and give back to their community through additional service work.”

Seaver says the Fulbright experience will give her the opportunity to see firsthand the difficulties that students learning English face in environments in which English is not the most spoken language, which she can compare to those that students face in the U.S.

“I hope to use this experience to help frame my research in future years of study and help students of foreign languages find more confidence in speaking other languages,” she says.

Madison Smith.

Smith, from Concord, New Hampshire, received the Fulbright to serve as an English Teaching Assistant at Gerhart Hauptmann Realschule in Hannover, Lower Saxony, which is located in the northwest region of Germany near the North Sea. Smith will be working with students ranging in age from 10 to 16 as well as with teachers at the school, though her primary role will be “to act as an extra resource for students, since I am a native speaker of English, and to provide context for English language learning through the teaching of American culture.”

“I am very excited to create classroom relationships with students and help them better understand the English language and American culture, while being mentored by an English teacher from Germany,” Smith says.

Smith, a first-generation college student, majored in German and history while at UNH and plans to pursue a master’s in education following her Fulbright grant. Smith, who first began learning German in middle school and continued studying the language in high school, spent the summer of 2023 studying abroad in Berlin. She hopes to continue to become fluent in German and intends to pursue a career as a high school German as a foreign language teacher following her master’s.

“This grant experience will help me start my professional career as a teacher of foreign languages, as well as strengthen and deepen my relationship with Germany and its culture and language,” Smith says. “I will be able to apply my studies of teaching English as a foreign language (TEFL) and teaching English to speakers of other languages (TESOL) in a controlled setting which will help me gain confidence and strengthen my skills in the teacher role. I have always wanted to be a teacher, and I think this grant will be really beneficial in helping me gain experience inside a classroom prior to pursuing my masters degree.”

Want to learn how to apply for fellowships and scholarships? Discover all the opportunities available through the Office of National Fellowships.

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Awards will take graduates to Scotland, Jordan, Germany and Taiwan

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Reducing Wildlife-Vehicle Collisions in New Hampshire

mw1560 — Mon, 18 Aug 2025 19:25:40 +0000

In a largely rural and heavily forested state like New Hampshire, the consequences of collisions can be severe for both animals and drivers when the preferred routes of medium-sized and large animals intersect with roads. Efforts to reduce the approximately 1,500 wildlife-vehicle collisions (WVCs) reported annually in the Granite State have been limited by a lack of understanding of WVC hotspots, sections of road where WVC rates are particularly high. New research by scientists with the New Hampshire Agricultural Experiment Station (NHAES) at the �鶹app shows that while knowing where WVC hotspots occur is critical to tailoring better management practices, accounting for adjacent wildlife habitats and differences in animals’ interactions with roads is also key to lowering WVC risks.

To reduce incidents of wildlife-vehicle collisions, the N.H. Department of Transportation turned to UNH researchers, who are identifying collision hot spots and evaluating cost-effective interventions.

“Reducing WVCs in New Hampshire is a two-part effort,” says Station scientist Rem Moll. “We first need to identify the sites that present the biggest problems for drivers and wildlife. We then need to prioritize the most effective actions we can take with limited resources, such as making existing structures like culverts and bridge underpasses more usable for animals, to reduce the number of collisions.”

Recent research, published in Environmental Management, focused on the role of connectivity—linkages that allow animals to move easily between habitats—in predicting WVC hotspot locations. Subsequent work is underway to monitor hotspots and assess WVC mitigation strategies. Moll, associate professor of wildlife ecology in the College of Life Sciences and Agriculture, and Clara Dawson, a graduate student in his research group, are leading the work in collaboration with Amy Villamagna of Plymouth State University.

The role of connectivity in collisions

Fueled by New Hampshire’s recent rapid population growth, wildlife connectivity has been impacted by the development of roads and buildings that can fragment previously continuous habitat. The researchers combined collision data with measures of connectivity across the Granite State to assess hypotheses regarding how connectivity, traffic volume and habitat contribute to WVC frequency.

"Low-cost, easily maintainable and wildlife-friendly crossings are a win-win. They provide more connectivity between habitats and more safety for animals, and they mean that fewer drivers will experience a potentially costly and dangerous collision."

The findings emphasized that generalized connectivity models and maps currently do not provide sufficient nuance for predicting WVC hotspots. In fact, the results indicate that, in New Hampshire, greater connectivity did not lead to more active WVC hotspots as other studies had suggested. Instead, the highest WVC rates were observed at hotspots in areas with moderate connectivity for reasons that are still being investigated.

These differing results suggest that the ecosystem and habitat differences between rural and heavily fragmented landscapes play key roles in shaping hotspot occurrence and activity. Additional complexity can come from the number and diversity of animal species present within a landscape. For example, deer, bobcats and porcupines have different movement behaviors and seek different resources, necessitating species-specific analyses.

Monitoring hotspots and avoiding collisions

Once hotspots are identified in existing and planned infrastructure, what can be done to reduce WVC risks? Purpose-built wildlife corridors — bridges or underpasses constructed with surfaces resembling the surrounding countryside — are appealing, but their costs and land requirements typically make them unrealistic for New Hampshire. To understand cost-effective, landscape-appropriate strategies, Moll and his team are now investigating known hotspots to learn more about exactly why collisions happen at a high frequency at these specific locations. They are also studying how adjacent culverts and small bridges can be modified and maintained as wildlife-friendly, safe crossing options.

A gray fox turns away from using a culvert to cross under a road. Rem Moll is Investigating how to make such crossings more attractive to animals.

With support from the New Hampshire Department of Transportation, the researchers monitored 14 hotspots throughout the state, including the 125 corridor in Epping and Barrington, I-89 in Concord and highway 110 near Berlin. Through two falls and one spring, they used wildlife cameras to capture deer, moose, gray and red fox, bobcat, coyote, black bear, racoon, porcupine and turkey movements. Prior research usually monitored only the crossing site, such as at the bridges and culverts, but Moll and his team wanted a fuller picture of how wildlife interacts with roads.

“We developed a new approach that worked well, using cameras at the crossing itself as well as at the roadside and in adjacent habitats,” says Moll. “We had cases where we didn’t record a species at the crossing, but we saw a lot of them at the roadside, and they would have been missed entirely with a single camera. The situation indicates that the crossing needs to be more appealing to wildlife so that they will use it.”

The early results indicate that there are several ways animals can be encouraged to use crossings that avoid putting themselves and vehicles in harm’s way. In culverts, a “critter shelf” can be added so that smaller animals are able to stay dry while passing through. Under bridges, streams can often be made shallower or the stream bed more easily navigated by various animals.

At some locations, strategically placed fencing can be used to steer animals toward crossings or, at least, to a road location with better sight lines for drivers to spot nearby wildlife. For drivers, seasonal speed limits at WVC hotspots with notable deer and/or moose collision frequency, which tend to be highest in the fall when animals are most active, could raise driver awareness as well as promote safer traveling speeds in the vicinity.

“Low-cost, easily maintainable and wildlife-friendly crossings are a win-win,” says Moll. “They provide more connectivity between habitats and more safety for animals, and they mean that fewer drivers will experience a potentially costly and dangerous collision.”

Funding acknowledgements

This study was funded by the New Hampshire Department of Transportation Grant No. SPR2 42372P. Partial funding was also provided by the New Hampshire Agricultural Experimental Station under USDA National Institute of Food and Agriculture McIntire-Stennis Project 7003422.

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UNH research analyzes areas with frequent collisions to provide information crucial for reducing the toll for drivers and wildlife.

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Planting the Seeds for Tomorrow’s Healthcare Workers

arq32 — Fri, 15 Aug 2025 20:46:02 +0000

Building the region’s future healthcare workforce is a team effort, and a partnership between the UNH College of Health and Human Services (CHHS) and the Southern New Hampshire Area Health Education Center (AHEC) is helping lead the way by investing in the next generation before they even graduate high school.

The Health Career Exploration Camp, now in its second year at UNH, was held July 21–25 at UNH Manchester and Aug. 4–8 on the Durham campus and gave around 35 students, grades 8-12, a hands-on look at healthcare careers.

The Health Career Exploration Camp, a partnership between UNH's College of Health and Human Services and the Southern New Hampshire Area Health Education Center (AHEC), is helping to build the future healthcare workforce by exposing students to careers in the field before they graduate high school.

Some students arrived with clear goals — nursing, medicine, pediatrics — while others were just curious about the field. For all of them, the camp offered a chance to explore career options, with experiences that could confirm, refine, or even change their aspirations, according to Felicia Brackett, project director for UNH’s Institute for Health Policy and Practice.

“You don’t know what you don’t know,” Brackett says. “If you think you’re interested in nursing and you get to come into this great simulation lab and play with fake patients and have a stethoscope, you can figure out, ‘Okay, this is for me, this isn’t for me.’ If it isn’t, what else could I do that’s still in healthcare?”

Hands-On Learning, Real-World Skills

The UNH Manchester camp included students from that area and featured a day trip to Durham, while the Seacoast-area students spent the whole week in Durham at the Health Sciences Simulation Lab and other academic facilities.

Brackett says the camp grew significantly, as the first year had just under 10 students from the Manchester area. The goal of this year’s camps was to show the breadth of career opportunities available in healthcare.

“It originally started as nursing specific, and we expanded it to be inclusive of all healthcare professions, whether that be clinical, administrative, engineering, pharmacy, or dental,” Brackett says.

Each day included different activities, including CPR certification and training in administering Narcan. Students also shadowed lab instructors, diagnosed patients in the simulation lab, experimented with medical tools, and took part in activities ranging from building a lung to touring research spaces.

Carli Hughes, program coordinator for Southern New Hampshire AHEC, says when working with students with varied interests, it’s important to nurture those interests while providing them with practical skills they can use, regardless of their chosen career field.

“One student told me she’d taken a CPR class before where they just watched videos and practiced quickly. Here, we take the time, go more in-depth, and give them a chance to feel like they’re part of it,” Hughes says.

Emily Loehwing, a sophomore at Portsmouth High School who wants to become an emergency room nurse, says the camp’s hands-on approach sets it apart.

“I liked that they actually let us learn how to take blood pressures and use otoscopes, because other introduction-to-healthcare camps I’ve taken were much more theory-based,” Loehwing says. “Here, it’s, ‘Here’s a thing — now you get to learn how to do it.’ My favorite part was the CPR certification class.”

Freya Doshi, a junior at Portsmouth High School, is still exploring her career options and has already participated in multiple UNH camps, including one focused on regenerative medicine, DNA, and genomics.

“This camp felt very real. We were working in the lab on the same things as the nursing students, and it was very in-depth,” Doshi says. “Experimenting with camps like this is what helps you pick out what you like. You can’t just sit there wondering — you have to try it.”

College as an Achievable Goal

Beyond career exploration, the camp is also an opportunity to give students a positive college campus experience. Both camps toured the campus, spent time outdoors in the green spaces, and dined at Holloway Commons.

“They don’t realize how big the campus is and how beautiful it is,” says Brackett. “We try to focus on populations that don’t necessarily have the same opportunities to have those experiences. Just letting them know this is feasible for them, no matter their situation, if you want this to be what you want to do, you can get there.”

Allie Bronson, a junior at Raymond High School interested in studying pediatric nursing, says the camp reinforced her future goals.

“I thought the coolest part of the camp was just being on campus, especially since I want to go to college at UNH,” Bronson says.

Supporting the Healthcare Workforce

As New Hampshire and the surrounding areas continue to address healthcare workforce shortages, organizers says career exploration camps that engage students with the field early will continue to play a crucial role in sparking interest that could lead to long-term career commitments.

Both UNH and Southern New Hampshire AHEC are interested in growing the summer camp while finding additional ways to collaborate.

“We’re always talking about expanding our camps, and what that could look like,” Hughes says. “This partnership with UNH is not going away anytime soon.”

Dayle Sharp, clinical professor at the UNH School of Nursing, says she’s already seen the camp have an impact in its two short years.

“Last year, we had a few students who started the week unsure and were only there because their grandmother wanted them to go. By the end, they had developed an interest in nursing — they went from negative 100 to 100 in just a few days,” Sharp says. “We want to continue to build on AHEC’s philosophy: start them early, get them interested, keep them going, and keep them stimulated so we can build that workforce.”

Sharp says she would love to structure a camp where the students come in as freshmen for an introduction camp and then come back as juniors for a more advanced camp.

As the effort grows, the key to its success will be interdisciplinary partnerships, according to Marcy Doyle, faculty member at the Institute for Health Policy and Practice and UNH School of Nursing.

"That interdisciplinary approach was evident in this year's programming, which brought together professionals from nursing, social work, public health, emergency medicine, and community health workers," Doyle says. "We're excited to involve even more departments from across UNH and our NH partners as we grow."

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UNH and Southern New Hampshire AHEC partner to give students hands-on experiences that spark career ambitions

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Health

NH Impact

Institute for Health Policy and Practice (IHPP)

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Future Wildcats

Local Leadership

Students

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Aaron Sanborn

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NH Impact

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Monday, August 18, 2025 - 11:30am

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Seacoast area high school students got hands-on experience with patient care during the Health Career Exploration Camp, a summer program hosted by UNH and Southern New Hampshire AHEC to spark early interest in healthcare careers.

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How to Make Hydrangea Bouquets Last Longer

ket1007 — Mon, 11 Aug 2025 15:59:11 +0000

How do you make your beautiful hydrangeas last in a bouquet? At UNH’s Woodman Horticultural Research Farm, Becky Sideman, UNH professor of horticulture, is growing 19 varieties of cold-hardy hydrangeas that florists could use as cut flowers: arborescens, like the one she cuts here, panicle and oak leaf. She’s found that arborescens and panicle varieties “basically grow themselves,” but she steers clear of the classic blue macrophylla hydrangeas, which don’t bloom reliably in our Northern New England climate.

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UNH expert offers helpful tips

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Community

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Monday, August 11, 2025 - 12:00pm

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UNH Researchers Help Find WWII Shipwrecks in Solomon Islands

bhf2 — Mon, 11 Aug 2025 12:45:04 +0000

Over the course of five months in 1942, five World War II battles in the Solomon Islands saw the loss of 111 naval vessels, 1,450 planes — and more than 20,000 lives.

UNH Center for Coastal and Ocean Mapping By the Numbers

71: Percentage of the Earth’s surface covered by oceans

74: Percentage of those oceans unmapped to high resolution

1 million: Square kilometers of new seabed territory claimed by U.S. thanks to CCOM mapping efforts

238: Ph.D., Master’s and certificate alumni of CCOM

See how DriX and other autonomous vessels are helping UNH map the world’s oceans in this video.

More than eight decades later, this recent July, UNH researchers helped find more than a dozen of those shipwrecks, several of them for the first time ever. The expedition, funded by NOAA’s Ocean Exploration program through the Ocean Exploration Cooperative Institute and led by the Ocean Exploration Trust (OET) aboard E/V Nautilus, course-corrected historical records from these defining battles of World War II and helped bring closure to the families of the sailors who perished.

Key to these archaeological discoveries was the innovative use of DriX, the uncrewed surface vessel (USV) operated by UNH’s Center for Coastal and Ocean Mapping (CCOM). Instead of relying solely on the 224-foot Nautilus to search for targets, Drix, controlled by CCOM researchers from a shore-based station, used its seafloor mapping technology to search out shipwrecks 24 hours a day

“The use of DriX allowed a tremendous increase in exploration efficiency, as we were able to continuously map and identify potential targets while the Nautilus could focus on doing detailed, high-resolution imaging of wrecks using its remotely operated vehicle,” says CCOM Director Larry Mayer, one of seven UNH researchers participating in the expedition. Mayer notes that one of CCOM’s mandates from NOAA is to advance the technologies and increase the efficiency of ocean mapping. “We did that tremendously.”

“We were getting notes from people: ‘my grandfather was on that vessel, thank you so much.’ It was really touching.”

This expedition to the area known as Iron Bottom Sound was led by OET President Robert Ballard, known for his discovery of the Titanic in 1985. The DriX team discovered two previously unfound wrecks, the bow of the USS New Orleans and the Imperial Japanese Navy destroyer Teruzuki, and was able to update positions of several other wrecks whose location was uncertain.

Mayer calls DriX’s discovery of the USS New Orleans’s severed bow the most thrilling of the expedition, in large part due to the ship’s incredible story. A Japanese torpedo tore off nearly one-third of the ship, including the bow, killing 180 crew members. Remaining crew saved the ship by sailing it backwards from Guadalcanal to Australia and then to the U.S.

The severed bow of the USS New Orleans, discovered by UNH's DriX uncrewed surface vessel. Credit: Ocean Exploration Trust.

“For me, one of the most exciting things was to recognize that in real time we were rewriting history,” Mayer says. Watching livestreamed high-resolution imagery of these sunken vessels, a team of on-board and remote military historians reconstructed narratives about methods of destruction. For example, history books tell us the Terzuki sank when depth charges exploded and it lost its stern; ROV images indeed found that stern 250 meters away from the ship, but its depth charges were all there, unexploded.

The expedition marked two auspicious anniversaries — the 80th of the end of World War II and the 250th of the U.S. Navy — and honored the sailors and marines who lost their lives, bringing closure to the families of those whose final resting place had not been found.

“I didn’t realize how important that would be to so many people,” says Mayer, adding that family members as well as the general public could watch a livestream of ROV images on NautilusLive.org. “We were getting notes from people: ‘my grandfather was on that vessel, thank you so much.’ It was really touching.”

The expedition also sought to understand the environmental implications of these shipwrecks as they decay. It’s not entirely negative, as they can become artificial reefs. “These ships that represented such death and destruction can become the nurturing place for all sorts of marine life,” Mayer says. “It’s an interesting circle of life.”

In addition to Mayer, who served as the expedition’s co-lead scientist, UNH researchers operating DriX from shore in the Solomon Islands were KG Fairbarn, research project engineer; Nathan Hall, research project engineer; Andy McLeod, research project manager; Avery Munoz, research engineer; Val Schmidt, principal research project manager; and Skylar Vogler, research engineer.

This exploration was made possible by the expertise, support, and collaboration of many other partners, beyond the Ocean Exploration Trust and NOAA Ocean Exploration Cooperative Institute, including the U.S. Naval History and Heritage Command, Solomon Islands government, Solomon Islands National Museum, Kyoto University, Tokai University, Defense POW/MIA Accounting Agency, Air/Sea Heritage Foundation, Major Projects Foundation, and Royal Australian Navy Sea Power Centre. The marine research permit was issued by the government of the Solomon Islands via the Ministry of Education and Human Resources Development.

Subhead:

Expedition rewrote history, provided closure to families of lost sailors

Initiatives:

Global Reach

Innovation

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College of Engineering & Physical Sciences

STEM

World

School of Marine Science and Ocean Engineering

Center for Coastal & Ocean Mapping / NOAA Joint Hydrographic Center

Institute for the Study of Earth, Oceans, and Space (EOS)

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Beth Potier

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Monday, August 11, 2025 - 8:30am

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UNH's DriX, an uncrewed surface vessel, worked in tandem with Ocean Exploration Trust's E/V Nautilus to discover World War II shipwrecks in the Solomon Islands. Credit: Ocean Exploration Trust.

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