Hello, earthlings. Everyone keeping warm? Good.
Surely there is warmth in the hearts of two UVA professors who’ve both just won Fulbrights for their environmental work. One is well known to us here at the paper: We’ve written extensively about John Quale’s work with architecture and engineering students who design and build prefab eco-houses through the ecoMOD initiative, as well as some charming side projects.
Quale with students in the ecoMOD3 house before it was rehabbed. Photo by Eric Kelley.
Here are Green Scene’s official congratulations to John Quale, a visionary teacher and a really nice guy, too. I particularly admire the way ecoMOD threads itself into our local community: One project rehabbed an old house in Fifeville that would likely have been torn down otherwise, and all of them engage in affordable housing issues along with eco-concerns like energy-efficiency and whether the paint is low-VOC.
Quale is off to Japan to learn even more about prefab housebuilding, which apparently has been going on in that country since about the time the Mayflower sailed.
Meanwhile, we are happy to learn about Deborah Lawrence, another Fulbright winner who teaches environmental science and studies the ways slash-and-burn agriculture affects the land. (Short answer: Destroys it.) She’ll be traveling to Thailand to look at agriculture and ecosystems there.
Anyone got a local nominee for next year’s fellowships?
