Renovation and expansion of core facilities for interdisciplinary urban biogeochemistry research at Towson University

该奖项是根据2009年美国复苏和再投资法案（公法111-5）资助的。在这个奖项中，城市环境生物地球化学实验室（UEBL）的研究实验室将被翻新。客房建于1976年，从未翻新。改造将把一个样品制备实验室，附近的岩石制备室和相邻的支持空间转换为一套综合的研究实验室，其中包括，在一端，一个样品摄入实验室和一个样品处理实验室，在另一端，两个新的文化和有机体实验室和一个高科技化学仪器实验室。 陶森大学位于城市到农村梯度的中间，为研究城市化对自然系统的影响提供了理想的环境，包括人类对自然系统的改造以及与人类社会系统的相互作用。来自生物科学，化学，地球科学和环境科学的教师和学生以多学科的方式关注化学，物理，地质和生物过程之间的功能相互关系，这些过程控制城市/郊区系统中元素和化合物的来源，运输，循环和命运。陶森大学的教职员工积极参与联邦政府资助的项目。陶森大学是美国国家科学基金会的REU网站之一。改造将提高学生进行研究的安全性，同时提供一个有效的工作空间，将提高研究生产力和从事这些项目的学生的研究经验。陶森大学拥有高度多样化的学生群体，少数民族的保留率和毕业率超过全国平均水平。

This award is funded under the American Recovery and Reinvestment Act of 2009 (Public Law 111-5). In this award, research laboratories of the Urban Environmental Biogeochemistry Laboratory (UEBL) will be renovated. The rooms were built in 1976 and have never been renovated. The renovation will convert a sample preparation laboratory, a nearby rock preparation room, and adjacent support spaces into an integrated suite of research laboratories that include, at one end, a sample intake laboratory and a sample processing laboratory, and at the other, two new culture and organismal experimentation laboratories and a high-tech chemistry instrumentation laboratory. Towson University is located in the middle of an urban-to-rural gradient, which provides an ideal setting to study the effects of urbanization on natural systems, including their modification by humans and interactions with human social systems. Faculty members and students from Biological Sciences, Chemistry, Geosciences and Environmental Science focus in a multidisciplinary way on the functional interrelationships between chemical, physical, geological and biological processes that control the sources, transport, cycling and fate of elements and compounds in urban/suburban systems. Towson University faculty members are research active with federally funded programs. Towson University is one of NSF's REU sites.The renovation will enhance the safety of students conducting research while providing an efficient work space that will enhance research productivity and the research experience of students engaged in these programs. Towson University has a highly diverse student population with minority retention and graduation rates that exceed the national average.