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School of Environment and Natural Resources

CFAES

Brian Lower

  1. Magnetic bacteria are the focus of a study funded by a $330,000 NSF grant being done by CFAES professors Brian and Steven Lower and Ohio State physics professor Ratnasingham Sooryakumar. (Photo: Flickr)

    Studying Bacteria that Follow the Earth’s Magnetic Field

    Oct 9, 2017

    Magnets in bacteria?  Brian Lower stumps a lot of people when he first mentions magnetic bacteria. So he’ll take out a pen and draw them. Or he might show a video of them moving about a screen, appearing as ants. When a magnet is placed nearby, they immediately align close to the magnet, like soldiers milling about then suddenly called into a lineup.  As intriguing as they may be to watch, magnetic bacteria also have potential for practical use to send cancer-fighting drugs to a particular part of the human body and to store a signficiant amount of data on a small chip.

  2. APLU 2016 USDA Teaching Award winner Brian Lower with Ohio State Provost Bruce McPheron, CFAES Associate Dean Linda Martin and APLU’s Susan Sumner and Ian Maw at the awards ceremony in Austin, TX.

    Faculty Member Awarded Excellence in Teaching Award

    Nov 14, 2016

    Brian H. Lower, associate professor in the School of Environment and Natural Resources at The Ohio State University, received the Association of Public and Land-grant Universities (APLU) 2016 Excellence in College and University Teaching Award for Food and Agricultural Sciences at the 129th annual meeting of the Association of Public and Land-Grant Universities held in Austin, Texas.  Lower received the award for the U.S. North Central Region, which includes colleges and universities in IL, IN, IA, KS, MI, MN, MO, NE, ND, OH, SD, WI.  The award honors individuals who have a sustained pattern of excellence in college and university teaching in the fields of agriculture, natural resources, veterinary science, and/or human sciences.  The award is sponsored by the U.S. Department of Agriculture (USDA) and the Association of Public and Land-Grant Universities (APLU).

  3. Earth’s Biggest Challenges? Ohio State Students to Share Findings Tuesday

    Nov 22, 2015

    About 700 students will display science posters about Earth’s biggest challenges at the 2015 Environmental Science Student Symposium at The Ohio State University. The event goes from 8 a.m. to 4 p.m. on Tuesday, Nov. 24, in Ohio State’s Ohio Union Performance Hall, 1739 N. High St., in Columbus. Admission is free and open to the public.  This year marks the fourth year that Ohio State students enrolled in ENR 2100, an introductory environmental science course offered by the School of Environment and Natural Resources (SENR), will present posters on their final projects. The projects cover pressing topics such as desertification, biodiversity, water quality, fossil fuels and more. The course attracts a wide range of students, with nearly every major at the university represented in the course.
  4. Ohio State Students Launch ‘Environmental ScienceBites’ iBook

    Oct 19, 2015

    A new free iBook written by students in an introductory environmental science course at The Ohio State University describes some of Earth’s biggest challenges and how people are using cutting-edge science and engineering to provide sustainable solutions. Called Environmental ScienceBites, the 184-page e-book for Apple devices was written by undergraduate students in Introduction to Environmental Science, a course taught by Associate Professor Brian Lower.
  5. SENR Interview on the Environmental Science Student Symposium

    Oct 29, 2014

    We had the opportunity to sit down recently with Brian Lower, associate professor in the School of Environment and Natural Resources (SENR) to learn more about this year's Environmental Science Student Symposium.

  6. NSF funds Associate Professor Brian Lower’s project on magnetotactic bacteria found naturally in aquatic ecosystems

    Sep 5, 2014

    A new 3-year $562,000 award from the U.S. National Science Foundation (NSF) will allow researchers from The Ohio State University to study the crystallization of magnetite (Fe3O4) by magnetotactic bacteria. The bacteria, found naturally in aquatic ecosystems, has the innate ability to grow crystals of the mineral magnetite that act like magnets and are the correct shape, size, crystallinity for emerging applications in high demand in technology and medicine. 

     

  7. Brian Lower Receives 'Coursework Affordability' Grant

    Feb 6, 2014

    Brian Lower, assistant professor in SENR, recently received the Academic Coursework Affordability Grant from the Undergraduate Student Government at OSU to help make college more affordable. Lower teaches Introduction to Environmental Science (ENR 2100) and Soil and Environmental Biochemistry (ENR 6610), and researches environmental microbiology. The grant, worth $1,000, was designed to increase the use of affordable course materials, including the use of technology such as digital textbooks.

  8. iTunes U course offered by SENR Faculty Member is Bestseller

    Jun 10, 2013

    Introduction to Environmental Science, an iTunes U course offered by Dr. Brian Lower, assistant professor in the School of Environmental and Natural Resources is currently ranked by Apple as the 33rd bestseller for ALL courses and the 3rd bestseller for science courses. Dr. Lower started offering the course in March 2013  and the course has about 14,500 students.