Featured Post from Western Carolina University

In the aftermath of Hurricane Helene - WCU's experts on the ground assisting

Oct 7, 2024

2 min

Hurricane Helene brought record levels of devastation, damage and death along America's eastern coast.

Massive recovery efforts are underway and WCU's Lisa Briggs and her team were featured in an in-depth piece of coverage by USA Today.

Lisa Briggs, director of emergency and disaster management at Western Carolina University, and Onna, a 6-year-old full German Shepherd, are pictured getting off the water craft. The pair is part of a search operation at the French Broad River deployed after the devastation caused by Hurricane Helene.

Photo: Gaby Velasquez, USA TODAY

'Humbled by the river'

Hampton and his crews are organized through the Madison County Sheriff’s Office, not FEMA. Finding bodies is one challenge — extracting them from the river is another, he said.

Sometimes, the bodies are fastened to the boats and paddled to a safe opening in the shoreline, where they’re placed in body bags and driven over to county officials. Other times, the bodies need to be hiked out of a particularly dense stretch of wilderness.

The dogs are trained and led by Lisa Briggs, director of the Emergency and Disaster Management program at Western Carolina University and a regional leader in training cadaver dogs. At the start of the day, she gave a command, "Hunt up!" and Onna, the cadaver dog, excitedly pranced toward the raft.

At a shoreline littered with downed trees, roof siding, and shards of ripped clothes, Onna crisscrossed the sandy area, squeezing between branches and passionately sniffing the ground. Later, she jumped back in the raft and the team drifted downriver.

On that day, Hampton’s raft covered the right shoreline while another of his rafts with his twin brother, Jack, and other volunteers covered the left. They paddled and drifted down more than five miles, until around 5 p.m., when they pulled the boats.

It was a rare day: No bodies were found. October 07 - USA Today

Onna, a 6-year-old full German Shepherd cadaver dog, gets off the shaft to sniff the ground along the river during a search and rescue operation at French Broad River on Friday, Oct. 4, 2024, in the aftermath of flooding caused by the remnants of Hurricane Helene.

Photo: Gaby Velasquez, USA TODAY

The work of the WCU team has been tremendous - and if you are interested in learning more about the role of cadaver dogs, how they are trained or the other work Lisa Briggs is taking on at Western Carolina University - then let us help with your coverage.

Lisa Briggs is the director of WCU’s emergency and disaster management program. She is available to speak with media any time - simply click on her icon now to arrange an interview today.

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Lisa Briggs

Professor, Director of Emergency and Disaster Management

Lisa Briggs specializes in forensic based criminology with a focus on missing persons, as well as the use of scent detection K9s.

Crime and DevianceForensic Based CriminologyCriminologyMissing PersonsScent Detection K9s

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Dec 3, 2024

2 min

Project Discovery earns $175K grant to help expand resources

Project Discovery director JennieV. Sorrells has seen her program impact the lives of tons of students. The project, hosted by Western Carolina University, has given secondary students the opportunity to explore careers and colleges and partake in adventure-based learning. And thanks to a six-figure grant, Project Discovery’s reach to students will be expanded. Sorrells and co-principal investigator Eric Klein of the University of North Carolina Asheville received a $175,000 grant from the Dogwood Health Trust. “I love working for talent search, but there are certain limitations to it and what we’re able to do, what services that we’re able to provide, just based on the structure from the Department of Education, but we knew that there were other means there,” Sorrells said. “We’ve seen these things through our practice. We know it’s an area of need, so when I saw the opportunity, it made sense to pursue it as a way to continue to build our body of work.” Project Discovery is an educational talent search program funded by the U.S. Department of Education that assists students in 15 schools in Western North Carolina. The program encourages students, who are primarily income limited and potential first-generation, college-bound students, to complete their secondary education and pursue a college one. With the grant from the Asheville nonprofit, Project Discovery will start a bridge program to support former participants in their transition into college and through their postsecondary studies. “A lot of times, we find that that’s where students can struggle and are trying to get to know new systems, new folks, build new relationships, so I like to think of this as the idea of the ‘warm handoff,’” Sorrells said. Project Discovery also hopes it can assist in reenrolling students who stopped their education, and it will aim to build the Higher Education Access and Success collaborative. HEAS, which started last year, includes several organizations across Western North Carolina. “(HEAS) is really kind of the idea of building upon the depth of knowledge that we already have in our region,” Sorrells said. “We have incredible college access programs and folks doing this kind of work, but a lot of times, we work in really siloed environments, “This is going to give us an opportunity to come together, build a community of practice and kind of learn from each other because there are a lot of things specific to our region and population.” Looking to know more or cover this topic - we can help. JennieV. Sorrells is available to speak with media - simply click on her icon now to arrange an interview today

Dec 3, 2024

2 min

WCU’s Karayaka, Yu receive $45K grant for research

Western Carolina University College of Engineering and Technology professor Bora Karayaka knew it was a shot in the dark — but that shot ended up paying off. Karayaka and WCU affiliate faculty member Yi-Hsiang Yu received a $45,000 grant from the Coastal Studies Institute. The grant was also received by M.A. Gabr and Anderson Rodrigo de Queiro at North Carolina State University. “In terms of grant search, you should try whatever you can,” Karayaka said. “Nothing is guaranteed, so I said, ‘Sure, let’s give it a try,’ and we tried and then it worked out at that time, so we were happy.” The grant will be used toward a project Karayaka and his colleagues are working on. The team is looking to see whether placing wave energy converters around wind farms on the coast would reduce the impact of environmental loading into the wind farms. Karayaka, Yu and two WCU graduate students will be responsible for making models for the wave energy converters while they meet with their NC State partners on a biweekly basis. In the spring, the team will head to the Coastal Studies Institute in Wanchese for the North Carolina Renewable Ocean Energy Research Symposium to present their results. Along with the chance of advancing research on the North Carolina coast, Karayaka also views this as an opportunity for WCU to continue to lend a hand in these research projects. “I don’t think we have received grants before (from the North Carolina Renewable Ocean Energy Program,) so it kind of opens the door to us to collaborate with other folks and get to know other folks, NC State, UNC Charlotte,” Karayaka said. “Maybe in the later stages, we will look into more physical aspects of the system. How can we put together a prototype? Not just models and make it real in a way.” Looking to know ore about this important environmental project or the other amazing research happening at WCU - then let us help. Bora Karayaka is available to speak with media - simply click on his icon now to arrange an interview today

Dec 3, 2024

5 min

Innovating (Western) North Carolina

NCInnovation may sound like a catchy name for a craft beer, but it is much more than a name. NCInnovation is a nonprofit organization created to unlock the innovative potential of North Carolina’s world-class public universities. While the state of North Carolina is a well-recognized leader in research and development, the output does not measure up to the state’s size and historically, most of the state’s research efforts have stemmed from the Research Triangle Park. Today, other regions of North Carolina are making a name for themselves with innovative concepts that University of North Carolina System schools are developing through academic-industry partnerships every day. This is where NCInovation steps in — to bridge academia and industry, to move inventions to market and create long-term economic benefits for all regions of the state. This is done by supporting researchers with grant funding, mentorship and partnership development to commercialize applied research breakthroughs and accelerate the transition from the classroom to the production floor. NCInnovation’s focus is on supporting North Carolina public university research that has commercial promise. Four regional networks are located at UNC System campuses in Charlotte, Cullowhee, Greensboro and Greenville. WCU is part of NCInnovation’s Western Regional Network, led by Meagan Coneybeer, regional innovation network director. “We are tech agnostic, which means that we are open to any faculty member here in the western part of the state at our institutions which include WCU, UNC Asheville, North Carolina School of Science and Mathematics Morganton and Appalachian State,” Coneybeer said. The program supports faculty working on industry-led, program-based innovations in partnership with industry or those who are interested in collaborating on large scale regional economic development projects that would be anchored in research, experience and excellence of a university collaboration. As part of the pilot grant funding, Brian Byrd, WCU’s mosquito expert and professor in the environmental health sciences program, along with Scott Huffman, professor in WCU’s Department of Chemistry and Physics, have been approved for grant funding from NCInnovation to continue their work in developing tools that utilize spectroscopy to analyze vibrational signals from mosquitoes. “Using spectroscopy, we are developing tools that analyze chemical signals from mosquitoes to tell us the species, sex, age of the mosquitoes and if they are infected,” Byrd said. “Using our approach, we can rapidly assess the risk of infection in the Aedes mosquitoes that transmit dengue fever and Zika.” Currently, it takes days or weeks to conduct this type of risk assessment, but the approach Byrd and Huffman are developing will make the work much quicker and more efficient. “There is a similar Aedes mosquito in Western North Carolina that transmits La Crosse virus causing encephalitis in children every year,” Byrd said. “This tool gives us a platform to improve risk assessments and opportunities to reduce human disease.” For Huffman, this project hits close to home. “When I was a boy, I almost died from a vector-borne disease,” he said. “This experience impacted me. While I have no skills or ability to address the particular disease that I experienced, working with Brian for the past six years has given me the opportunity to contribute in a small way to the field of pediatric vector-borne diseases. This funding from NCI will help us translate some of our fundamental laboratory research into an applied tool that hopefully will benefit society.” The grant approval is conditioned on standard next steps, including executed grant agreements and formal notification to government partners. The funding is part of NCInnovation’s larger mission to unlock the innovative potential of North Carolina’s world-class universities. “Dr. Byrd and Dr. Huffman’s award from NCI is a testament to the exemplary dedication to teaching and applied research by the outstanding faculty at Western Carolina University,” WCU Chancellor Kelli R. Brown said. “This funding serves as a catalyst for additional innovative exploration by our faculty as we strive to bolster economic condition in Western North Carolina and indeed the entire state. I would like to thank the General Assembly for supporting exciting, applied research underway here at WCU and across the UNC System.” The grant funding from NCInnovation’s larger effort to support the development and commercialization of university research in North Carolina. The campus-to-industry pipeline has been the foundation of American innovation for decades. There is so much applied research happening and this gives us the oppertunity to support that journey to commercialization and to partner with universities to bring successes to market. - Bennet Waters, President and CEO of NCInnovation “We are consistently blown away by the applied research innovations coming out of North Carolina’s public universities,” said Michelle Bolas, NCInnovation executive vice president and chief innovation officer. “Dr. Byrd’s and Dr. Huffman’s work has promising applications throughout the state and country and we’re excited to watch this research continue to develop.” Bennet Waters, president and CEO of NCInnovation; is excited about the opportunities that will stem from these partnerships. “At its core, NCI is a regional economic development opportunity and the concept is to use the existing or potentially applied research from our university campuses and not just those that are in the RTP,” said Waters. “There is so much applied research happening and this gives us the opportunity to support that journey to commercialization and to partner with universities to bring their successes to market. NCInnovation puts boots on the ground to foster these relationships. This is not a Raleigh-centric model; this is about helping folks that live beyond population centers to develop economic opportunities.” The organization received $500 million in state funding as an endowment to accelerate the commercialization of research at universities. NCInnovation will deploy the interest earned on the endowment to provide grant funding and support services to university researchers. By doing so, NCInnovation will support the growth of new businesses and licensing revenue from commercialized research, helping boost economic development in the region. The program supports faculty working on industry-led, program-based innovations in partnership with industry or those who are interested in collaborating on large scale regional economic development projects that would be anchored in research, experience and excellence of a university collaboration. “The partnership between WCU and NCI presents incredible opportunities to promote research-based entrepreneurship, product development and commercialization, and bolsters the likelihood of new job creation in the western portion of the state,” said Rich Price, WCU’s chief marketing and strategic partnerships officer. “The investment potential presented by NCInnovation removes so many barriers to university-led product and concept realization and the creation of intellectual property that will fuel economic growth.” Looking to know more or cover this topic - we can help. Brian Byrd and Scott Huffman are both available to speak with media - simply click on either expert's icon now to arrange an interview today.