Upcoming Events
Watering Hole Seminar Series: Gina Ramirez
4:30 PM
Ford Motor Company Engineering Design Center
Wildcats in Water | Precipitation Through Time: From Ancient Drainage Systems to Present-Day Climate Modeling
11:30 AM
O. T. Hogan Biological Sciences Building
Watering Hole Seminar Series
4:30 PM
O. T. Hogan Biological Sciences Building
Wildcats in Water
11:30 AM
O. T. Hogan Biological Sciences Building
What's Going On
Aaron Packman speaks at Stand Up for Science's Teach-in
Last weekend, NU Water’s co-director, Aaron Packman, highlighted how federal funding for Great Lakes research and infrastructure supports both environmental protection and Illinois’s $17 billion water economy with 1.5 million jobs at Stand Up for Science’s Teach-in.
The collaboration between scientists, policymakers, and organizations like Current shows what’s possible when we unite around water protection. Special thanks to fellow presenters Rachel Poretsky, Debra Shore, and Mike Pasqua for their valuable insights.
Protecting our Great Lakes requires continued investment in science-based solutions and community engagement—exactly what this event championed.
A Big Win for Water
Major update from our March Watering Hole event! Rob Weinstock’s case against Trump Tower’s unauthorized Chicago River water intake has won. Trump Tower will:
– Stop harming aquatic life
– Comply with Clean Water Act
– Pay $4.8M settlement ($1.5M penalties, $3M restoration)
This record Illinois settlement will fund new fish habitat through Friends of the Chicago River.
New Paper Alert! Ultrasensitive Water Contaminant Detection with Transcription Factor Interfaced Microcantilevers
Congrats to McCormick School of Engineering’s Dilip Kumar Agarwal, Tyler Lucci, Jaeyoung Kirsten Jung, @Angel Green Samuel, Gajendra Shekhawat, Jean-Francois Gaillard, Julius Lucks & Vinayak Dravid for their paper in ACS Publications. Their work on ultrasensitive water contaminant detection is a breakthrough for global water quality monitoring.
New Paper Alert! Enhancing Water Harvesting Efficiency in a Phosphonate Metal–Organic Framework through Controlled Defect Generation
Congrats to Northwestern University Department of Chemistry’s Owen Bailey, Haomiao Xie Jinlei Cui, Courtney Smoljan, Kent Kirlikovali Songi Han & Omar Farha for their paper in ACS Publications. Their work on metal–organic frameworks as a tunable class of crystalline porous materials is an exciting advance for atmospheric water harvesting.