Spartans launch XPRIZE Rainforest biodiversity quest

Sue Nichols<Nichols@msu.edu>, Nichols@msu.edu -

High-powered, multidisciplinary team in Singapore to redefine scientific exploration and compete for $10 million prize.

Entomology Professor Eric Benbow, center, joins other MSU Team members in Singapore for XPRIZE Rainforest competition.
Entomology Professor Eric Benbow, center, joins other MSU Team members in Singapore for XPRIZE Rainforest competition.

Saving the rainforest, biodiversity, and in the process, the planet, is often framed as a high-stakes race.

Now that race has a timetable, a $10 million prize, and ACTNOW Amazonas, a high-powered women-led multidisciplinary team of Michigan State University experts collaborating with innovators, indigenous rainforest protectors, and a dedicated film crew, who together are semifinalists for the XPRIZE Rainforest.

The XPRIZE Rainforest, sometimes called the Olympics of Science, is a global competition aiming to enhance the world’s understanding of the rainforest ecosystems to protect it. Michigan State University has deployed faculty, staff, and graduate and undergraduate students who are biologists, engineers, computer scientists, geographers, information technologists, and anthropologists. They bring sweeping expertise in social justice, biodiversity, climate change, plants, animals, robotics, genomics, landscape ecology, wrangling and analyzing big data.

Jianguo "Jack" Liu and Kelly Kapsar in The Center for Systems Integration and Sustainability are among 13 of the 70 Spartans participating in XPRIZE Rainforest from The College of Agriculture and Natural Resources.

“The XPrize Rainforest competition fits perfectly with the climate research initiative outlined in the MSU 2030 Strategic Plan,” said Doug Buhler, associate vice president for the MSU Office of Research and Innovation. “We’re proud to support the project and back this team of experts as they showcase the problem-solving research prowess of Michigan State University at the international level.”

See the full story in The College of Natural Resources.

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