Take our Kids to Work Day returns

 

After a two year hiatus, Take our Kids to Work Day returned to ESF on April 28. Kids 8-11 years old with an adult that works or studies at ESF explored ESF fostered-careers through their own class day:

• ESF Sustainability: Which uses the least energy? A laptop, fan, or LED desk lamp? ESF’s new Energy Manager (and alum) Michael Amadori measured the electricity required to use all these household items.  Kids also played Wasketball, sorting common household waste into trash and recycling and used (with supervision!) solar power as a campfire starter.  They also had a sneek peak at our in-house power station.
• Color changing chemistry! Chemistry’s Kate Bailie (and graduate student assistants) helped students with simple acid-base reactions; use salt water, aluminum foil, and a complete circuit to create a temporary “ink”, and assembled teeny temperature sensitive LCDs
• All about Maple.  Which maples for syrup? (Any, but sugar has the best yield) What do the buds look like? The inside of a tree? With alumna Jill Rahn of ESF Forest Properties. 
• Something's Fishy: tracing mercury.  Details are important in science! What can we measure? Kids received instructions, and then helped Environmental Biology faculty member, Environmental Toxicologist Dr. Roxanne Razavi and grad students Abby Webster and Mike Ackland with record keeping, measured length and weight of whole yellow perch and (with careful supervision) retrieved otoliths (tiny ear bones that can be used to age the fish, much like rings in a tree), eye lenses, and a piece of dorsal fin.  These fish are part of an ongoing study, Project Breathless.  The samples, along with many others, will be assessed by grad students and faculty to help trace mercury through the sample population’s habitat.  Kids and volunteers thought yellow wasn’t an apt description, and that they should be called apricot perch.  A few Kids thought this the grossest of the activities, but others really enjoyed being part of active research!
• In the Lego® Bridge Challenge, Kids were tasked with planning (on paper) and then building (with Lego®) wide enough for Thomas the Tank Engine™ (or friend) to use, and allow 2 matchbox™ car wide lanes beneath. How much weight can it support? How few bricks can you use? (More bricks=higher materials and labor cost). With ESF Environmental Resources Engineering’s Karen Karker (planning support by Lindi Quackenbush).
• Building an Urban Ecosystem.  What are the components of a park (or community garden)? Kids working on the park explain their choices to ESF grad student and Open Academy staff members Dan Collins and Maura Harling Stefl. Through this, they realized park spaces will be hot. So they added a snack shack, water stations and shade. These introduce a new challenge: how to deal with the trash?
• Chemistry students David Spector and John Pezzulo ended the day with a Super Cool “Cooking” Demo, emphasizing safe handling of liquid nitrogen. While Kids (and volunteers) enjoyed some of the best strawberry and vanilla ice cream (served in low-waste waffle cone bowls) ever, John shared a secret:  that if really like what you are learning, and work hard, colleges might pay them to continue learning about that field through graduate school stipends and tuition waivers, and work in support of teaching and/or research.  

Kids Day is one of the earliest, and most enduring, programs of ESF's Women's Caucus. For a photo journey of the day, visit https://www.facebook.com/ESFKidsDay/; for information about past programs, please visit https://www.esf.edu/womenscaucus/kids.htm.  

Acknowledgments:  A huge Thank you to presentation teams for their time and supplies, and the many others who set up spaces, background checked and provided training to volunteers; Allison Oakes, John Turbeville, Brad Fierke, Linda McGuigan, Kathy Lang and Kelly Berger who got everyone where they needed to be; Diane Jaramillo for hep at registration; Danielle Gerhart, Nichole Doherty and Steve Waldron who helped serve lunch and chaperoned restroom trips; and Doherty for checking kids back to their adults. Thanks are also due to James  Zappola, Gentry Battaglia and Ilsa Dohner of the Trailhead Café for their lunch preparations, and to the Provost’s Office and the Women’s Caucus for covering these expenses and snacks. Gratitude to the Bookstore and Centennial Hall for day end gifts to Kids.

Nutrient Cycling, Storm water runoff, and Communicating Science to the Public, a conversation with Dr. Claudia Benitez-Nelson

Dr. Claudia Benitez-Nelson, professor in the Department of Earth Ocean and the Environment, University of South Carolina, presented Nutrient Cycling, Storm water runoff, and Communicating Science to the Public on Tuesday, March 1, 2022 via Zoom as part of SUNY ESF’s Women in Scientific and Environmental Professions Spring Seminar Series. This seminar was sponsored by ESF Women’s Caucus.

Dr. Claudia Benitez Nelson. Click for video.

Dr. Benitez-Nelson research focuses on the biogeochemical cycling of phosphorus and carbon, largely in marine environments, and how these elements are influenced by natural and anthropogenic processes. During the seminar she discussed her most recent research on inland and coastal nutrient cycling in relation to planning for stormwater surges.

Benitez-Nelson's team sought to establish the rate of sediment accumulation in stormwater ponds, determine the role these ponds play in the regional cycling of carbon and nutrients, and to identify the sources of organic matter to pond sediments in different growing urban areas in the Waccamaw watershed. “This was for us a real opportunity to truly connect more closely with the communities that we were working in” said Benitez-Nelson when explaining how their findings would benefit the homeowners close to the ponds. Her findings suggest that Particulate Organic Matter (POM) is a better proxy for liability than Dissolved Organic Matter (DOM) and may control Biological Organic Matter (BOD) loads. Her lab continues research on different topics related to aquatic organic matter.

Benitez-Nelson is often asked how she “starts to have these conversations about not just pollution, urbanization, sustainability, but talking about climate and how climate change is influencing where people are living their lives.” She shared that she is part of Science Moms, a non-partisan group of climate scientists, who also happen to be mothers, that “really talk about climate, the need collective action” as well as mitigation efforts, particularly in conversation with other mothers, for the benefit of all their children. 

Dr. Benitez-Nelson received B.S. in chemistry and oceanography from the University of Washington and a Ph.D. in oceanography from the Woods Hole Oceanographic Institute/Massachusetts Institute of Technology Joint Program. She has an extensive publication record which includes lead authored pieces in both Science and Nature. Dr. Benitez-Nelson also serves as Associate Dean, for Instruction, Community Engagement and Research.

For more information about the WiSE Professions Series, please visit http://www.esf.edu/womenscaucus.  For upcoming lectures, please visit ESF’s College Calendar at http://www.esf.edu/calendar.

As part of the course requirements for FOR797 Perspectives on Career and Gender, students share  responsibility of reporting on speakers in the campus-wide Women in Scientific and Environmental Professions Speaker Series.  The preceding was prepared by Natasha M. Torres Ríos, MSc student, Sustainable Resources Management Department.

Improving access through transit infrastructure: Conversation with Veronica O. Davis PE

As Director of Transportation and Drainage Operations for the City of Houston, Veronica O. Davis is responsible for maintaining and improving infrastructure across 671 square miles. She chatted with ESF on Earth Day about challenges in designing roadways for equitable transit through her lens as a civil engineer passionate about transportation and community development.

Veronica O. Davis.  Click for video

Houston is the 4th largest city. Its physically large, but is not contiguous because of its growth through annexation.  Houston's road system and bike lane are used to channel rainwater to prevent property drainage.  Both are swept to prevent debris blocking drains.  

Houston is seeking not just infrastructure, but "really good infrastructure" through better public transit and measures "to live with water.  Houston's highest point is only 100' above sea level.  So, biking is easy, but drainage is difficult."  The city has a big goal of 25 miles/yr of "High Comfort Bike Lanes" plus 50 miles of sidewalk.  These lanes are also called "protective bike lanes", which are bide, protected from traffic by a buffer, and have dedicated travel lanes.  Her office benefits from an "enterprise fund" from a drainage fee on water bills, sales tax on Metro, rather than on the general budget.  She also notes that they benefit from dedicated crews, working to expand their capacity.  Botanists are consulted to choose plants suitable for the ebbs and flows along drainage paths.

Half of roadways are concreate, rather than asphalt, which is cooler.  The city also uses cool pavements, which are gray and permeable, which helps with both heat retention and drainage. Other ways to make biking safer include reducing instances of speeding through better designed roads.   Coupling bike lanes with better public transit also improves bikability, as it helps address "what happens if I need to go far?"

For students nearing graduation, Davis notes that there are lots of opportunities in Houston. 

Ms Davis has 20 years of experience in engineering and transportation planning.  She co-founded Nspiregreen in Washington DC, which manages Community, Multimodal Transportation, and Environmental planning and consulting.  While at Nspiregreen, she led the Vision Zero Action Plans for Washington, DC and the City of Alexandria.  She also co-founded Black Women Bike, an organization and movement that builds community and interest in biking among black women.  She was named a Champion of Change  by the White House (2012) for these accomplishments and advocacy. Davis  earned a Bachelor of Science from University of Maryland College Park and a Master of Engineering and a Master of Regional and Urban Planning, Land Use and Environmental Planning from Cornell University.

This presentation was part of ESF's Earth Week Celebration, and an installment in the College's annual WiSE Professions Speaker Series.

Morningstar discusses healing socio-ecological wounds through plants and land justice

As an herbalist, academic, activist, and indigenous ethnobotanist, Stephanie Morningstar has learned to see the world through multiple lenses. She visited SUNY-ESF on March 4th, 2020 to discuss how these different worldviews have helped her in her work addressing socio-ecological problems of today. The talk was sponsored by the ESF Women’s Caucus and the Center for Native Peoples and the Environment.

The lecture, titled “Co-creating Indigenous Futures: Finding My Place as a Haudenosaunee Woman in Academia, Land Sovereignty and Healing Justice”, began with the Haudenosaunee thanksgiving address, an expression of gratitude for all that supports life – from the sun to the plants to the animals to the soils. Morningstar encouraged the audience to envision where we find peace in nature, and center ourselves on that image. She then guided us into recognizing the ways that our relationships with land have been damaged over the years, and how we can learn to heal those broken relationships. Morningstar’s life work has focused on this mission, and she approaches it from both a social and a biological perspective. In her many different roles, she says she is always grounded in service to community.

As an herbalist at Sky World Apothecary + Farm, Morningstar develops relationships with plants and uses their gifts to help people heal. As an academic, Morningstar works with Global Water Futures, bridging western and traditional ecological knowledge in water research projects. And as an activist, Morningstar works with the North East Farmer’s of Color Land Trust to help return land to people who have been denied it for generations - specifically black, indigenous, and people of color (BI-POC). She noted that in the United States, BI-POC farmers and stewards own less than 1% of farm land. Morningtar encouraged us to recognize how historical injustices are continued today, and that we must actively work to correct them.

Throughout her talk, Morningstar helped the audience diagnose the ecogrief we may be feeling about the state of the world today. As environmentally-minded citizens, many of us feel the heavy weight of climate change upon us and the loss of beloved ecosystems. In addition to ecogrief, she also described the psychological toll of ethnostress - losing one’s sense of place in the world. These harms weigh especially heavy on indigenous people who have been cut off from their land and culture due to colonization, boarding schools, and land theft. Morningstar’s work to heal these wounds has led her to working for both ecological restoration as well as restorative social justice. 

Morningstar’s lecture ended by asking us to envision once again our wild place of peace, centering us on a vision of a healthy future. Despite the many environmental and social wounds we carry today, she showed us that there are also many paths for healing. To learn more about her work, you can visit her personal website and blog (www.skyworldapothecary.com), her research at Global Water Futures (https://gwf.usask.ca/projects-facilities/indigenous-projects.php), and the work of the North East Farmers of Color Land Trust (https://nefoclandtrust.org/)

              For more information about the ESF Women’s Caucus, and upcoming speakers, please visit: https:/www.esf.edu/womenscaucus.

As part of the requirements for FOR797 Perspectives on Career and Gender, students share responsibility for reporting on presentations in the Women in Scientific and Environmental Professions Speaker Series. The preceding was prepared by By Lauren Tarr (Environmental Science, PhD).

Dr. Nacoulma explores Elephant Attacks on Baobab Trees in Burkina Faso

On February 22, 2018, Dr. Blandine Marie Ivette Nacoulma - a Fulbright Scholar from University Ouaga 1 Professor Joseph KI-ZERBO serving at University of California, Davis as an Assistant Professor of Environmental Science – presented “Why do elephants attack Baobab trees in protected areas of Burkina Faso? Toward the elaboration of a strategy for species conservation.”  This presentation was a join presentation of SUNY ESF’s Advaptive Peaks Seminar Series and the Women in Scientific and Environmental Professions Speaker Series. The Department of Environmental and Forest Biology Department sponsored the seminar with the Fulbright Outreach Lecturing Fund and the ESF Women’s Caucus. 

            Dr. Nacoulma discussed a variety of characteristics of Baobab trees that may indicate a high likelihood of elephant attack, in which the tree is debarked to some degree, including bark texture, bark color, tree shape, and diameter at breast height (dbh).  The research area consisted of a group of protected areas or parks with various management plans in Eastern Burkina Faso.  As this research is ongoing, final conclusions were not presented.

            The presentation began with extensive background information regarding the setting of this research: Dr. Nacoulma’s home country, Burkina Faso, which is a landlocked country in Western Africa. Dr. Nacoulma also provided a primer on the country’s “Big Two” species.  Elephants and Baobab trees are “charismatic flagship and keystone species” important to ecology and economy of the region, and “indirectly in conflict.”    The Baobab trees surveyed for Dr. Nacoulma’s research were found within three adjacent protected areas in Eastern Burkina Faso, each within a different ecological zone and with a corresponding management plans: Arli National Park, W Burkina Faso National Park, and Pama Reserve.  In these areas, debarking of Baobab trees by elephants has been observed repeatedly.  Only one other study exploring this phenomenon has been completed in Western Africa.

  Dr. Nacoulma’s research utilized feedback and input from local people to identify distinct characteristics of Baobab trees, including bark texture (smooth, rough, and cracked), bark color (pink, white, dark, and intermediate), tree shape (“broom”, flattened, round, and “sunshade”), and tree size (dbh).  Tree size was the only characteristic that had a noticeable correlation to debarking, in that larger trees were more likely to have been attacked.  No other measured characteristics had significant correlation to elephant attacks, indicating that these characteristics do not predispose the trees to attack.  Nutrient analyses are still underway.

Local people provided potential reasons that elephants attack Baobab trees, including for a nutritional supplement, as a source of water, because of a need to destroy, and because elephants compete with Baobab trees to be the largest organism on the landscape.  Finally, local people gave suggestions on how to address the problem and protect the trees, including fencing in each tree, providing additional water holes for elephants, planting more Baobab trees, and culling the elephant population. 

During the discussion the day prior and the reception following her presentation, Dr. Naclouma shared many interesting stories about her country’s economy and the financial benefits of Baobab trees. It is obvious that Baobab trees facing threats from the unsustainable tourism and illegal hunting which very common in Africa.

Dr. Nacoulma holds a Ph.D. in Plant Biology and Ecology from the University of Ouagadougou, where she focuses on the diversity, production, uses, ethno-ecology, ethnobotany and conservation of indigenous trees important for the livelihood of rural communities in Burkina Faso. Dr. Nacoulma is studying the functional traits of the baobab as a baseline for its conservation. 

The next presentation in the WiSE Professions series will be March 27, 2018 with Dr. Christine O’Connell of the Alan Alda Center for Communicating Science “Communicating science to the public.”  For more information about the WiSE Professions Series, please visit http://www.esf.edu/womenscaucus/Speakers.htm or the SUNY ESF’s Women’s Caucus at http://www.esf.edu/womenscaucus/. 

As part of the requirements of FOR496/797 Perspectives on Career and Gender, students share responsibility for reporting on the Women in Scientific and Environmental Professions Speaker Series.  The preceding was prepared by:  Xue Dong, PhD student in Environmental and Forest Biology; Megan Gorss, a BS student majoring in Natural Resources Management, in the Department of Forest and Natural Resources Management Department; and Colin Mettey, a MS student focusing on Ecology in the Department of Environmental and Forest Biology.

Rochester Roots: Excellence in Community Sustainability Education

Jan McDonald, executive director of Rochester ROOTS, Inc., located in Rochester, New York, presented a seminar on March 9, 2016 titled “Bringing Science to Life: A collaborative Approach to Sustainability Education in Grades PreK-6th grade where Students, Teachers, Citizens, College Students, PhDs, and Businesses Learn Together” as part of SUNY ESF’s Women in Scientific and Environmental Professions Seminar Series. SUNY ESF Graduate Student Association, and the ESF Women’s Caucus jointly sponsored the seminar. Her inspiration for ROOTs now signature programs started with her childhood food allergies, and realization that when her diet improved, they bothered her less—while spending less at the farmer’s market

            ROOTS mission is “To empower citizens and communities, starting with youth, to create agency for their own sustainable wellbeing.” Ms. Donald presented the organization’s work which involves improving community health through and wellbeing through youth school programs and community gardens.  An example of this is local Montessori children working with RIT students to develop their imaginative ideas into tangible systems like classroom composters and robotic interfaces and gaming models.

            A central theme for ROOTS is creating diverse community gardens through learning environments, grassroots initiative, and the use of adaptable urban sustainable designs. Ms. McDonald discussed how to improve life enrichment and nutrition by developing gardens for low income communities by integrating sustainable agriculture, art, and healthy eating.

            By incorporating hands-on gardening experiences, students are able to learn the value of gardening and food preparation which empowers youth, family, and community. These community gardens - repurpose otherwise abandoned land which simultaneously approves aesthetics. In addition, the produce can be sold at market or used in product development, serving additional lessons in marketing and sales.

            For more information about this lecture and Rochester ROOTS visit www.rochesterroots.org. For more information about WiSE Professions Speaker Series, please visit www.esf.edu/womenscaucus. For upcoming lecture, please visit the College Calendar at www.esf.edu/calendar.
Students in FOR797 Env Career Strategies for Women share responsibilty for reporting on the WiSE Professions Speaker Series.  The preceding was prepared by Kelley Corbine, Nicolette Fruehan, Devin Hansen and Joel Ramtahal, all graduate students in the Department of Forest and Natural Resources Management.

FNRM Awards Ceremony Farnsworth Lecture: Katie Fernholz speaks on: “The Challenges and Opportunities of Sustainable Forestry”

Trees are making a comeback from would-be extinction, changing rhetoric like “Save a Tree” to “Sustainable Trees,” according to Katie Fernholz, Executive Director of Dovetail Partners.  She says, “land use has changed over time,” necessitating modern sustainable forestry practices and effective public policy which has turned trees into efficient, renewable, productive resources.  Fernholz was the Farnsworth Lecturer for the FNRM annual awards ceremony held March 26, 2015 on the SUNY-ESF campus. 

Ms. Fernholz spoke about improved forest use to include tall wood building, ecosystem services in terms of climate change, policy for implementing green building code, getting wood out of landfills, more stringent rules on illegal logging, and rebuilding public trust in forestry.  Fernholz states, “My work touches many areas such as urban forestry, recreation, and silviculture.”  Other issues surround private forest land ownership, one of America’s biggest challenges and the appropriate frequency of fire.  During the ceremony preceding the lecture, the C. Eugene Farnsworth Fellowship was granted to Ph.D. student, Matt Kelly, and M.S. student, Yang Yang.

Fernholz grew up on an organic farm in Western Minnesota.  After earning her degree in forestry from the University of Minnesota, Fernholz worked for an environmental services department and eventually Dovetail Partners.  She has also served on several committees, boards and societies and is a forest certification lead auditor.  Fernholz travels and lectures internationally and has worked with the U.N.  She credits her success to “creativity and expertise through certification” and adheres to a holistic lifestyle.

Dovetail Partners, Inc., is an environmental nonprofit that uses info about forestry in a historical context to envision a future of forests as a sustainable energy source, as well as diversity of forest products from paper to fuelwood, informed land use, and nonwasteful, stable forestry to fulfill their objectives but also to enhance the natural beauty and function of forests.  Initiatives toward educating youth through internships and mentoring programs are also goals.  Fernholz is collaborating with Prof. Bob Malmsheimer of FNRM toward policy aimed at effective management for trees grown for their use as carbon sinks but with a goal toward sustainable harvest practices.

The event was cross-listed as a Women in Scientific and Environmental Professions lecture.  For more information about the WiSE Professions Lecture Series, please visit:  http://www.esf.edu/womenscaucus/speakers.htm. 

As part of their class requirements, students share responsibility for reporting on speakers in the WiSE Professions Speaker Series.  The preceding was prepared by Julie Grinstead (EFB 2015).

CONTACT:  Ms. Katie Fernholz, Executive Director, Dovetail Partners, Inc., 528 Hennepin, Ave., Suite 703, Minneapolis, MN  55403, Tel. (612) 333-0430.  Website:  http://www.dovetailinc.org.

ESF women take first and second place in the Slepecky Undergraduate Research Competition

The experimental green roof, located on
top of Con Edison's The Learning
Center.  Image credit: Tiziana Susca, Columbia University

Katy Austin, an EFB undergraduate honors student has won first prize in the Slepecky Undergraduate Research Prize.  She was awarded the prize for a manuscript based on her honor's thesis "Effects of Nitrogen Deposition on Nitrogen Acquisition by Sarracenia purpurea in the Adirondack Mountains, New York, USA".  The study is in review at the journal
Botany.  Austin is first author.  Her co-authors include Mark Teece, and Jesse Crandall from ESF's Chemistry Department, and Amy Sauer and Charley Driscoll, from the Department of Civil and Environmental Engineering, Syracuse University.

Cambria Ziemer, an ERE undergraduate honors student tied for second place honors.  Ziemer completed her honor's thesis the past summer on "Boundary Layer Conditions of a Shrub Willow Evapotranspiration Cover Syracuse, NY". She worked with Wendong Tao, in ESF's Department of Environmental and Resource Engineering, and Tony Eallonardo, a Scientist with O'Brien and Gere.

The award presentation followed a lecture by Dr. Patricia J. Culligan of  Columbia University, on Green Roofs and Urban Stormwater Management, which featured projects under evaluation at Columbia University and around New York City.  Dr.  Culligan is a leader in the field of water resources and urban sustainability.  In addition to being a Professor, she co-directs the Columbia University Earth Institute’s Urban Design Lab and is the director of an innovative, joint interdisciplinary Ph.D. program between Columbia Engineering and the Graduate School of Architecture Planning and Preservation that focuses on designs for future cites, including digital city scenarios.

The Slepecky Lectureship and Undergraduate Prize has been endowed by family, friends and colleagues to honor Syracuse University professor Norma Slepecky, who died in 2001. Dr. Slepecky was a distinguished auditory neuranatomist and member of the Institute for Sensory Research.  She was a passionate researcher and an advocate for undergraduate student research. Dr. Slepecky hoped that her legacy, with the support of the endowment, would continue to encourage young women to conduct research. As stewards of the Lectureship and Prize, SU WiSE annually coordinates the undergraduate award and lecture by a noted woman scholar and a celebration in Dr. Slepecky’s memory.

Revitalizing Baltimore: A better city through environmental discovery

As part of the course requirements for FOR496/797, students share responsibility for reporting on the WiSE Professions Speaker Series.  The following was prepared by Olga Shevtsova

Jackie Carrera, president and CEO of Parks & People Foundation in Baltimore, concluded ESF’s 2013 Women in Scientific and Environmental (WiSE) Professions Series with Revitalizing Baltimore: A better city through environmental discovery on Tuesday, April 23. The seminar was jointly sponsored by the Graduate Student Association and the ESF Women's Caucus.

Parks & People began with the idea that there is one park, a city within a park, that is, rather than many parks within a city as the greenspace and corridors provide a network for a healthy community.  Ms Carrera discussed problems in the city of Baltimore, including significant property abandonment as a result of suburban sprawl, lack of opportunities for young people, stream erosion and non-point source pollution, uncoordinated approaches to natural resource management. These examples demonstrated the urgent necessity of the Urban Resources Initiative which works towards sustainability through applied ecosystem management principles. This working group learned that “Urban greening programs influenced the health of the city—they bring people together in a way they are not used to working together.  This increases their social capital, enabling them to take on bigger community issues like schools and crime.  They also have an economic benefit by increasing property values.” 

Carrera also focused on the power of partnership between governments at all levels, nonprofits, academia, businesses, and communities. Defining the most important steps of planning process through discussion of how to meet the goals and how they’ve changed is a key to achieve urban ecological restoration. The Baltimore Ecosystem Study (BES) has enhanced increased public support of scientific research. Parks & People Foundation affords opportunities for BES scientists to communicate their knowledge for practical application in community organizing and public policy. Initiating different workshops, annual meetings, trainings and science presentations all contributed to the project’s success.  It is imperative that on the ground management strategies use sound scientific approaches; and that science research is informed by practical needs. The process “is established, then fixed, then tweaked, in an iterative way” to assure that everyone at each level are at the same table.  

Watershed 263 is a classic example. "The city had an unfunded mandate to clean up pollutants flowing into the city.   This watershed featured lots of impervious surfaces, a lot of city owned land, and significant but dispersed open space. What, they wondered, would happen if they could reduce the asphalt?  The removal of back parking lot of Franklin Square Elementary School, coupled with other projects increased the area available for infiltration."

Good Science is the key, and a technology committee capable of communicating science with practitioners, is the tipping point.

About Jackie Carrera
Jackie Carrera has been instrumental in the development of a 15-mile urban greenway, community forestry and watershed restoration programs numerous youth sports and camp programs which continue to be integral to the revitalization efforts of some of that city’s most underserved communities. She also chaired Revitalizing Baltimore, a US Forest Service urban and community forestry project and is a co-principal investigator for the Baltimore EcosystemStudy, a National Science Foundation-funded, long term ecological research project.  Ms. Carrera represented the Chesapeake region in preparing for the Obama Administration’s America’s Great Outdoors Initiative and the Urban Waters Initiative.  She served on a national task force initiated by the US Forest Service, Vibrant Cities and Urban Forests: A National Call for to Action. Ms. Carrera was voted one of the Daily Record’s Maryland’s Top 100 Women and 100 Most Influential Marylanders by The Maryland Daily Record and was named the 2008 University of Baltimore Distinguished Social Entrepreneur. Ms. Carrera is a graduate of the Greater Baltimore Committee Leadership Program and the Weinberg Fellows Program. She earned a BA, Business Administration degree in Finance from Loyola College in Maryland.

For more information about the WiSE Professions Series, please visit http://www.esf.edu/womenscaucus/speakers.htm

Famed primatologist speaks at ESF

Dr. Patricia Wright

As part of the course requirements for FOR496, students share responsibility for reporting on the WiSE Professions Speaker Series.  The following was prepared by Rose Petersky.

In 1986, Dr. Patricia Wright was looking for the Greater Bamboo Lemur, a species that had been thought to be extinct, in Madagascar, the only area of the world where lemurs are naturally found. Weary? from her extended travel, she decided to stop at a local hotel.   Behind the hotel was a forest.  Within that forest, Dr. Wright not only found the lemur that she sought, but also a new species-- the Golden Bamboo Lemur.   Despite the ecological significance of these finds, she knew that the forest would not be around for much longer without protection. She visited the Madagascar Department of Water and Forests to try to persuade them to make the forest a preserve. Their response was that they would be happy to comply, if they were given the necessary funding. Wright recalled to the audience of about 80 in ESF’s Illick Hall that she “walked out of that office thinking, ‘oh dear’ and then [she] became a conservationist.” Seven years later, Ramonafana National Park was founded.  It was declared a UNESCO World Heritage Site in 2007.

Golden Bamboo Lemur

Lemurs are the most threatened mammal in the world. Ninety-one percent of lemur species are on the RED list of endangered and threatened species. They are threatened by deforestation, slash and burn agriculture, erosion, and mining. Since humans arrived in Madagascar 1,500 years ago, 90 percent of Madagascar’s forests have been destroyed. Thanks to Dr. Wright, there are 41,600 hectares of tropical forest where 12 species of lemur are protected. In addition to providing this essential habitat, Ramonafana National Park also supports 100 scientific researchers annually and employs 85 full-time staff.

Dr. Wright states with confidence that Ramonafana would not be possible without the support of the local people that cooperated with her from the very beginning. One half of the admission fees from the park go to local villages for municipal projects.   Ramonafana also participates in outreach programs around Madagascar such as hosting a radio station in the park’s recording studio, and an education program that reaches 32 schools and more than 11,000 Malagasy children. In addition,, Ramonafana’s heath team has constructed 230 latrines and installed 30 water pumps in the local area, and provides disaster relief for 3,000 people.   

About Dr. Wright

Considered to be one of the world’s foremost expert on lemurs, Patricia Wright is best known for her 26-year study of social and family interactions of wild lemurs in Ranomafana National Park, Madagascar, and for leading the effort to establish this park.   For this work, she holds, among other honors, the prestigious National Medal of Honor of Madagascar.  She is the founder of the Institute for the Conservation of Tropical Environments (ICTE) and Centre ValBio (CVB), and a Professor in the Department of Anthropology, all at Stony Brook University.  Wright has worked extensively on conservation. In the late 1980s she spearheaded an integrated conservation and development project that, in 1991, led to the establishment of Ranomafana National Park.  Wright has received many honors for her conservation work in Madagascar, including the prestigious "Chevalier d’ Ordre National” National Medal of Honor of Madagascar, from the President of Madagascar in 1995. 

About the series

Dr. Wright’s lecture “Lemur Conservation in Madacasgar:  Updates from Ranomafana National Park “  on February 21, 2013 was a joint presentation of the Women in Scientific and Environmental (WiSE) Professions and the Adaptive Peaks Speaker Series.  It was sponsored by the Department of Environmental and Forest Biology, ESF Women's Caucus and the Graduate Student Association .   For more information about the WiSE Professions Series, please visit http://www.esf.edu/womenscaucus .