MEES IN THE NEWS

october 2025 - foundation spotlight: Environment, health & Society

NEWS ARCHIVE

MEES RESEARCH CENTER

Biofouling in Oyster Aquaculture: An ENVIRONMENTAL SUSTAINABILITY STUDY

shannon hood (Ph.D. ‘22)

Shannon Hood (‘22, Ph.D.) is Senior Manager in the Aquaculture Program at Conservation International (CI), an Arlington, Virginia based non-profit organization dedicated to marine conservation; scientific research; conservation finance; and partnerships with governments, corporations and Indigenous and local communities. At CI, Shannon supports the shared development of science-based guidelines, tools, and other program-related support to improve the aquaculture sector. Advised by Dr. Louis Plough (now at USDA), Shannon earned her Ph.D. degree in MEES at the University of Maryland Center for Environmental Science in Fall 2022. Her doctoral research focused on identifying operational strategies to aid productivity of water column oyster farms, examining methods that can be applied at a commercial scale to improve the efficiency of oyster culture practices. Prior to joining the MEES program, this Maryland Eastern Shore native recalled fond memories of helping her father tend a big vegetable garden,  and being on the water of the Bay, fueling a passion for not only watching things grow, but gaining an early understanding of the importance of stewardship and sustainability.  Shannon noted a high school restoration project involving the planting and growing of native marsh grasses in a highly deteriorated marsh area as leaving a big impression on her regarding the effect of human influence over the natural environment.  After graduation, Shannon worked for the Environmental Defense Fund in Washington, DC before joining the UMCES Horn Point Laboratory Oyster Hatchery as a faculty research associate before ultimately pursuing her Ph.D. with UMCES.  During her career in MEES, Shannon received the prestigious Dean’s Fellowship (2018) and was the recipient of multiple grants.  Shannon graduated with honors - summa cum laude - with a perfect 4.0 cumulative GPA in Fall 2022. Under the guidance of Dr. Plough, Shannon’s dissertation research aimed at advancing the oyster aquaculture industry through improved production practices that can streamline the efficiency of these operations.  The research specifically focused on using exposure to air to control biofouling on cultured oysters. Biofouling, or plants and animals which attach to the oysters and/or cages, can be thought of akin to weeds in a cornfield. They can detract from the growing conditions available to the crop of interest, the oysters.  Shannon research explored finding an environmentally friendly method to control biofouling and improve efficiency of aquaculture operations.  Two years into the program in 2020, UMCES published a feature on Shannon and her research here. Shannon also hosted a Horn Point Laboratory 2020 seminar entitled, “Bolstering the MD Oyster Aquaculture Industry” which can be viewed here. Currently working at CI, Shannon hopes to continue working in the space at the intersection of the environment, industry, policy and society and enjoys the challenge of bringing scientific knowledge to the table with other fields and working together to develop meaningful solutions to pressing challenges. For more information on Shannon, please click here.

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Dr. claire Welty

urban hydrology and sustainable water ,

resource management

Claire Welty is Director of the Center for Urban Environmental Research and Education and Professor of Environmental Engineering at the Department of Chemical, Biochemical and Environmental Engineering in the College of Engineering & Information Technology at the University of Maryland Baltimore County (UMBC).  A longtime MEES faculty member, Dr. Welty’s research interest is in developing an end-to-end system of field-deployed sensors and fully coupled groundwater-surface water mathematical models to quantify and predict the urban hydrologic cycle and coupled biogeochemical cycles from neighborhood to regional scales.  The goal is to be able to assimilate sensor data into hydrologic and water quality models in near-real time for predicting flow paths, fluxes and stores of water and chemicals on land surfaces and in the subsurface.  Last January, Dr. Welty recently participated in a BSEC (Baltimore Social-Environmental Collaborative) seminar series hosted by Johns Hopkins University’s 21st Century Initiative,  a campus hub for research, education, engagement, and outreach related to expanding economic opportunity and improving quality of life for urbanites in developed and developing nations.  Dr. Welty, along with a team of scientists collected a variety of observations and analyzed climate change dynamics in Baltimore City at the city and neighborhood scale to understand issues such as urban heat island, urban flooding, and air pollution. The aim was to provide decision-relevant science needed to address local priorities and needs.   In collaboration with Dr. Larry Band, Ernest H. Ern Professor of Environmental Science at the University of Virginia School of Engineering and Applied Science, Dr. Welty presented “Water and Water Quality Theme Hydrologic Modeling Approaches”; a summary of two hydrologic approaches utilized in this project: ParFlow-CLM, a three-dimensional integrated hydrological model that simulates subsurface and surface water flows and EcoSlim (Ecohydrologic, Saturated, and UnSaturated Lagrangian-particle-tracking Model), a hydrologic model designed to simulate the movement, age, and sources of water through a landscape.  A few of the questions this approach aimed at addressing was to identify the sources and flow paths in urban drainage systems that can deliver runoff, nutrients, sediments, and contaminants to streams, and how combinations of gray, green and blue infrastructure mitigate stormwater and water quality hazards while exploring their design to improve environmental equity.   

Another current Center Critical Zone (CZ) Cluster project Dr. Welty is participating in, is through the NSF’s Critical Zone Collaborative Network which spans four cities in the U.S. East Coast: Philadelphia, Baltimore, Washington, DC, and Raleigh, aimed at addressing the following questions: (1) How does urbanization in a temperate, Eastern seaboard landscape result in a shift from a supply-limited to a transport-limited regime governing solute export? (2) How does the underlying structure of the CZ along the Piedmont-Coastal Plain transition interact with urbanization to affect export fluxes? (3) How do chemical and hydrological dynamics associated with urbanization affect material export along the latitudinal gradient from Philadelphia to Raleigh? For more information on the project, please click here.

Dr. Welty has been at UMBC since 2003; prior to that she was employed at Drexel University from 1989 – 2003.  She holds a PhD from MIT in Civil and Environmental Engineering and teaches a groundwater hydrology course every fall semester and an introductory environmental engineering course every spring semester.  For more information on Dr. Welty, please click here.

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MEES RESEARCH CENTER

Chesapeake Bay Blue Catfish Management: UTILIZING SOCIO-ECOLOGICAL NETWORK ANALYSIS AND ETHNOGRAPHIC FILM

veronica lucchese (‘22, EHS)

Veronica Malabanan Lucchese (‘22, EHS) is a third year doctoral (Ph.D.) MEES graduate program candidate and NOAA-LMRCSC Fellow II researching methods to strengthen the management of both invasive and native fisheries in the Chesapeake Bay. Employing Socio-Ecological Network Analysis and Ethnographic Film, Veronica’s dissertation research focuses on the spread of the blue catfish across the York, Rappahannock, and Patapsco river watersheds in an effort to connect scientific research with community perspectives.  Advised by Dr. William Dennison (UMCES), Veronica is based at the University of Maryland Center for Environmental Science and has a passion for the life sciences, environmental justice, and community engagement.   
Prior to joining the MEES program, “Nani” as she is called by close family and friends, was inspired to pursue life science, social science and communications through her experiences growing up as a native of New York City with Filipino descent experiencing many environmental and socio-economic challenges.   Veronica aims to improve management practices and empower Asian and East Coast communities as environmental stewards.  Veronica earned her Bachelor’s degree in Marine Affairs, Geology and Anthropology at the University of Miami’s Rosenstiel School of Marine and Atmospheric Science.  Veronica also worked as the Fisheries and Aquaculture Communications and Outreach Specialist for the NOAA Howard Lab and as a Geology Technician at the New Jersey Department of Environmental Protection.  Her current work as a federal contractor is focused mainly on scientific communications, outreach, website design, and economic data analysis.  Passionate about life sciences, environmental justice, and public education, Veronica is dedicated to improving environmental management practices and diversity, equity and inclusion efforts.

Since entering into the MEES program, Veronica has received several awards for nearly every year in the program, in recognition of her environmental leadership, academic and scholastic excellence, including the MEES Graduate Program Fund Menzer Award (2024), the Bill Huppert Endowed Student Award (2025), and First Place for Physical Environment in The Green Space Data Challenge from Georgetown University (2023). She produced the documentary "Managing the Potomac", which highlights environmental injustices faced by the Patawomeck Tribe of Virginia, and continues to collaborate with the Tribe while forming partnerships with other Indigenous and local organizations. She also organized the first-ever Rappahannock Catfish Cookout, bringing together diverse stakeholders to address invasive species management through dialogue—and shared meals. Veronica has also faithfully served as the Graduate Student Government (GSG) MEES Program Representative in the College Park Graduate Council helping to shape university policy concerning student support initiatives and was the voice for fellow MEES program students working directly with university administration decision-makers.  
Veronica’s dissertation research, funded through a NOAA Experiential Research and Training Opportunities (NERTO) grant, aims at tackling inequality in Chesapeake Bay blue catfish management utilizing socio-ecological network analysis – which studies the complex, interconnected relationships between social and ecological systems by representing them as networks of nodes (social groups, species, ecosystems) and links (interactions, resource flows, collaborations). This method, which draws from both social and ecological sciences, allows researchers to understand how changes in one part of the system can cascade through others, providing insights into system resilience, management, and human-nature interdependence. Veronica hopes the results of this study will further enhance stakeholder participation in decision-making processes.  For more information on Veronica, please click here.

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