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Dr. Kelton Clark received his PhD from MEES, ecology area of specialization, in 2001 under the co-direction of Ken Sebens and Tuck Hines. Kelly is currently the Director of Estuarine Research Center, Morgan State University. His research interests are in experimental and statistical design used to test fundamental questions and advance theoretical foundations of populations and community ecology. Much of his present work concerns the interactions between predator and prey. Generalizations about predator prey relationships are seen as a key to increasing the predictive ability of ecology and ecosystem research. The response of prey to predation risk has consequences for both community and population structures. Shifts in habitat use can influence population abundance of community members through facilitation, resource depression, or preferential feeding on refuge inhabitants. The examination of these interactions can provide insight into one of the myriad of interactions that make predictive community ecology such a challenging field.
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Since UM signed The American College and University President's Climate Commitment (ACUPCC) in May 2007, MEES doctoral candidate Ramy Serour has been working with the Center for Integrative Environmental Research (CIER), School of Public Policy to help UM meet the ACUPCC requirements. He conducted the first campus Greenhouse Gas Emissions Inventory and is currently working on subsequent inventory updates. As a member of the UM Climate Action Plan Working Group chaired by Dr. Matthias Ruth and the Office of Sustainability (OS) in collaboration with campus operators, faculty, undergraduate and graduate student representatives, he developed a cost-benefit assessment of mitigation strategies to help campus decision and policy makers in a campus-wide effort to reduce the University's GHG emissions and ultimately become Carbon Neutral. He is also the graduate student representative in the UM Sustainability Council chaired by Dr. Ann Wylie, Vice President of Administrative Affairs. Both the UM GHG Inventory and a draft of the Climate Action Plan, a 40 year strategic plan for how the campus will become Carbon Neutral by 2050, are posted on the OS website (http://www.sustainability.umd.edu/index.php?p=CAP). |
Dr. Walter Boynton (Chesapeake Biological Laboratory) and Dr. W. Michael Kemp (Horn Point Laboratory) have been notified that they have been selected to receive the 2009 Odum Award for Lifetime Achievement of the Coastal and Estuarine Research Federation (CERF). The award recognizes the lifetime achievements of outstanding estuarine scientists whose sustained accomplishments have made important contributions to understanding estuaries and coastal ecosystems. Michael and Walt have been influential scientific collaborators over several decades based on their common interests in how ecosystems work. Walt has also been voted in as President-Elect of CERF.
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Student News:
MEES students Jennifer Bosch, Renee Gruber, Jennafer Malek, Tamara Newcomer and Kristen Rathjen are recipients of Atlantic Estuarine Research Society student travel awards in support of their travel for presentations to the CERF 2009.
Daniel Lee, a MEES M.S. student with Raleigh Hood, was awarded place in the student poster sessions at the 2009 CERF meeting for his poster "Assessing the Role of Mixotrophic Dinoflagellates in the Food Web of the Chesapeake Bay Estuarine Turbidity Maximum."
MEES doctoral student Kimberly Vest received first place in the 2009 MEES Colloquium poster competition for her poster entitled "Wind Erosion and Vegetation Structure in Groundwater Affected Plant Communities." She was followed closely by Caroline Fortunato and Verena Starke in the faculty’s rating.
Katherine Davis Ziombra, along with her M.S. advisor Dr. Lora Harris will be attending a NSF-sponsored workshop on "Material Budgets within Coastal Egypt" in Alexandria, Egypt November 17-20th. Katherine, who received a $1500 travel grant from NSF to participate in the workshop, will present her work on wastewater effluent into the Potomac.
Recent Student and Alumni Publications:
Eisenreich, KM, SM Kelly and CL Rowe. Latent mortality of juvenile snapping turtles from the upper Hudson River, New York, exposed maternally and via the diet to polychlorinated biphenyls (PCBs). Environmental Science and Technology doi:10.1021/es9008344.
Frisk, M. G. and T. J. Miller. 2009. Maturation, of little skate, Leucoraja erinacea, and winter skate, L. ocellata in the western Atlantic from Cape Hatteras to Georges Bank. Marine and Coastal Fisheries: Dynamics, Management and Ecosystem Sciences 1: 1-11.
Nye, J.A., J.S. Link, J. A. Hare, and W.J. Overholtz. Changing spatial distribution of fish stocks in relation to climate and population size on the Northeast US continental shelf. Marine Ecology Progress Series 393:111-129.
Utz, R.M., R.H. Hilderbrand, and R.L. Raesly. In press. Regional differences in patterns of fish species loss with changing land use. Biological Conservation
Alumni News:
MEES 2007 M.S. graduate Rachel Borgatti and husband Steven Smriga welcomed a daughter, Avicennia Judith, on October 23, 2009.
Faculty News:
Dr. Lowell Adams, wildlife Associate Professor in the Department of Environmental Science and Technology and MEES faculty member, was presented with the 2009 Outstanding Gemstone Mentor Award during recent May graduation ceremonies. The award honors the Gemstone mentor who has demonstrated exemplary support and guidance of his or her team. Dr. Adams was nominated by his team of 12 students who said, in part, "He is always willing to go above and beyond a normal mentor’s responsibilities. His enthusiasm and pride in our project gave us motivation when things seemed overwhelming."
Dr. Amy Brown, Professor, Department of Entomology, has been named a Fellow of the American Association of Pesticide Safety Educators. Fellow is the highest honor bestowed by this professional society, and is awarded on the basis of superior achievement in research, education, public service, personal achievement, recognition, and service. Dr. Brown was described as "the consummate critical thinker...[who] has bridged research, academic and extension responsibilities through an outstanding career. She has introduced both undergraduate and graduate students to the scientific underpinning of pesticide risk assessment and the practical application of risk communication."
Dr. Russell Hill of the Center of Marine Biotechnology was awarded the MEES Graduate Student Organization's 2009 Graduate Education Award for his teaching and service to the MEES graduate student community.
The College of Chemical and Life Sciences will hold its fall commencement on Sunday, December 20, 2009 at 4pm in the Memorial Chapel. CLICK HERE to read the announcement.
Congratulations to August 2009 MEES graduates:
Ph.D. – Xiaojun Feng, Evan H.C. Grant, Huiqing Li, Jose J. Reyes-Tomassini, Peter J. Sharpe
M.S. – Leah H. Beckett, Katie M. Delaney, Jason L. Edwards, Kari H. Fenske, Desmond J. Johns, Susan E. Lombardi, Emily D. Seldomridge, Karen A. Taylor, Daohong Yao
Fellowships and Scholarships:
Jeremy Testa (a MEES, doctoral student working with Mike Kemp at Horn Point Laboratory) was awarded a full scholarship to participate in the National Center for Atmospheric Research Advanced Study Program on "Marine Ecosystems and Climate: Modeling and Analysis of Observed Variability" in Boulder, Colorado during August 2009.
Recent Student and Alumni Publications:
Bagatini, MD; Vasconcelos, TG; Laughinghouse IV, HD; Martins, AF; Tedesco, SB. 2009. Biomonitoring Hospital Effluents by Allium cepa L. Test. Bulletin of Environmental Contamination and Toxicology 82: 590-592
Karen M. Eisenreich, Shannon M. Kelly and Christopher L. Rowe. Latent Mortality of Juvenile Snapping Turtles from the Upper Hudson River, New York, Exposed Maternally and Via the Diet to Polychlorinated Biphenyls (PCBs). Environ. Sci. Technol. 2009, 43, 6052–6057.
K. Gormally, G.S., Peacock, and R. Shellman. "Pressure Onset Propulsion Signal Detection Algorithm (U)," (Secret // NOFORN) Journal of Underwater Acoustics (USN) 58, 267-286 (2008).
Hopfensperger, K.N., K.A.M. Engelhardt, and T.R. Lookingbill. In press. The seed bank and vegetation dynamics in a tidal freshwater marsh. Journal of Vegetation Science.
MacAuley, S.R., S.A. Zimmerman, E.E. Apolinario, C. Evilia, Y.-M. Hou, J.G. Ferry, K.R. Sowers. 2009. The Archetype g-Class Carbonic Anhydrase (Cam) Contains Iron when Synthesized in vivo in Methanosarcina acetivorans. Biochemistry 48(5): 817-9.
Tal, Y., H.J. Schreier, K.R. Sowers, J.D. Stubblefield, A.R. Place, and Y. Zohar. 2009. Environmentally Sustainable, Fully Contained Marine Aquaculture. Aquaculture 286: 28-35.
Werner, VR; Laughinghouse, HD. 2009. Bloom-forming and other planktonic Anabaena (Cyanobacteria) morphospecies with twisted trichomes from Rio Grande do Sul State, Brazil. Nova Hedwigia 89 (1-2): 17-47.
Other Student News:
Haywood Dail Laughinghouse IV (MEES M.S. student working with Dr. Pat Kangas) was awarded a travel bursary from the British Phycological Society to attend the Introductory Course on Freshwater Algal Identification (Durham, England, UK) during the summer of 2009.
Since UM signed The American College and University President's Climate Commitment (ACUPCC) in May 2007, MEES doctoral candidate Ramy Serour has been working with the Center for Integrative Environmental Research (CIER), School of Public Policy to help UM meet the ACUPCC requirements. Ramy is working on his dissertation with Dave Tilley. He conducted the first campus Greenhouse Gas Emissions Inventory and is currently working on subsequent inventory updates. As a member of the UM Climate Action Plan Working Group chaired by Dr. Matthias Ruth and the Office of Sustainability (OS) in collaboration with campus operators, faculty, undergraduate and graduate student representatives, he developed a cost-benefit assessment of mitigation strategies to help campus decision and policy makers in a campus-wide effort to reduce the University's GHG emissions and ultimately become Carbon Neutral. He is also the graduate student representative in the UM Sustainability Council chaired by Dr. Ann Wylie, Vice President of Administrative Affairs.
Alumni News:
Christine Bergeron, MEES M.S. under Rob Mason in 2005 and now a PhD student at Virginia Tech, has been awarded a $111,000 EPA STAR fellowship. The fellowship is to support her work to examine the effects of mercury on the reproductive success of American toads.
Kristine Hopfensperger, MEES Ph.D. under Katia Engelhardt, has joined the Biological Sciences Department at Northern Kentucky University as an assistant professor.
Katie McKone (MEES MS 2008 under Dr. Eva Koch) is currently an Environmental Biologist at the Kentucky Department of Environmental Protection.
Faculty News:
MEES faculty members Walter Boynton of CBL and Michael Kemp of HPL have been selected to receive the 2009 Odum Award for Lifetime Achievement of the Coastal and Estuarine Research Federation (CERF). This award recognizes the lifetime achievements of an outstanding estuarine scientist whose sustained accomplishments have made important contributions to our understanding of estuaries and coastal ecosystems.
Saturday, September 5, 2009, twenty students, faculty, and their guests traveled from all over Maryland to join together for a four hour recreational canoe trip at Jug Bay Wetland Sanctuary. Horn Point Lab, Chesapeake Biological Lab, UMBC, COMB, and UMCP all had students in attendance. The trip was led by UMBC researcher, Dr. Jeff Campbell who is an avid volunteer at Jug Bay. The tour included a hike along the railroad bed trail where we were greeted by musk turtle who taught us why they have the nickname, "stinkpot" turtle. Then we set off in canoes into the Patuxent River and paddled through the marsh where we got up close and personal with wild rice, pickerel weed, and spatterdock. When we looked to the sky we saw lots of red-winged blackbirds and ospreys plus an occasional great egret or bald eagle. If students are interested, they are highly encouraged by the staff at Jug Bay to use the wetland sanctuary as a study site. There is a Graduate Research Fellowship available to support such work (http://www.dnr.state.md.us/bay/cbnerr/research_grf.asp). The fellowship is currently held by Horn Point student, Ben Fertig.
More news available in the News Archive.
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