MEES IN THE NEWS

NEWS ARCHIVE

MEET IMANI BLACK: FOSTERING COMMUNITY IN AQUACULTURE

September 1, 2022 - Check out our very own Imani Black (M.S., ECOL SYS), a former oyster farmer, and founder and president of Minorities in Aquaculture (MIA) which is a non-profit organization that aims to create a more diverse industry and to educate groups underrepresented in aquaculture on the benefits and sustainability that aquaculture offers, not only to the Chesapeake Bay but waters around the world. She is also a Master’s student in the MEES Graduate Program and is advised by Dr. Matthew Gray (UMCES) and Dr. L. Jen Shaffer (UMCP). Imani was born and raised on the Eastern Shore of Maryland and comes from a long family line of watermen from Rock Hall, Crisfield and Cambridge, Maryland dating back over 200 years. Check out her recent August 2022 talk with the Smithsonian’s Museum of Natural History - “The Future of Seafood and How Aquaculture Connects Local & Global Communities” as well as her 2021 interview with the Smithsonian’s National Museum of African American History & Culture Through the Window & Into the Mirror Series: Narratives of African American STEM professionals entitled: “A Career Conversation Series with Imani Black”. We are proud of all of our brilliant students, faculty and staff who are not only passionate about research, teaching, and learning, but also about truly enacting meaningful and impactful change both locally and globally. Congratulations, Imani! We at the MEES Graduate Program are very proud of you!

CONGRATULATIONS TO Dr. ALLEN P. DAVIS - RECIPIENT OF THE 2022 UNIVERSITY OF MARYLAND DISTINGUISHED SCHOLAR-TEACHER AWARD!

September 1, 2022 - Congratulations to our very own Dr. Allen P. Davis who will be awarded the 2022 Distinguished Scholar-Teacher award at the University of Maryland’s 39th annual Faculty & Staff Convocation scheduled to take place September 14th at 2p.m. on the College Park campus. The Distinguished Scholar-Teacher award represents a broad range of academic excellence and honors tenured faculty members who have demonstrated outstanding accomplishments as educators. Each scholar will present a lecture during the school year. For a list of awardees as well as info on the convocation click here.

Dr. Davis, a MEES faculty member for many years, is the Charles A Irish Sr Chair in Civil Engineering, and serves as; Associate Chair for Faculty Development and Advancement, Professor at the Department of Civil & Environmental Engineering and Affiliate Professor in Plant Science and Landscape Architecture at the University of Maryland College Park. Recently, Dr. Davis was a co-PI for the UMD STEWARDS program, which aims to bring together graduate students from a wide variety of backgrounds to work on collaborative projects. The most recent project published this past June 2022 in the Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences investigated the nature of social and environmental stressors with high COVID-19 mortality rates among Black populations in Louisiana. The team consisted of doctoral students spanning three different UMD graduate programs (geography, biology, civil & environmental engineering) and each “[brought] their own area of expertise to the table, resulting in synergy”, said Dr. Davis in a local news article about the study. Collaborative efforts like these exemplify MEES’ belief that impactful innovation requires a variety of experience, expertise, insight and knowledge. We at the MEES Graduate Program are so very proud of our faculty whose exemplary skills, leadership, creativity, and mentoring have been recognized! This is a well earned appreciation and acknowledgment of all your hard work!

Dr. Davis' interests are in aquatic and interfacial environmental chemistry and physicochemical treatment processes. This includes characterization of stormwater quality and developing treatment technologies. For more information on The Davis Research Group please click here.

september 2022 - NATIONAL preparedness MONTH

Monthly Spotlight: National Preparedness Month (September 2022) - Dr. Andrew Baldwin, a longtime MEES faculty member is a Professor at the College of Agricultural & Natural Resources (AGNR) on the College Park campus and also oversees the Wetland Ecology and Engineering Laboratory in the Department of Environmental Science & Technology. Dr. Baldwin teaches courses in wetland ecology and water quality, and recent projects have included the influence of sea-level rise and temperature on coastal wetlands. He has published numerous articles in refereed journals or books and supported his research with $2M in research funding. He has served as President of the Society of Wetland Scientists, an international society of about 3,000 members and is a consultant with the Guinness World Records. He has also served as Associate Editor of the journals Wetlands and Wetland Ecology and Management. Dr. Baldwin recently published research on the human impacts on internationally significant wetlands which include drainage and conversion to agricultural lands and fish farms. Click here for Dr. Baldwin’s April 2022 published research study in MDPI’s Sustainability journal : “The loss of coastal wetlands in Lake Burullus, Egypt”.
Faculty Focus: Dr. Andrew Elmore is Professor of landscape ecology at the University of Maryland Center for Environmental Science, Appalachian Laboratory and at the National Socio-environmental Synthesis Center. He works broadly across issues relevant to global environmental change, with a particular interest in ecosystem interactions with land-use and land-cover change. Check out Dr. Elmore’s presentation entitled: “Effects of Climate Change on Water Quality in Forested Watersheds Draining to the Chesapeake Bay” at QACTV (Queen Anne’s County TV')’s "How's that Habitat working for you?” meeting on May 3, 2019 at Horn Point Laboratory in Cambridge, MD.
MEES Research Corner: Natalie Snider (Ph.D., ECOL SYS) is Senior Director of Coastal Resilience at the Environmental Defense Fund (EDF), currently conducting research at EDF on the complex operations and adaptive management of large-scale sediment diversions off the Mississippi River. Natalie’s extensive experience includes serving as senior scientist for Louisiana’s Coastal Protection and Restoration Authority and as Science Director with the Coalition to Restore Coastal Louisiana. Natalie is also a part-time MEES Phd graduate student at the University of Maryland Center for Environmental Science’s Integration and Application Network (advisor Dr. William Dennison). Check out Natalie’s article on EDF’s Growing Return’s February 2022 blog: “The sea is rising faster than ever. How can we prepare?”, and her research in this special issue of MDPI’s Sustainability Journal focusing on the role of coastal residents in adapting to climate change in a joint research paper entitled: “Eroding Land and Erasing Place: A Qualitative Study of Place Attachment, Risk Perception, and Coastal Land Loss in Southern Louisiana”