Events

Join us for a presentation exploring how strategic international partnerships are transforming pollution challenges into scalable environmental solutions.

Speaker: Ngozi Oguquah

Nigerian Institute for Oceanography and Marine Research, Lagos, Nigeria

Pollution to Solution: The Power of Collaborative Environmental Research in Nigeria

Abstract: Nigeria faces severe environmental challenges, with 94% of its population exposed to air pollution exceeding WHO guidelines and ranking 9th globally in ocean plastic emissions. This presentation demonstrates how strategic international partnerships are transforming these challenges into innovative solutions with global scaling potential.

The collaborative framework involves the Royal Academy of Engineering, UK universities, the Nigerian Institute for Oceanography and Marine Research (NIOMR), and Nigerian policy institutions addressing pollution in Lagos State. Through integrated field investigations, laboratory analysis, and stakeholder engagement, the partnership achieved breakthrough discoveries, including the identification of contamination hotspots, comprehensive baseline data collection, and advanced chemical analysis that revealed concerning heavy metal levels in waterways.

Key innovations include machine learning for plastic identification in drone imagery, documentary creation for evidence-based advocacy, and capacity-building programs enhancing Nigerian scientists' capabilities through hands-on training and co-creation research methodologies. The research directly informed policy reforms on industrial waste disposal, reached over 50,000 residents through education campaigns, and established community-based plastic collection points.

The presentation concludes with replication pathways demonstrating that 85% of sub-Saharan African environmental challenges are addressable with Nigerian-developed solutions, offering 62% cost reductions compared to imported technologies across a potential 3.2 billion-person market. This represents a transformative model for global environmental collaboration.

Join us for the 7th Annual Hill-Robinson McNair Lecture and 33rd Annual UMBC McNair Research Conference Keynote Event featuring Dr. Yolanda Valencia, Assistant Professor in the Department of Geography & Environmental Systems.

Lecture Title: Roots and Resilience Across Borders: Resisting Legal Death in and across the U.S. and Mexico

Date & Time: Thursday, September 18, 2025 at 4:00 PM
Location: UMBC University Center Ballroom & Streaming Live on Facebook at UMBC McNair Scholars

Website: https://mcnair.umbc.edu/2025HRMLecture/

Abstract: Public health researchers have become captivated with the idea of the long-outlawed practice of redlining influencing contemporary environmental and health disparities (mainly owing to the presence of a publicly available, geocoded dataset on the topic). But over the last 50+ years, a variety of discriminatory urban development practices have also marked our landscapes in ways that drive disparities. The deeper understanding of urban development known to geographers affords a meaningful consideration of these additional practices (which can include restrictive covenants, blockbusting, urban renewal, slum clearance, freeway construction, and gentrification). Much of my research as a medical geographer revolves around thinking about the patterns of disinvestment and decline experienced in American cities, especially via these processes. Doing so helps deepen our understanding of how environmental exposures are driven by a range of land use and planning decisions not just at one point in time, but over the course of many decades. In this talk, I will elaborate on this background and present research findings from earlier work in Flint and Baltimore. A major recurring finding in this work is that areas marked by high rates of white flight and blockbusting often fare even worse than formerly redlined neighborhoods, work which suggests a critical need to move beyond redlining in assessing the role of discrimination in the built environment.

To all GES undergrads and grad students, join us for a fall open house to meet our faculty and learn about upcoming events. Pizza and refreshments will be available!

Come join your fellow students and faculty at a small reception immediately following graduation May 22nd.  Visit, say goodbye, congratulate this year's Outstanding Seniors and Rabenhorst winners and enjoy some light refreshments.  We will congregate on the loading dock outside Sondheim.  If it is raining, we will meet in the building, outside the front office.  Can't wait to see you! 

Join us for our first invited alumni lecture by Dr. Jared Margulies (GES PhD '17; Asst. Professor, Dept of Geography, U. Alabama).  

Global Illegal wildlife trade presents a critical conservation and social development challenge. Inspired by other law-enforcement first responses to vexing conservation problems, many countries, conservation organizations, and conservation advocates continue to seek harsher sentencing laws and punishments for people found guilty of wildlife trafficking or poaching. Drawing on my research from over the past eight years on illegal wildlife trade in ornamental plants in a variety of international contexts, I will argue against this turn towards criminalization for perpetuating forms of conservation violence which ultimately undermines conservation goals. Instead, drawing from examples of ongoing collaborative research, I will make an argument for socioecological harm reduction in the illegal wildlife trade. Through examples from past research into the global illegal cactus and succulent trade, alongside ongoing research in the illegal trade in endangered succulents in South Africa and the carnivorous Venus flytrap in North Carolina, USA, I will suggest how criminalization in conservation reproduces social harms that may further perpetuate ecological harms. A socioecological harm reduction approach to the illegal wildlife trade draws our attention to the entwined struggles for social and ecological liberation. 

Welcome new Retrievers!  If you have decided to pursue a major/minor in GES, this is a great chance to meet more of the faculty and other students.  You'll also get to meet our newest faculty and hear about upcoming events for the semester/year.