Previous GES Seminars
Fall 2020
Wednesday, September 16th, 12 noon – 1 pm ET
The Production of Jakarta’s Water Crisis: A Political Ecology of Speculative Urbanism
Dr. Emma Colven (she/her/hers), Assistant Professor, Department of International and Area Studies, David L. Boren College of International Studies,University of Oklahoma
Wednesday, September 30, 12 noon – 1 pm ET
High resolution monitoring of urban and boreal forest ecosystems using UAV and Planet SkySat
Dr. Michael Alonzo, Associate Professor of Environmental Science, American University
Link to video: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=kcnmCWJWhRk
Wednesday, October 7, 12 noon – 1 pm ET
The Black Butterfly: the harmful politics of race and space in America
Dr. Lawrence Brown, Associate Professor, Population Health Institute, University of Wisconsin-Madison
Link to video: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=zP99yLY-j2Q&t=3s
Friday, October 16, 12 noon – 1 pm ET
Keys to Improving Outcomes of Tree Planting Campaigns
Dr. Karen Holl, Environmental Studies Department, University of California, Santa Cruz
Dr. Matthew Fagan, Assistant Professor of Geography & Environmental Systems, UMBC
Dr. Pedro Brancalion, Department of Forest Sciences, University of São Paulo
Link to video: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=SqWp65AtgZc&feature=youtu.be
Weds., Oct. 21, 12 noon – 1 pm ET
How green stormwater infrastructure design can induce or prevent plant physiological stress
Dr. Joshua Caplan, Research Associate, Architecture & Environmental Design, Temple University
Link to video: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=BBUufKJ6Lpg&feature=youtu.be
October 28-29 – Baltimore Ecosystem Study Annual Meeting
Wednesday, November 4 – Day after election, no seminar
Wednesday, November 11, 12 noon – 1 pm ET
Fighting Surging Seas in a Changing Climate: Defending Coastlines at all Costs or Strategic Retreat to High Ground? Dr. Ming Li, Professor, Horn Point Laboratory, University of Maryland Center for Environmental Science
Youtube link: https://youtu.be/iM1vrap4vSE
If you find the soundtrack difficult to understand you can watch this other recording from an earlier presentation of the same seminar:
Passcode: #wsJza5$
Wednesday, November 18, 12 noon- 1 pm ET
Dr. Yolanda Valencia’s seminar is postponed until the Spring 2021 semester. Instead we have two short presentations:
Cloudbursts of the Mid-Atlantic – Drs. Jim Smith and Mary Lynn Baeck, Dept. of Civil & Environmental Engineering, Princeton University
What can floods in Baltimore-area urban watersheds tell us about climate change? – Dr. Andy Miller, Dept. of Geography & Environmental Systems, UMBC
Youtube link: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=JfmO75Qp7TM
Wednesday, December 2, 12 noon – 1 pm ET
Urban green space and belonging: Struggles for justice and nature in Central Park
Dr. Dawn Biehler, Associate Professor of Geography & Environmental Systems, UMBC
Youtube link: https://youtu.be/1WLwHC9K7o0
Spring 2020
Water, Food, Energy and Power in the Eastern Nile Basin
Dr. Benjamin Zaitchik, Associate Professor of Earth & Planetary Sciences, The Johns Hopkins University
Date: Wednesday, February 5, 2020
Time: 12:00 pm
Location: Sondheim 001
High resolution monitoring of urban and boreal forest ecosystems using UAV and Planet SkySat.
Dr. Michael Alonzo, Associate Professor of Geography, American University
Date: Wednesday, February 19, 2020
Time: 12:00 pm
Location: Sondheim 001
A tale of two nature reserves: examining efforts to benefit communities through conservation in Ecuador & Mozambique
Dr. Margaret Holland, Associate Professor of Geography & Environmental Systems, UMBC
Date: Wednesday, February 26, 2020
Time: 12:00 pm
Location: Sondheim 001
The Carceral Life of Sugar: The Contemporary Food System and the Afterlives of Slavery
Dr. Ashante Reese, Assistant Professor of Geography & Environmental Systems, UMBC
Date: March 4, 2020
Time: 12:00 pm
Location: Sondheim 001
CANCELED
Cat Wars and the Demise of North America’s Bird Populations
Dr. Peter Marra, Professor and Director of the Georgetown Environment Initiative, Georgetown University
(cosponsored by GES, Biological Sciences, and UMBC Honors College)
Date: March 12, 2020Time: 4-5:30 pmLocation: Library Gallery
CANCELED
Urban green space and belonging: Struggles for justice and nature in Central Park.
Dr. Dawn Biehler, Associate Professor of Geography & Environmental Systems, UMBC.
Date: March 25, 2020
Time: 12:00 pm
Location: Sondheim 001
Weds. April 1, 8 – TBA
POSTPONED
Engaged Scholarship for Climate Justice: Harnessing the Power of Colleges and Universities in the Age of the Anthropocene
Dr. Tracey Osborne, Associate Professor of Management of Complex Systems, University of California-Merced
Date: April 23, 2020
Time: 4-6 pm
Location: Library Gallery
Black Towns, Black Futures.
Dr. Karla Slocum, Assoc. Prof. of Anthropology and Director of the Institute of African American Research, UNC-Chapel Hill
Date: April 28, 2020
Time: 4-6 pm
Location: (room TBA)
Making Abolition Geographies: Social Justice Organizing for Vulnerable Households, Workers, and Communities.
Dr. Ruth Wilson Gilmore, Professor of Earth and Environmental Sciences and Director of the Center for Place, Culture, and Politics at The Graduate Center of the City University of New York.
UMBC Humanities Forum, cosponsored by GES
Date: April 30, 2020
Time: 5:30-7:30 pm
Location: Library Gallery
Warming of the Oceans 1981-2016.
Dr. James Carton, Professor and Chair of Ocean & Atmospheric Sciences, University of Maryland College Park.
Date: May 6, 2020
Time: 4-6 pm
Location: Sondheim 001
Fall 2019
Tropical forests getting their fix: The patterns, controls, and effects of symbiotic nitrogen-fixing trees in regenerating tropical forests
Benton Taylor, Postdoctoral Fellow, Smithsonian Environmental Research Center
Date: Wednesday, September 4, 2019
Time: 12:00 pm
Location: Sondheim 001
GES 701 faculty panel – Navigating sticking points in the research process
Date: Wednesday, September 18, 2019
Time: 12:00 pm
Location: Sondheim 001
Bringing Social, Information, and Natural Sciences
Together to Understand Human Transformation of Earth
Dr. Erle Ellis, Professor, Geography & Environmental Systems, UMBC
The principal investigator of a UMBC-led “massively collaborative” project published in Science magazine will describe how archaeologists, geographers, and information science came together to show that human societies began transforming Earth thousands of years earlier than known by Earth scientists; evidence for an earlier Anthropocene.
Date: Wednesday, September 25, 2019
Time: 12:00 pm
Location: ITE 229
Redefining aquatic habitat connectivity for urban catchments
Dr. Anne Timm, USDA Forest Service, Baltimore
Date: Wednesday, October 2, 2019
Time: 12:00 pm
Location: Sondheim 001
GES 701 faculty panel – Scholarly writing: Getting started, getting through, and knowing when you’re finished
Date: Wednesday, October 9, 2019
Time: 12:00 pm
Location: Sondheim 001
Venezuelan migration to Peru: Reworking notions of solidarity, conflict and deservingness in Lima
Dr. Dena Aufseeser, Assistant Professor, Geography & Environmental Systems, UMBC
Date: Wednesday, Oct. 16, 2019
Time: 12:00 pm
Location: Sondheim 001
Protecting Public Health and the Environment in a Changing Climate.
Dr. Joel Scheraga, Senior Advisor for Climate Change Adaptation, U.S. Environmental Protection Agency
Dr. Scheraga leads EPA’s work on climate adaptation to ensure the agency continues to fulfill its mission of protecting public health and the environment even as the climate changes. A central focus of this effort is supporting states, tribes, local communities, and businesses as they prepare for and increase their resilience to the impacts of climate change. In December 2015, Dr. Scheraga was honored with a Presidential Rank Award, the highest honor given to career members of the federal Senior Executive Service. Dr. Scheraga was a Lead Author for the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC), which was awarded the 2007 Nobel Peace Prize.
The following is an article from last September’s Brown Alumni Monthly about his work. https://www.brownalumnimagazine.com/articles/2018-09-05/weather-warrior
Date: Tuesday, Oct. 22, 2019
Time: 4:30-6:00 pm
Location: Fine Arts Recital Hall
All the way to the Bank: Urban Redevelopment and the Quest for Profits After the Crisis
Dr. Renee Tapp, Lecturer in Urban Planning and Design, Harvard Graduate School of Design
This talk examines the relationship between banks and urban redevelopment after the 2008 global financial crisis. Focusing on the federal historic tax credit industry, I demonstrate how new ways to own property intersected with post-crisis financial regulations meant to limit banks’ reach into financial markets to ignite large-scale redevelopment projects in the urban core of many US cities. Banks increasingly switched their focus from ‘cash flows’ to extracting tax-benefits from these buildings. By positioning tax credits as a source of financial accumulation, this talk draws attention to the strategies and tactics that investors use to construct their investment portfolio, create liquidity in the built environment, and enrich their shareholders and executives with taxpayer-subsidized investments.
Date: Monday, October 28, 2019
Time: 12:00 pm
Location: Sondheim 001
Date: Wednesday, November 6, 2019
Time: 12:00 pm
Location: TBA
GES 701 faculty panel – Policy, politics, and the public: how do/should scholars get involved?
Date: Wednesday, November 13, 2019
Time: 12:00 pm
Location: Sondheim 001
JCET Poster Session – Sondheim basement hallway
Date: Wednesday, December 4, 2019
Time: 12:00 pm
Plant community responses to hydrologic changes in Pacific Northwest urban and coastal ecosystems
Dr. Alan Yeakley, Professor and Chair, Geography & Environmental Systems, UMBC
Date: Postponed to Spring 2020
Time: 12:00 pm
Location: TBA
Spring 2019
Contemporary Land Enclosures in Central Sudan: Troubling the Romanticization of the ‘Commons.’
Nisrin Elamin PhD Candidate, Dept. of Anthropology, Stanford University
Date: Monday, February 11, 2019
Time: 12:00 pm
Location: Sondheim 001
The Fourth National Climate Assessment: Process and Summary Findings —- CANCELLED
Carolyn Olson, USGS (retired)
Date: Wednesday, February 20, 2019
Time: 12:00 pm
Location: Sondheim 001
Waste in crisis: The formation of waste disposal networks in post-industrial Baltimore
John-Henry Pitas, Geography & Environmental Systems, UMBC
and
TBA
Gina Lee, Geography & Environmental Systems, UMBC
Date: Wednesday, February 27, 2019
Time: 12:00 pm
Location: Sherman 150
The role of spatial variation in habitat quality and dispersal in maintaining diversity across
spatial scales in the urban hydroscape of the Baltimore Metropolitan Region
Nicole Voelker, PhD Candidate, Geography & Environmental Systems, UMBC
Date: Wednesday, March 6, 2019
Time: 12:00 pm
Location: Sondheim 001
Biodiversity in urban landscapes: Ecological drivers and social benefits
Dr. Bianca Lopez, Postdoctoral Fellow, National Socio-Ecological Synthesis Center
Date: Wednesday, March 13, 2019
Time: 12:00 pm
Location: Sondheim 001
Data bodies, smart bodies and sensible bodies: post-human corporeality in the digitally mediated city
Dr. Gillian Rose, Professor, School of Geography and the Environment, Oxford University
Date: Friday, March 29, 2019
Time: 12:00 pm
Location: Sondheim 001
Plant geography upon the basis of function: how trait data help address classic and unsolved questions
Nathan Swenson, Professor of Biology, University of Maryland College Park
Date: Wednesday, April 10, 2019
Time: 12:00 pm
Location: Sondheim 001
Biodiversity in urban landscapes: Ecological drivers and social benefits
Dr. Bianca Lopez, Postdoctoral Fellow, National Socio-Ecological Synthesis Center
Date: Wednesday, April 17, 2019
Time: 12:00 pm
Location: Sondheim 001
A work of imagination: building neighborhoods and crafting home in 1970s Washington, D.C.
Dr. Amanda Huron, Associate Professor of Interdisciplinary Social Sciences, University of the District of Columbia
Date: Friday, April 26, 2019
Time: 12:00 pm
Location: Sondheim 001
Plant community responses to hydrologic changes in Pacific Northwest urban and coastal ecosystems
Dr. Alan Yeakley, Professor and Chair, Geography & Environmental Systems, UMBC
Date: Wednesday, May 1, 2019
Time: 12:00 pm
Location: Sondheim 001
More trees equals less crime: dismantling urban ecology tropes in Baltimore
Dr. Dillon Mahmoudi, Assistant Professor, Geography & Environmental Systems, UMBC
Date: Wednesday, May 8, 2019
Time: 12:00 pm
Location: Sondheim 001
Spring 2018
February 14
Danny Flier, NPS
February 21
Christopher Trisos, Postdoctoral fellow, SESYNC
“Potential consequences for biodiversity of climate change and climate engineering”
February 28
Dr. Heidi Heausermann, Assistant Professor, Department of Human Ecology, Rutgers University
“The politics and health implications of unregulated gold mining in Ghana”
March 7
Dr. Laura Ogden, Assistant Professor, Department of Anthropology, Dartmouth College
“Forest ethnography: An approach to study environmental history and political ecology of urban forests”
March 14
Dr. Grace Brush, Professor, Department of Environmental Health & Engineering, Johns Hopkins University
“A history of sedimentation in the Chesapeake Bay and tributaries”
March 28
Dr. Heather Randell, Postdoctoral fellow, SESYNC
“Too hot for school:climate change & education in the global tropics”
April 4
GES Grad Students Lightning talks
April 18
Dr. John Weishampel, Professor, Biology Department, University of Central Florida
“Using LiDAR to Understand the Landscape Archaeology of a Maya Polity & Its Environmental Legacies”
Fall 2017
September 13
Michael Cove, North Carolina State University
September 20
GES Faculty Panel
Defining your research project
September 27
Jim Fleming, Colby College
October 4
Chris Shuman, JCET
October 11
Colin Cuniff, AAAS Policy Fellow
October 18
Andy Miller, UMBC Dept. of Geography & Environmental Systems
Spring 2016
February 24
Don Outen, Baltimore County Department of Environmental Protection and Sustainability
March 23
Emily Billo, Department of Environmental Studies Goucher College
April 13
Aaron Ellison, Harvard Forest Harvard University
April 27
Faculty and Graduate Student Panel
Publishing: How to Survive Peer Review
Spring 2015
March 11
Lorraine Remer, UMBC-NASA Joint Center for Earth Systems Technology (JCET)
March 25
Stuart Aitken, San Diego State University
April 1
Shiloh Krupar ,Georgetown University
April 8
JCET Research Posters
May 6
Thomas Crimson, Department of Integrative Biology, University of South Florida
Fall 2014
September 15
Rebecca Lave, Department of Geography, University of Indiana
Marketing Environmental Science and Management: Stream Mitigation Banking in the U.S.
September 24
Lee Blaney, Chemical, Biochemical, and Environmental Engineering, UMBC
October 1
Paul Leisnham, Department of Environmental Science and Technology, UM-College Park
December 3
Graduate student panel on fieldwork: Anna Johnson, Sam Dupree, Molly Van Appledorn, Brooks Binau
Spring 2014
February 5
Dr. Christopher Shuman
Associate Research Scientist, Joint System for Earth Systems Technology, UMBC
Mass Balance of northern Antarctic Peninsula glaciers and their continuing response to ice shelf loss, 2001-2013
February 19
Dr. Joseph Mascaro
AAAS Science and Technology Policy Fellow
Topic: The World Makers: Ecologists as Ecosystem Designers
March 5
Dr. Mona Atia, Assistant Professor of Geography and International Affairs, Elliott School of International Affairs, The George Washington University, Washington, D.C.
Building a House in Heaven: Pious Neoliberalism and Islamic Charity in Egypt
March 26
Dr. Elizabeth Selig, Director of Marine Science, Moore Center for Science and Oceans, Conservation International, Arlington, VA.
Quantifying ocean ecosystem health and identifying marine conservation priorities
April 16
Dr. Dena Aufseeser, Assistant Professor of Geography & Environmental Systems, UMBC
Re-theorizing the political: Peruvian street children’s everyday lives
April 23
Dr. Allen Gellis, USGS MD-DE-DC Water Science Center
Sediment withdrawals and deposits, Chesapeake Bay Watershed: It’s not just banks!
April 30
Dr. Mark Bulmer, Owner and Director of Development of Roedown and Roedown Research R2
Earthquake preparedness in Bangladesh
Fall 2013
September 11
Jonathan Dandois, Ph.D. candidate, Geography & Environmental Systems, UMBC
Ecosynth: A personal remote sensing toolkit for ecologists
Molly Van Appledorn, Ph.D. candidate, Geography & Environmental Systems, UMBC
Discerning community structuring mechanisms in riparian forest ecosystems
September 25
Karyn Tabor, Director of Ecosystem Modeling and Early Warning Systems
Betty & Gordon Moore Center for Science and Oceans, Conservation International
A Near Real-time Decision Support System Improving Forest Management in the Tropics
October 16
Dr. James Pizzuto
Professor of Geological Sciences, University of Delaware
Suspended Sediment Transport Length Scales and Velocities for the Mid-Atlantic Region: Will it Take 1000 Years to Restore the Chesapeake Bay?
October 30
Dr. Donald Boesch
President, University of Maryland Center for Environmental Science
Updating Maryland’s Sea-Level Rise Projections
November 13
Joint Center for Earth Systems Technology, UMBC
Poster Session
November 20
Dr. Raymond Danner
Postdoctoral Fellow, Smithsonian Conservation Biology Institute
The geography of thermal ecology and evolution in birds
December 4
Dr. Laura-Anne Minkoff-Zern
Postdoctoral Fellow, Department of Environmental Studies, Goucher College
The New American Farmer: Agrarian Questions and Immigrant Mexican Growers in The United States
Spring 2013
March 13
Dr. Sean M.C. Smith, University of Maine at Orono, School of Earth and Climate Sciences and Bryand Global Sciences Center
The Recognition, Regulation and Research of Headwater Streams in the Contemporary Landscape
March 27
Dr. Jeffrey Halverson, UMBC Dept. of Geography & Environmental Systems
Hunting Hurricanes In the 21st Century: NASA’s Hurricanes and Severe Storms Sentinel (HS3) UAV Program
April 8
Dr. Barbara Allen, Director, Graduate Program in Science and Technology Studies, Dept. of Science and Technology in Society, Virginia Tech
Justice Matters: Measuring the Success of NGOs in Sustainable Disaster Rebuilding
April 24
Dr. Kevin Turpie, Joint Center for Earth Systems Technology, UMBC
Mapping pelagic autotrophs from Space – converting photons into food for plants and for thought
May 8
Dr. Dawn Biehler, UMBC Department of Geography & Environmental Systems
Silent Spring in the City: Housing, Environmental Justice, and the History of Urban Pest Management
Fall 2012
September 5 – Three GES Ph.D. candidates present their research:
Anna Johnson
A Metacommunity Approach to Urban Plant Community Assembly
Jonathan Dandois
High Spatial Resolution Automated Three Dimensional Vegetation Structure Mapping Using Computer Vision
Yvette Williams
A Qualitative Study of Vacant Lot Management in a Southwest Baltimore City Neighborhood
September 19
Dr. Andrew Elmore, Appalachian Laboratory, University of Maryland Center for Environmental Science
A river runs under it: Modeling the distribution of streams and stream burial in large river basins
October 3
Dr. Andrew Turner, Chief Technical Officer, ESRI DC R&D Center
Citizens and Scientists: Collaborative Geography for Better Understanding Our World
October 17
Dr. Nathaniel Hitt, Leetown Science Center, U.S. Geological Survey
Spatial Modeling to Predict Stream Sensitivity to Climate Change
November 7
Dr. Dana Fisher, Director, Program for Society and the Environment and Associate Professor, Dept. of Sociology, University of Maryland College Park
Citizens as the Missing Pillar in the Hybrid Governance of Urban Stewardship Regimes
November 14
Dr. T. Garrett Graddy, Global Environmental Politics, School of International Service, American University
Re-Centering In Situ: Policy, Epistemology & the Decentralization of Agricultural Biodiversity Conservation in the Peruvian Andes & Beyond
November 28
Dr. Dianna Hogan, Eastern Geographic Science Center, U.S. Geological Survey
Novel Urban Stormwater Management: The Clarksburg, MD Research Project