Accomplishments and Awards
Donna Parrish, Research Professor and Unit Leader of the Vermont Cooperative Fish and Wildlife Research Unit, completed her one-year term as President of the American Fisheries Society (AFS) in August, 2015. During the year, Donna represented AFS at meetings in S. Korea, China, Japan and, closer to home in Ontario, Georgia, Indiana, Washington, DC, and Oregon. The culmination was presiding over the 145th annual meeting of AFS in Portland, Oregon in August, which had 3400+ attendees, 2600+ oral and poster presentations, and 520 gallons of coffee consumed during the breaks! Donna is completing her 5 years as an AFS officer in the role of Immediate Past President until August 2016.
Jon Erickson, Rubenstein School Professor and Fellow of the Gund Institute for Ecological Economics, was recently appointed to the Vermont Commission on International Trade and State Sovereignty.
The Economics for the Anthropocene (E4A) Steering Committee received the U.S. Society for Ecological Economics's Bernardo Aguilar award at the joint Canadian and U.S. Societies for Ecological Economics conference in Vancouver The winner of the award is selected by student members of the USSEE to recognize a recipient who has inspired students through teaching, research, ideas, and mentoring in ecological economics. Peter Brown (McGill University), Nicolas Kosoy (McGill University), Ellie Perkins (York University), Peter Victor (York University), Jon Erickson (University of Vermont), Taylor Ricketts (University of Vermont) and Geoffrey Garver (McGill University) received the award for their efforts in developing E4A's innovative transdisciplinary graduate research program and promoting a shift in the way we undertake research and graduate training.
Second year Rubenstein School graduate student Nathan Fry received a mini grant from the Rubenstein Graduate Student Association (RGSA). Nathan’s graduate project, entitled the Ala Archa Ecological Leadership Program, aims to incorporate the best practices in experiential education in a curriculum that focuses heavily on “operationalizing” the concept of Social-Ecological Systems.
The CGIAR Research Program on Climate Change, Agriculture and Food Security (CCAFS) team - Lini Wollenberg, Meryl Richards, Julianna White, and Julie Nash of the Gund Institute - received a grant of $200,000 from USAID for research on low emissions development.
The Lake Champlain Sea Grant Program of the Rubenstein School and the Vermont Department of Environmental Conservation has developed a new Green Infrastructure Collaborative to promote Low Impact Development and Green Stormwater Infrastructure practices.
Rebecca Tharp, program manager for the Green Infrastructure Collaborative and Lake Champlain Sea Grant staff member, will provide support to the Vermont Green Infrastructure Roundtable – a partnership made up of state and federal agency staff, universities, municipalities, citizen groups and businesses working together to support GSI statewide.
Lake Champlain Sea Grant has hired Linda Patterson as the Land Use Planning and Water Quality Educator. Linda will coordinate education programs targeting professional groups and municipal board members on the impacts of land use on water quality.
Presentations and Conferences
RSENR Faculty and Lake Champlain Sea Grant Extension Leader Kristine Stepenuck was invited to participate in a live-webcast forum on citizen science, “Open Science and Innovation: Of the People, By the People, For the People” hosted by the White House Office of Science and Technology Policy (OSTP) and the Domestic Policy Council. The event was held on September 30 in Washington D.C.
Jennie Stephens, Associate Professor and Gund Institute Fellow, co-organized the Energy Transition & Sustainable Consumption Workshop this past summer in Luxembourg. The workshop focused on linking energy transitions and sustainable consumption. Also, in attendance was faculty member Richard Watts. Jennie Stephens also presented on the renewable energy transition at the VT Agency of Natural Resources on October 21 and on Gender and the Renewable Transition on a panel on Gender and Diversity at the Academy of International Business conference on "Bringing the Political Economy Back In" at UMass Boston on October 23.
Jon Erickson
“From the Big Bang to the Anthropocene: Economics as if Science Mattered,” 100th Meeting of the Ecological Society of America, Baltimore, MD, Aug. 9-14, 2015.
“Saving our Common Home: A Symposium on Integral Ecology,” Invited Panelist, Saint Michael's College, Sep. 8, 2015.
“Choosing a Clean Water Economy: Not by Chemistry Alone,” Plenary Speaker, Great Lakes Sea Grant Network Meeting, Burlington, VT, Sep. 9, 2015.
Meryl Richards presented at the Our Common Future conference in Paris this past July. For more information on the Meryl’s presentation, please visit CGIAR’s blog.
Publications
Books
Jon Erickson wrote the preface to a new book just out from Columbia University Press:
Erickson, J.D., “The Unfinished Journal of Ecological Economics,” Forward to P. Brown and P. Timmerman (Eds.), Ecological Economics for the Anthropocene, Columbia University Press, New York, NY, 2015.
Morgan Grove of the USDA Forest Service used much of the work and talents of Jarlath O'Neil-Dunne of the Spatial Analysis Lab, Adjunct Professor Austin Troy, and many Rubenstein School students to create his book Space, Scale, and Time for the Study of Cities.
Papers
Patricia Stokowski
Hoeglhammer, A., P.A. Stokowski, A. Muhar, T. Schauppenlehner, E. Yalcintepe, and J. Renner. 2015. Experiences and Meanings of Leisure for Members of the Turkish and Chinese Communities in Vienna, Austria. World Leisure Journal 57(3): 1-13.
Kassaw Agegnehu, S., H. Fuchs, G. Navratil, P. Stokowski, F. Vuolo, and R. Mansberger. 2015. Spatial Urban Expansion and Land Tenure Security in Ethiopia: Case studies from Bahir Dar and Debre Markos peri-urban areas. Society and Natural Resources. DOI: 10.1080/08941920.2015.1062947. (September)
Park Studies
Perry, E. E., Xiao, X., and Manning, R. E. (2015). Barrier or bridge? The role of transportation in national park visitation by racial and ethnic groups. World Leisure Journal, 57(3), 1-12.
Derrien, M.D., P.A. Stokowski, and R.E. Manning. 2015. A rhetorical analysis of NPS and community leader discourses about night skies at Acadia National Park. Journal of Park and Recreation Administration 33(3): 32-47.
Tony D"Amato
Forrester, J. A., D. J. Mladenoff, A. W. D’Amato, S. Fraver, D. L. Lindner, N. J. Brazee, M. K. Clayton, and S. T. Gower. 2015. Temporal trends and sources of variation in carbon flux from coarse woody debris in experimental forest canopy openings. Oecologia 179:889-900.
Kukrety, S., D.C. Wilson, A.W. D'Amato, and D.R. Becker. 2015. Assessing sustainable forest biomass potential and bioenergy implications for the northern Lake States region, USA. Bimass and Bioenergy 81:167-176.
Russell, M. B., G. M. Domke, C. W. Woodall, and A. W. D'Amato. 2015. Comparisons of allometric and climate-derived estimates of tree coarse root carbon stocks in forests of the United States. Carbon Balance and Management 10:20.
In the Media
Jon Erickson, fellow of the Gund Institute and co-leader of Vermont General Progress Indicator Team, appeared on Vermont Public Radio this past August to discuss “How’s Vermont Doing? Economic Indicators and What They Tell Us”.
With funding from the Vermont Experimental Program to Stimulate Competitive Research (EPSCoR). UVM researchers, Yaoyang Xu and Peter Isles, “try to crack the code to discover why some blue green algae blooms turn toxic and how to reduce them in Lake Champlain bays”.
Dr. Anju Dahiya’s course, "Bioenergy - Biomass to Biofuels" brings the algal biofuel concept to dairy farms to capture nutrient runoff through GSR Solutions.
Biologist Joe Roman co-authored a PNAS study that says the global decline of large animals – and their scat – is damaging the planet’s nutrient cycle. The paper was coverage by dozens of media outlets, including Washington Post, The Guardian, Daily Mail, Reuters, Huffpo, Scientific American, AFP, Chicago Tribune, U.S. News and World, Japan Times, Sydney Morning Herald, UPI, Daily Mirror, Christian Science Monitor and The Columbus Dispatch. Joe Roman also comments in an Audubon Magazine story on the addition of non-U.S. birds to the Endangered Species Act.
Ecologist Taylor Ricketts is featured in a New York Times article that explores new trends in conservation.
Jennie Stephens is profiled in a Vermont Quarterly article on new UVM faculty.
Bee scientist Leif Richardson was quoted in a Washington Post story on how climate change is shrinking the tongues of some bees. Richardson also co-authored an Ecology study that finds sick bees with parasites can heal themselves with certain plant nectars. Several news outlets covered the study, including The Telegraph, Discover Magazine, and UPI.
Voice of America reported on CGIAR report co-authored by climate researcher Lini Wollenberg on low-carbon farming. The report aims to increase the efficiency and resiliency of rural agriculture in Africa.