All lectures free and Open to the Public

Tuesday, March 3, 3:30 pm
Cape Cod Lounge, Student Union Building

Climate Change Comes to Thoreau's Concord

Richard B. Primack, Professor of Biology, Boston University

Primack's research currently focuses on the impacts of climate change on the flowering times of  plants and the spring arrival of birds in Massachusetts. The main geographical focus of  his research is Concord, Massachusetts, due to the availability of extensive flowering records kept by Henry David Thoreau in the 1850s. His team is also using Concord as a  living laboratory to determine which species are the most sensitive indicators of climate  change, how invasive species are affecting plant communities, and the population  dynamics of native plant species.

His work on phenology has recently expanded following a sabbatical leave at the  University of Tokyo in 2006–2007, supported by a Guggenheim Fellowship. With various colleagues, he is now examining the responses of a community of East Asian  plant and animal species to the effects of climatic variability. Using a combination of  standard statistics and Baysian analyses, he and his team are able to demonstrate that the phenological relationships among spring species will change dramatically as conditions become warmer.

In addition to writing scientific articles, a major effort in this project involves reaching a wider audience through public talks, preparing popular articles and web-based materials,  and interacting with science journalists. Smithsonian and National Wildlife magazines each have recent articles featuring our work:

Smithsonian Magazine

National Wildlife Magazine

He has also been investigating how rain forests in Malaysian Borneo change over time in species composition and structure, and how selective logging affects these processes.  With Richard Corlett of the University of Hong Kong, he has been contrasting tropical rain forests on different continents; this work has now been presented as a book Tropical  Rain Forests: An Ecological and Biogeographical Camparison, and a recent article in  Trends in Ecology and Evolution. Reviews of this book are provided below. His future plans involve carrying out the cross-continental comparisons and experiments described in these publications.

Primack Website

Host: Paula Rees, Director, Water Resources Research Center; Director, Education & Outreach, CASA

Tuesday, April 7, 3:30 PM
Lincoln Campus Center, Room 163

Science Based Water Management:
Preciction and Decision Support Under Climatic Change

Konstantine P. Georgakakos, Managing Director, Hydrologic Research Center and Adjunct Professor, Scripps Institution of Oceanography

Dr. Konstantine P. Georgakakos is the Managing Director of the Hydrologic Research Center in San Diego, California. He is also an Adjunct Professor with the Scripps Institution of Oceanography of the University of California, San Diego, and with the Department of Civil and Environmental Engineering of The University of Iowa. He has held positions of Research Scientist IV with the Scripps Institution of Oceanography, of Associate Professor with tenure at the Department of Civil and Environmental Engineering of The University of Iowa, and of Research Engineer with the Iowa Institute of Hydraulic Research. Dr. Georgakakos was also a Research Hydrologist with the Hydrologic Research Laboratory of the National Weather Service. He holds Master of Science and Doctor of Science degrees from the Massachusetts Institute of Technology. Honors and awards include the Presidential Young Investigator Award from the U.S. National Science Foundation, the Faculty Scholar Award from The University of Iowa, and the NRC-NOAA Associateship Award from the U.S. National Research Council. He has authored or co-authored more than 130 publications regarding various areas of Hydrology, Hydrometeorology, and Hydroclimatology. He is the primary author of several software packages pertaining to real time flow prediction for operational use by Agencies such as the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers and the U.S. National Weather Service. He advised to completion of their degrees six Ph.D. students at The University of Iowa and two Ph.D. students at UCSD.

Dr. Georgakakos is a Fellow of the American Meteorological Society and a member of the American Geophysical Union, the Institute of Electrical and Electronic Engineers, the American Society of Civil Engineers, the American Association for the Advancement of Science, and the New York Academy of Sciences. He serves as an associate editor for the Journal of Hydrology and Advances in Water Resources. He serves as US Expert in Hydrologic Modeling for the World Meteorological Organization Commission for Hydrology (1997-present). He has served on several national and international committees and panels, and has organized national and international conferences on various hydrologic topics. He has supervised several large-scale international technology transfer projects in Africa, Europe, Central and South America. He is listed in the Who's Who in Technology and the Who's Who Worldwide.

Georgakakos Website

Host: Paula Rees, Director, Water Resources Research Center; Director, Education & Outreach, CASA

Tuesday, April 28, 3:30 pm
Cape Cod Lounge, Student Union Building

Shoring Up Peace: Water Management in Post-Conflict Societies

Erika S. Weinthal, Associate Professor, Division of Environmental Sciences and Policy, Nicholas School of the Environment, Duke University

Dr. Weinthal specializes in global environmental politics and natural resource policies with a particular emphasis on water and energy. The main focus of her research is on the origins and effects of environmental institutions. Her previous research examined the impact of multilateral and bilateral development organizations on water resource management and institution building in the Aral Sea basin in Central Asia. Her research on water politics in conflict regions (e.g. the Gaza Strip in the Middle East) focuses on how the environment might be harnessed for peace building. Her current book project on the resource curse explicates the links between a countrys natural resource base and its institutional capacity through systematically comparing the energy-rich Soviet successor states with other energy-rich developing countries.

Weinthal Website

Host: Peter Haas, Professor, Department of Political Science

Thursday, May 7, 11:30 a.m.
Lincoln Campus Center, Room 163

Leadership in Sustainability: The Role of Universities

John D. Spengler, Akira Yamaguchi Professor of Environmental Health and Human Habitation, Department of Environmental Health, Harvard University

John Spengler is the Akira Yamaguchi Professor of Environmental Health and Human Habitation in the Department of Environmental Health at the Harvard School of Public Health. His research activities are directed at the assessment of population exposures to environmental contaminants that occur in homes, offices, schools, and during transit as well as in the outdoor environment. Although he is investigating the effects of pollutants of outdoor origin (ozone, acidic particles, PCBs), he is particularly interested in pollutants of indoor origin (fungi, dust mites, nitrogen dioxide, tobacco smoke, radon, and others). He is also investigating ways to promote improved air quality through sustainable development strategies. Dr. Spengler's objective is to construct the framework for linking zoning, purchases and practices, construction and appliance specifications, and pricing and tax strategies to energy and pollution consequences. He believes that the concepts of pollution prevention, environmental cost accounting, risk-reducing based decision making and life-cycle analysis have to mature from academic concerns to functional activities within the public and private sectors of a market-driven economy.

Spengler Website

Host: Christine Rogers, Assistant Professor, Department of Public Health

PDF of Spengler Lecture