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This year marks the 30th anniversary of the ENVS program! 

 
ENVS Newsletter
Fall 2014
Table of contents
  • A Conversation with ENVS Directors
  • ENVS by the Numbers
  • Environmental Internship Symposium
  • Student Spotlight: Amanda Sommi
  • Lunch & Learn Spring Schedule
  • Environmental Photography Contest
  • Environmental Initiatives at Tufts
  • ENVS is Hiring an Outreach Intern
A Conversation with ENVS Directors
Founded in 1984 by Dr. Norton Nickerson, the Environmental Studies Program (ENVS) was one of the first multidisciplinary environmental programs in the United States. The program has experienced notable changes over the past 30 years under the leadership of various program directors, including Dr. George Ellmore (left; director from 2000 to 2010) and Dr. Colin Orians (right; 2010 to present).  Successful developments of the program under Dr. Ellmore's leadership included increasing GIS opportunities for our majors, compiling all of the courses across departments that could satisfy requirements for the environmental studies major, and ensuring that core courses would be offered every year. These changes have left a lasting impact on the program, streamlining the process of course selection and registration for ENVS majors. After Dr. Orians became director in 2010, he worked to increase the depth of ENVS track curriculum and to create a community among ENVS faculty and students, goals that he continues to work towards. Initiatives launched by Dr. Orians include the new track system, executive committee meetings with student representatives, and the Lunch & Learn seminar series on environmental topics. According to Orians, the Lunch & Learn series is one of his proudest contributions as it serves as an outlet for students, staff, faculty, and members of the community to meet and connect with each other and our guest speakers. The Lunch & Learn Series continues to gain more popularity and now reaches even more people by being offered as simulcasts and through an online archive. As the executive committee continues to discuss new directions for ENVS, the program welcomes feedback from students and faculty. Below you can find some current numbers for the program.

      Ellmore (left) Orians (right)

    ENVS by the numbers*

  • Total number of students currently declared as ENVS majors: 72
  • Number of 5th years: 2
  • Number of seniors: 28
  • Number of juniors: 34
  • Number of sophomores: 8
  • Number of different majors paired with ENVS: 19
  • Most popular co-major: Biology (~30%)
  • 2nd most popular co-major: International Relations (~15%)              *December 2014
Co-majors figure
Environmental Internships
 
Environmental internships (ENV 99) add first-hand experience by getting students out of the classroom and into the field of work. There are a plethora of internships located all around the world suitable for a diverse range of interests. Keep your eyes peeled and utilize ENVS resources to find your best match! 

Student reviews of past internship experiences are available to declared ENVS majors through the Environmental Studies database. Be sure to check out the ENVS weekly e-mails to find more opportunities! For access to the database or to subscribe to our weekly newsletter, send an email to environmentalstudies@tufts.edu.

 

Participants in the Fall 2014 internship symposium:

Madeline BallNational Ecological Observatory Network
Flora CardoniThe Clean Air Coalition of Western NY
Valerie Cleland - Environment Oregon
Jennifer Dranetz - New England Coastal Wildlife Alliance
Hanna Ehrlich - Heller Nature Center
Ethan FreedmanMass Audubon
Sydney Giacalone Lumi Juice
Arshiya GoelTufts Office of Sustainability
Panayiotis Koutsogeorgas Rokas Renewables Iberdrola
Nicholas Macaluso PHASE Nepal
Cooper McKimWSHU Public Radio Group
Ellen OsbornCivicSolar
Will PearlClimate Justice Hub
Hannah Recht Groundwork Somerville
Lindsay Rogers UniversalGiving
Colby Sameshima - Atmospheric Research Lab, WSU
Benjamin Sherman Outward Bound
Amanda SommiPrimates Peru
Wong Jee "Kyle" Song Korean Red Cross
Anne Elise StrattonEcologic Development Fund, Inc.
Anna VanderspekEnvironment Massachusetts
Hayley WelshWorld Wildlife Fund

 

Student Spotlight: Amanda Sommi
 
Amanda Sommi is a junior studying Biology and Environmental Studies. This summer, Amanda had the opportunity to study the behavioral patterns of the bald-faced saki monkey in the Madre de Dios region of Peru.  The study was aimed to better understand their feeding habits and interspecies interactions with predators, such as ocelots, jaguars, and harpy eagles. According to Amanda, doing field research in a rainforest setting is an amazing opportunity for anyone interested in biology, ecology, environmental science or primate anthropology

The station accepts volunteers through individual projects and their governing organization, The Amazon Conservation Association, as well as a group called Primates Peru that hosts courses at the field site.

Amanda will be doing independent research at Tufts this coming spring working with Drs. Robert Schaeffer and Colin Orians in the Department of Biology.

                Amanda Sommi
  

Lunch & Learn Seminar Series


Every Thursday at noon during the academic year ENVS brings speakers from government, industry, academia and non-profit organizations to give presentations on environmental topics. This is a great opportunity to broaden your knowledge beyond the curriculum, meet other faculty, staff and students, and network with the speakers. If you can't make it to a Lunch and Learn, watch them live here. Previous talks are available here.
Lunch is generously sponsored by Tufts Institute of the Environment.
Bring your own reusable mugs, water bottles, and utensils to help us make this a ZERO waste event!
 

Spring 2015 Schedule:

Jan 15  Witness tree: What One Oak Tells us About our Changing World and Relationship with Nature
Lynda Mapes
BTQURU 03 is a spectacular, 100 year old red oak: a tagged, tracked research specimen in a long term study of changing seasons at the Harvard Forest. Sprouted back when the industrial revolution was just getting started, the oak grew to tower over what was once a farmer’s field, abandoned as people left for jobs in factories and cities – beginning the transformation of our world. Here, in this tree, is a living timeline of those social and historical changes, and their environmental consequences, observable in my tree’s growth and even its breath.

Jan 22 Investing in sustainable well-being
Shaun Paul
We have entered the 21st century in a prefect storm of global challenges encompassing unprecedented wealth inequality and environmental degradation.  Concurrently, we are living at a unique time in history with enormous opportunities to create solutions afforded by rapid innovations in technology, business and investment that includes a growing movement of impact investors and social entrepreneurs forging new business models and solutions that ‘do well by doing good.’  In this talk, Shaun Paul will share some of his research at the Global Development and Environment Institute (GDAE) applying holistic regenerative principles guiding and assessing impact of highly successful investment and business practices.


Jan 29 MIT's Climate CoLab: Using Collective Intelligence to Address Climate Change
Laur Fisher
Wikipedia, Linux, reCAPTCHA, FoldIt, social media — these are just a few examples of how online platforms allow large numbers of people to connect and collaborate in ways that were never possible before, producing unprecedented results in global knowledge exchange, problem-solving and mobilization.  Inspired by this, the researchers at the MIT Center for Collective Intelligence wanted to know:  how could the internet be leveraged to allow people to problem-solve at a massive — even global — scale?  Could we harness the world’s collective intelligence to solve our most complicated issues?  To test this, they launched the Climate CoLab, an online platform where a growing community of 30,000 people work together to develop solutions to challenges related to arguably humanity's most pressing and complex problem: climate change.


Feb 5 Using a One Health approach to respond to infectious disease outbreaks: USAID/RESPOND project in East and Central Africa
Hellen Amuguni
The USAID RESPOND project was part of multi-year multi-project effort to pre-empt or combat at their source, the first stages of zoonotic diseases that pose a significant threat to human health. It focused on eight countries in Africa: Kenya, Uganda, Tanzania, Rwanda, Ethiopia, Cameroon, Democratic Republic of Congo and Gabon, areas considered “hot spots” for emerging and re-emerging infectious diseases. Dr. Amuguni will present an overview of the RESPOND project in the last 5 years and how it has strengthened training, educational programs, and support to universities, governments, and civil society using One Health approaches to improve their capacity to prepare and respond to outbreaks and emerging infectious diseases of zoonotic origin.


Feb 12 Bioethics in the 30th Century: Ecology, Eschatology and Empire in Hayao Miyazaki's Nausicaa Manga
Susan Napier
The Japanese director Hayao Miyazaki is widely considered to be the world's greatest animator. His many films include the classic ecological science fiction movie, Nausicaa of the Valley of Wind, set in the 30th century in a post apocalyptic world where a toxic environment threatens what is left of humanity. Less well known but even more interesting is the seven volume manga version that Miyazaki finished long after the movie's release. A dense and morally complex vision the Nausicaa manga explores dynamics of interspecies rivalry in a world where humans are not necessarily paramount. This talk examines the issues of bioethics and biopower that arise from the manga, seeking to understand whether Miyazaki's ultimate message is utopian or apocalyptic.


Feb 26 Flooding Risk and the Modernization of Agriculture 
Kyle Emerick
Approximately 30% of the cultivated rice area in India is prone to crop damage from prolonged flooding. Dr. Emerick will discuss a two-year study in rural Odisha India investigating the effects of introducing a new flood-tolerant rice variety on farm investment. He will discuss the effects on both farm productivity and farmer decision-making. 


March 5 The African Elephant Poaching Crisis
Nicole St. Clair Knobloch
Ms. St. Clair Knobloch will discuss the poaching crisis facing African elephants – the direct causes and the indirect circumstances that worsen it -- and the potential solutions. She has been particularly focused on the fate of the now critically endangered African forest elephant, on U.S. foreign policy goals in the region the forest elephants inhabit, and on how those goals are disrupted by the ivory trade.


March 12 Air quality in Developing World Disaster and Conflict Zones: The Case of Haiti
Ann Rappaport & Mary Davis
Data on air quality are remarkably limited in the poorest of the world’s countries. This is especially true for post conflict and disaster zones, where international relief efforts focus on more salient public health challenges such as water and sanitation, infectious diseases and housing. We use post-earthquake Haiti as an example case and contend there is an unmet need for additional attention to an important health challenge.


March 26 US Customs and Border Protection: Protecting American Agriculture
Sean Smith
It's never a dull day in the life of a U.S. Customs and Border Protection (CBP) Agriculture Specialist. Combining expertise in the natural sciences with the discipline of working in a fast-paced law enforcement environment, Agriculture Specialists are trained to serve as experts in the area of agricultural inspection, border intelligence, analysis, examination and enforcement activities.


April 2 Science in Conservation
John Hagan
Dr. John Hagan established Manomet’s Forest Conservation Program, based in Brunswick, Maine, in 1997. He has led a variety of field studies on forestry and biodiversity in the region and has helped transform how the forestry sector thinks about protecting biodiversity.

April 9 The Future of Agriculture: Ecology, Biotechnology and Sustainability
John Pickett
Dr. John A. Pickett is a world authority on semiochemicals in insect behavior and plant defense, and plays a leading role in the move away from the traditional use of wide-spectrum pesticides to more precise control through compounds targeted against specific pests at crucial stages in their life cycles.  His work centers on the chemical ecology of interactions between insects, between insects and their plant or animal hosts, and between plants. 

April 16 Photographing Climate Change Above and Below the Waterline
David Arnold
Boston photographer David Arnold precisely compares glacier and coral scenes to create "then and now" comparisons to illustrate the significant changes already taking place above and below the waterline of a warming planet. His Double Exposure exhibit opened at Boston's Museum of Science in 2008, then toured the country non-stop for four years. Currently he is working on a second exhibit. He will speak personally to the power of photography, and reflect with audience help about how we got into this mess - and how we can get out.

April 23
New England Groundfish: A Story About Managing People  
Brett Alger
New England fisheries date back several centuries, with the iconic Atlantic cod playing a key role in our countries’ development.  In the 1970’s, Congress passed the Magnuson-Stevens Act to create sustainable fisheries that benefit our fishermen and our Nation.  Despite being one of the most highly regulated fisheries in the world, several groundfish stocks including cod, are in extremely poor condition.  A concoction of political, environmental, economic, and scientific factors has left the fishing industry in peril, and fisheries management with few options.  Brett’s presentation will cover the legal, scientific, and management process of New England groundfish, and highlight what has happened with Atlantic cod, and where the fishery might be headed.
Photocontest
 
4th Annual Undergraduate
Environmental Photo Contest
 
Every year, the Environmental Studies Program hosts an Environmental Photo Contest. The contest is open to all Tufts undergraduate students and includes prizes for 1st place ($150), 2nd place ($100), and 3rd place ($50). Each student can submit up to 5 photos as part of the contest, but is only eligible to win one of the prizes listed above. All styles of photography are welcome.

Deadline extended to January 31st
Find details here


Get Involved! 

Tufts Sustainability Collective
Tufts Sustainability Collective (TSC) operates as the umbrella sustainability organization at Tufts University. We are dedicated to strengthening sustainable practices throughout our community. TSC aims to foster synergy between its branches and other campus organizations. In addition to pursuing projects of our own, TSC also serves as a center for information about current environmental events Tufts. Check here for updates about TSC, the branches, upcoming events, and how you can get involved!

Primary contacts: Maya DeBellis and Mary Lipscomb
Website: http://sites.tufts.edu/tuftssustainabilitycollective/about/
E-list: http://groups.google.com/group/tufts-sustainability-collective


Tom Thumb's Student Garden 
This is an initiative that gets students outside, working in the earth, and eating real food. Located behind Latin Way, the garden plot includes raised beds and a brand-new trellis and greenhouse. Past on-campus events have included garden-grown dinners and skill shares where students can learn about starting their own garden. Join Tom Thumb's Student Garden for an exciting new year in the dirt!

Meetings: Wednesdays at 9pm in Eaton 201
Primary contacts:
Ellie Doyle  and Deanna Bessy
E-list: http://groups.google.com/group/tufts-student-garden
 
Tufts Climate Action
Tufts Climate Action group is dedicated to building leadership on and off campus, and contributing to the international climate justice movement. We recognize our responsibility as Tufts students in guiding our institution towards real climate change solutions. This year, TCA is focusing on five distinct campaigns: 1) natural gas; 2) divestment; 3) administration and academics; 4) environmental justice, and 5) agriculture. Our tactics have included rallying, marching, demonstrating, holding sleepouts, talking to legislators, and generally putting pressure on the state government to get MA off of coal and other fossil fuels. If you’re interested in fighting for a livable climate, come to our meetings!

Meetings: Mondays at 8:30pm in Miner 112
Primary contact:
Shana Gallagher
E-list: tuftsdivestteam@googlegroups.com
Facebook page: Tufts Climate Action


Food For Thought
Food for Thought is Tufts’ platform for addressing contemporary food issues through a variety of lenses, including environmental, political, social, ethical, economic, and nutritional. Through weekly discussion and mindful action, we seek to educate ourselves and our communities on these issues, inform individual food-related choices, and engage with and improve the food systems to which we are connected.

Meetings: Thursdays at 9:00pm in Eaton 203
Primary contact:
Ellie Doyle
E-list: http://groups.google.com/group/tuftsfoodforthought
Website
Food Nexus: http://sites.tufts.edu/tuftsfoodnexus/


Sustainable Action Squad
Contact James Davis (james.davis@tufts.edu) for more information.


Tufts Recycles

Tufts Recycles! is a program of the Facilities Department, which was started by students in 1990. We work closely with our custodial contractor, UGL Unnico, as well as with our recycling contractor, Save That Stuff, Inc., to ensure that recycling at Tufts reaches its fullest potential. We strive to be at the forefront of innovations that promote the wise use and conservation of resources. We are working towards the day that all of Tufts campuses finally become zero waste campuses!

Website: http://sites.tufts.edu/tuftsrecycles/

Eco-reps
The Tufts Eco-Reps are a group of residential students who help to raise awareness about ecological issues, encourage environmentally responsible behavior among their hall mates and peers, and plan related events and activities. Other duties will include group activities, collaborative projects, and opportunities to represent the Eco-Reps Program at various campus events. Eco-Reps must attend a training retreat as well as weekly meetings.

Website: http://sustainability.tufts.edu/programs/ecorepresentatives/

ROGUE
Research Opportunities for Graduate and Undergraduate Exchange (ROGUE) is a new program launched by Tufts Institute of the Environment (TIE). ROGUE is intended to promote collaboration between graduate and undergraduate students by matching graduate students’ environmental research projects with undergraduate research assistants.

Website: http://sites.tufts.edu/rogue/

Tufts Projects Database
Did you do a sustainability or environmental report or project this semester? Upload it to the new Student Project Database! The mission of the Database is to enhance on-campus student projects (particularly those related to sustainability and the environment) by providing students with the means to view each other's work and learn from previous projects. It can be used to inspire new ideas or build off the work of others.

Website: http://projects.sustainability.tufts.edu/


Green Office Certification Program
This program supports, promotes, and recognizes offices that are engaging in sustainable practices.  Offices may achieve certification based on the score they receive on a checklist of green office criteria in the areas of Energy & Water Use; Waste & Recycling; Paper, Printing & Office Supplies; Food, Beverages & Dishware; Transportation; and Sustainability Planning & Leadership. 

Website: http://sustainability.tufts.edu/programs/green-office-certification-2/

For a complete list of environmental initiatives and partners at Tufts University for students, faculty and staff, please click here.
ENVS is hiring an Outreach Intern

The Environmental Studies Program is looking for an Outreach/Communications intern for the Spring semester (6 -10 hrs a week), starting on January 12. Duties include preparation of promotional material including flyers, newsletters, doing on-campus outreach, assisting with event organization, posting on social media, preparation of course guides updates and other tasks as needed.

The successful applicant must be available on Thursdays between 11:30 to 13:30 to assist with our Lunch & Learn seminar series. This position is open to all students but those on Work-Study and/or in the ENVS Program are strongly encouraged to apply. ENVS students might use this position to fulfill their internship requirement.
 
For full job description and to apply, click
here.

Application deadline: December 31st

Environmental Studies Program

Program Director:

Dr. Colin Orians, Biology and Environmental Studies


Program Administrator:

Dr. Sara Gomez, Environmental Studies


Lecturer:

Professor Andrew Tirrell, Environmental Studies

Executive Committee:

Dr. Alexander Blanchette, Anthropology and Environmental Studies
Dr. Ujjayant Chakravorty, Economics and Environmental Studies
Dr. John Durant, Civil and Environmental Engineering
Dr. Andrew Kemp, Earth and Ocean Sciences and Environmental Studies
Dr. Jonathan E. Kenny, Chemistry
Dr. Karen Kosinski, Community Health Program
Dr. Ann Rappaport, Urban and Environmental Policy and Planning
Dr. J. Michael Reed, Biology
Dr. Jack Ridge, Earth and Ocean Sciences
Dr. Modhumita Roy, English


Student representatives:

Ellen Osborn, Quantitative Economics and Environmental Studies
Hayley Welsh, Biology and Environmental Studies
 

Contact information:

Environmental Studies Program
Tufts University
210 Packard Avenue
Miller Hall, Room 031A – East Rear Door
Medford, MA 02155

Email: environmentalstudies@tufts.edu
Phone: 617.627.3553
Fax: 617.627.6645
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