In this issue:
Getting the Whole Picture
Blending social and ecological research helps focus wildlife species recovery efforts
Carly Sponarski spent much of her early academic career barking up the wrong tree, so to speak. It wasn’t until her Master’s degree that she finally branched off in a direction that matched her research and conservation interests.
Early on, Sponarski, now an assistant professor in the Department of Wildlife, Fisheries, and Conservation Biology and Mitchell Center Faculty Fellow, followed her heart and a desire to support conservation of animals by studying and taking a conservation biology approach. She had a lightbulb moment near the end of her Bachelor’s degree.
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Hitting Pay Dirt
UMaine Researcher, Undergraduate, Partners Awarded Grant for MidCoast Composting Project
As part of an interdisciplinary team examining ways to reduce food waste in Maine, a researcher in the UMaine School of Economics and his undergraduate student assistant were recently awarded $17,000 from the Maine Department of Environmental Protection (DEP) towards a start-up composting program in the MidCoast region.  The funds will go to project partners Bó Lait Farm of Washington, Maine and ScrapDogs Community Compost of Camden, Maine to implement a food scrap collection and processing system in the region.
Researcher Travis Blackmer and undergraduate Taylor Patterson are part of a project called Making Maine’s local food system sustainable being conducted by a team of researchers and students affiliated with the Senator George J. Mitchell Center for Sustainability Solutions. Patterson is one of five undergraduate scholars being funded by the Diana Davis Spencer Foundation to conduct the research.
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Making Science Useful for Decision-makers
Master's student Gabriella Marafino is helping a Mitchell Center research team develop a decision-support tool for stakeholders
Gabriella Marafino did her undergraduate work in biology and applied conservation at George Mason University.  She chose UMaine to get her feet wet in the social science side of things by joining the dual-degree Master’s program in Marine Biology and Marine Policy.
Working with Mitchell Center faculty fellows Jessica Jansujwicz, Gayle Zydlewski, and Teresa Johnson, Marafino is part of the Integrating and Sharing Data to Support Resilience in Maine Coastal Communities project in an effort to better understand the process by which scientific information is produced and used in permitting and regulatory decisions. The project has a particular focus on tidal power in the Western Passage near Eastport, Maine.
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Diana Davis Spencer Scholar Anthony Sutton
In January 2017, the Mitchell Center launched the Strengthening Coastal Economies project as part of the Diana Davis Spencer Partnership for a Sustainable Maine.
Six students were recruited for the project—Tyler Quiring, Carter Hathaway, Gabby Hillyer, Shuling Chen, Cassie Page, and Tony Sutton.
Sutton’s Passamaquoddy Sustenance Project is “about shaping research that aligns with the values and perspectives of a community.” The particular community Sutton is working with is Passamaquoddy at Sipayik, on the shores of Passamaquoddy Bay between the town of Perry and the city of Eastport.The project the community developed involves alewife conservation.
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Call for Abstracts—2019 Maine Sustainability & Water Conference
The Call for Abstracts for the 2019 Maine Sustainability & Water Conference has been issued. The conference is scheduled for Thursday, March 28, 2019 at the Augusta Civic Center. Please visit the conference web site for complete details. Abstracts for oral and poster presentations may be submitted.
A list of proposed concurrent sessions is also available. Several sessions are still under development and additional information will be posted shortly.
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