Core Faculty
The core faculty share appointments with the Center and other Departments in the College of Arts and Sciences. These faculty are responsible for much of the teaching, advising, administration, and program development in the Center. The current core faculty are:
Executive Director, CEES, Director Center for Transportation Studies and Professor, Dept. of Geography and Environment |
|
Professor, Dept. of Geography and Environment |
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| Director of CEES, Director of Graduate Studies at CEES and Professor Dept. of Geography and Environment |
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Director of Undergraduate Studies, Assistant Professor, CEES and Dept. of Geography |
Assistant Professor, Dept. of International Relations |
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Assistant Professor, Dept. of Geography and Environment |
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Senior Research Associate, CEES |
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Assistant Professor, Dept. of International Relations |
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Professor, Remote Sensing and GIS, Dept. of Geography and Environment |
Associated Faculty
In addition to the core faculty, the Center has an Associated Faculty who participate actively in one or more of the environmental programs through advising, teaching, program development, or research in one or more of the environmental programs. The current Associated Faculty are:
| Richard Clapp |
Thomas Kunz |
David Ozonoff |
Adrien Finzi |
Nancy Maxwell |
Anthony Patt |
Mark Friedl |
Jim McCann |
Guido Salvucci |
Sucharita Gopal |
Ranga Myneni |
Robert Weller |
Faculty Profiles
Richard Clapp
Professor of Environmental Health
M.P.H. Harvard, School of Public Health, 1974; D.Sc. Boston University, School
of Public Health, 1989
His research interests include the health effects of dioxin, radiation, and environmental exposures to toxic chemicals. He serves on several advisory boards and is on the Governing Council of the International Society for Environmental Epidemiology. He teaches environmental epidemiology and environmental health courses, and advises graduate students. For twelve years, Dr. Clapp worked as Director and then consultant at the JSI Center for Environmental Health Studies. He joined the Environmental Health Department full-time Faculty in 1993, where he is now based. He currently works part-time as a consultant at the Tellus Institute, a non-profit environmental consulting organization in Boston.
Adrien Finzi (see
website)
Assistant Professor of Biology
Ph.D., University of Connecticut, 1996
Research in my lab focuses on forest ecology, terrestrial biogeochemistry and global change biology. As a forest ecologist I am interested in understanding how resource competition among individuals within a community affects the distribution and abundance of tree species across the landscape. In my studies I combine field experiments with modeling studies so that I can extrapolate measurements consistent with empirical inquiry over large spatial and temporal scales. My current research in this area includes a field and modeling study aimed at understanding how the availability of water, nitrogen and calcium affects tree seedling growth and survivorship along a soil resource gradient where one or more of these resources limits plant growth rates. As a terrestrial biogeochemist, I am interested in the factors regulating the pool sizes and fluxes of carbon (C) and nitrogen (N) in terrestrial ecosystems. At one level, interspecific differences in resource uptake and loss affect the distribution of C and N in terrestrial ecosystems. Thus one can link changes in the distribution of species with variation in C and N cycling. Carbon and N fluxes in terrestrial ecosystems are also affected by the size, composition, and activity of soil microbial communities, physical disturbance, and time. Thus I am generally interested in understanding how the different components of an ecosystem (soils, microbes, plant species) interact with the physical environment to affect C and N cycling.
My interest in global change biology stems from the fact that human activity is transforming the basic function of the terrestrial biosphere at an accelerating rate. There are 3 transformations to which I pay particular attention. They are changes in the global C-cycle, changes in the global N-cycle, and changes in land-use. Fossil fuel combustion is increasing the concentration of carbon dioxide in the atmosphere and changing the earth’s climate. Fixation of atmospheric N by humans now exceeds the rate of non-anthropogenic N fixation (e.g. lightening, symbiotic N fixation) and terrestrial ecosystems whose productivity has historically been N limited, are now receiving N in excess of biological demand. To what extent does excess N affect the basic functioning of terrestrial ecosystems? Finally, shifts in land-use practices (e.g. the conversion of forest land to agricultural land) affect C and N cycling by changing the species composition of plant communities, changing the distribution of biomass, and removing or leaching nutrients.
My current research in the area of terrestrial biogeochemistry and global change biology focuses on the effect of Free-Air CO2 Enrichment (FACE) on C-storage and nutrient cycling in a southern pine - hardwood forest. The core of my research asks the following question: Will the availability of nutrients (N or P) limit the C-storage potential of forest ecosystems? To answer this question I measure pool sizes and turnover times of N and P in this maturing ecosystem. I focus on primary production, decomposition, microbial ecology, and nutrient availability.
Selected publications:
- Finzi, A.C., A.S. Allen, and W.H. Schlesinger. 2001. "Forest litter production, chemistry, and decomposition following two years of free-air CO2 enrichment." Ecology, 82(2): xx-xx.
- Finzi, A.C., and C.D. Canham. 2000. "Sapling growth in response to light and nitrogen availability in a southern New England forest." Forest Ecology and Management, 131:153-165.
- Allen, A.S., J.A. Andrews, A.C. Finzi, R. Matamala, D.R. Richter, and W.H. Schlesinger. 2000. "Effects of free-air CO2 enrichment on belowground processes in a loblolly pine forest." Ecological Applications, 10(2): 437-448.
- DeLucia, E.H., S.L. Naidu, R.B. Thomas, J.A. Andrews, A.C. Finzi, G.R. Hendrey, and W.H. Schlesinger. 1999. "Net carbon storage in an intact forest under experimental CO2 enrichment." Science, 284:1177 - 1179.
- Finzi, A.C., and C.D. Canham. 1998. "Non-additive effects of litter mixtures on net N mineralization in a northern hardwood forest." Forest Ecology and Management, 105:129 - 136.
- Finzi, A.C., N. van Breemen, and C.D. Canham. 1998. "Canopy tree-soil interactions within temperate forests: tree species effects on carbon and nitrogen." Ecological Applications, 8(2):440 - 446.
- Finzi, A.C., N. van Breemen, and C.D. Canham. 1998. "Canopy tree-soil interactions within temperate forests: tree species effects on soil pH and exchangeable cations." Ecological Applications, 8(2):447 - 454.
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Sucharita Gopal (see
website)
Associate Professor, Department of Geography and Environment
Ph. D., University of California, Santa Barbara, 1988
My research interests include: Neural networks, Computational Modeling of Behavior, Geographical Information Systems, Fuzzy Sets, and Spatial Cognition.
Selected Publications:
- Gopal, S., and Woodcock, C. "Theory and methods for accuracy assessment of thematic maps using fuzzy set." Photogrammetric Engineering and Remote Sensing, 60, 2, 181-188, 1994.
- Fischer, M., and Gopal, S. "Neural network models and interregional telephone traffic: comparative performances between multilayer feedforward networks and the conventional spatial interaction model." Journal of Regional Science, 34,4, 503-527, 1995.
- Gopal, S., and Scuderi, L., "Predicting sunspot cycles using feedforward neural networks." Geographical Analysis, 27(1), 42-60,1995.
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Andrew J. Hoffman
Associate Professor of Management
B.S., University of Massachusetts at Amherst;
M.S., Ph.D., Massachusetts Institute of Technology
Prof. Hoffman's research deals with the nature and dynamics of change within cultural and institutional systems. In particular, he applies his work towards understanding how corporations and market environments evolve to incorporate concerns for environmental protection and sustainability. He teaches masters level courses in environmental strategy, negotiations, organizational behavior, managerial ethics and organizational change. He has written over thirty articles in leading academic, professional, and popular journals and has published four books dealing with corporate environmentalism. Before entering academics, he was a compliance engineer for the Environmental Protection Agency, a consultant for Metcalf & Eddy, Inc., an analyst for the Amoco Oil Corporation and a construction manager for T&T Construction and Design Inc.
Selected publications:
Books:
- Organizations, Policy and the Natural Environment: Institutional and Strategic Perspectives (editor with Marc Ventresca, Stanford, CA: Stanford University Press, 2002).
- From Heresy to Dogma: An Institutional History of Corporate Environmentalism - Expanded Edition, (Stanford, CA: Stanford University Press, 2001). Recipient of the 2001 Rachel Carson Prize from the Society for Social Studies of Science.
- Competitive Environmental Strategy: A Guide to the Changing Business Landscape, (Washington DC: Island Press, 2000).
- Global Climate Change: A Senior Level Dialogue at the Intersection of Economics, Strategy, Technology, Science, Politics and International Negotiation, (editor, San Francisco: New Lexington Press, Jossey-Bass Publishers, 1998).
Articles:
- "The importance of cultural framing to the success of social initiatives in business," Academy of Management Executive, (with Jennifer Howard-Grenville), 17 (2): 70-84, May 2003.
- "Barriers to resolution in ideologically based negotiations: The role of values and institutions." Academy of Management Review, 27 (1): 41-57. (with Kim Wade-Benzoni, Leigh Thompson, Don Moore, James Gillespie & Max Bazerman Finalist for AMRs 2002 Best Paper of the Year Award) February 2002.
- "Not all events are attended equally: Toward a middle-range theory of industry attention to external events." Organization Science, 12 (4): 414-434. (with William Ocasio), July 2001.
- "Institutional evolution and change: Environmentalism and the US chemical industry." Academy of Management Journal, 42(4): 351-371, August, 1999.
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Thomas H. Kunz (see
website)
Professor, Department of Biology, Director, Center for Ecology and Conservation
Biology
Ph.D., University of Kansas, 1971
Our research largely focuses on how free-ranging mammals acquire
and allocate energy and nutrients during reproduction. In particular, we are
interested in patterns of parental investment and the energetic costs of pregnancy
and lactation in temperate and tropical bats. A related area of interest is
intraspecific and interspecific variation and energetics of postnatal growth
in bats. Specifically, I am interested in determining factors that affect
postnatal growth rates, including the quality and quantity of food available
to the mother, energy and nutrient quality and quantity of milk output of
the mother, and the maternity roost environment. In collaboration with Eric
Widmaier's lab, we are investigating the role of leptin in the regulation
of nightly feeding and seasonal reproduction in free-ranging bats.
We are also interested in the behavioral ecology of tropical
bats. In particular, we are interested in species that modify leaves of epiphytes,
palms, and other plants by chewing both primary and secondary veins so that
leaves collapse downward, forming so-called tents. Recently, we have discovered
that single males construct tents and recruit females with whom they mate.
Tent-making behavior is investigated by capturing and censusing roosting groups,
direct observation, radiotelemetry, infrared video recording, and mtDNA analysis.
We are testing alternative hypotheses which may explain the evolution of tent-making
behavior, including reciprocity, mutualism, and kin-selection, and the effects
of social structuring and forest fragmentation on the genetic structure of
natural populations.
Selected publications:
Books:
- Kunz, T.H. (ed.). 1982. Ecology of bats. Plenum Press, New York, 425 pp.
- Kunz, T.H. (ed.). 1988. Ecological and behavioral methods for the study of bats. Smithsonian Institution Press, Washington, D.C., 533 pp.
- Kunz, T.H. and P.A. Racey (eds). 1998. Bat biology and conservation. Smithsonian Institution Press, Washington, D.C., 365 pp. (recipeint of the 1999 Wildlife Society Award, Outstanding Publication in Wildlife Ecology and Management, Edited Book Category
Articles:
- Kunz, T.H., M.S. Fujita, A. Brooke, and G.F. McCracken. 1994. "Tent architecture and convergence in tent-making behavior among neotropical and paleotropical bats." Journal of Mammalian Evolution, 2: 57-78.
- Kunz, T.H., J.O. Whitaker, Jr., and M.D. Wadanoli. 1995. "Dietary energetics of the Mexican free-tailed bat (Tadarida brasiliensis) during pregnancy and lactation." Oecologia. 101: 107-115.
- Kunz, T.H, O.T. Oftedal, S.K. Robson, M. Kretzmann, and C. Kirk. 1995. "Changes in milk composition during lactation in three species of insectivorous bats." Journal of Comparative Physiology B, 164: 545-551.
- Kunz, T.H., and G.F. McCracken. 1996. "Tents and harems: apparent defense of foliage roosts by tent-making bats." Journal of Tropical Ecology, 12: 121-137. Widmaier, E.P, J. Long, B. Cadigan, S. Gurgel, and T.H. Kunz. 1997. Fasting associated with low leptin and CRH in free-ranging pregnant bats. Endocrine, 7: 145-150.
- Kunz, T.H., J.A. Wrazen, and C.D. Burnett. 1998. "Changes in body mass and body composition in pre-hibernating little brown bats (Myotis lucifugus)." Ecoscience, 5: 8-17.
- Kunz, T. H., S.K. Robson, and K.A. Nagy. 1998. "Economy of harem maintenance in the greater spear-nosed bat, Phyllostomus hastatus." Journal of Mammalogy, 79: 631-642.
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Nancy Maxwell
Assistant Professor of Environmental Health
M.A. Boston University, D.Sc. in Environmental Health, Boston University,
School of Public Health
In teaching Introduction to Environmental Health each term, Dr. Maxwell provides MPH students concentrating in other areas with their first experience of environmental health. She also teaches Social Factors in Environmental Health, which focuses on questions of environmental justice, and directs a proseminar for doctoral students in environmental health. Her research interests center on social differences in exposurenot only to factors in the ambient environment, but also to consumer products, including cosmetics. As an environmental epidemiologist at Silent Spring Institute, an independent nonprofit research organization, Dr. Maxwell directed the epidemiologic components of a study of potential environmental risk factors for breast cancer on Cape Cod, MA. In addition, she was the principal investigator of a study of patterns in advertising for women's beauty products across magazines targeted to different demographic groups.
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Jim McCann (see
website)
Professor of History, Director, African Studies Center
B.A., Northwestern University; M.A., Ph.D., Michigan State University
Prof. James C. McCann has research interests in the area of the environmental and agricultural history of Africa. He has conducted field work in Ethiopia, Sudan, Lesotho, South Africa, and Ghana. He teaches undergraduate courses in the general area of African history and an upper level course (HI/EE 394) The Environmental History of Africa. At the graduate level Prof. McCann has taught seminars on "Agriculture in African History" and Field Methods in African History," in addition to courses on non-environmental themes. Prof. McCann has served as consultant to the United Nations Environmental Program, the National Center for Atmospheric Research, Oxfam America, Oxfam (U.K.), Norwegian Save the Children, the Carter Center, and the International Livestock Centre for Africa.
Selected publications:
Books:
- Green Land Brown Land, Black Land: An Environmental History of Africa. (Heinemann, 1999)
- People of the Plow: An Agricultural History of Ethiopia. (Wisconsin, 1995)
- From Poverty to Famine in Northeast Ethiopia. (U of Pennsylvania, 1987)
Articles:
- "Maize and Grace: Corn and Africa's New Landscapes," Comparative Studies in Society and History (2001).
- "Climate and Causation in African History," International Journal of African Historical Studies (2000).
- "A Tale of Two Forests: Narratives of Deforestation in Ethiopia 1900-1999" Environmental History (1998).
- "The Social Impact of Famine in Ethiopia" in Michael Glantz, ed. Drought and Hunger in Africa: Denying Famine a Future. (Cambridge, 1987).
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Ranga Myneni (see
web site)
Associate Professor, Department of Geography and Environment, Center for Remote Sensing
Ph.D. in Biology, University of Antwerp, Belgium
My interests are remote sensing of vegetation and climate-vegetation interactions. I have a doctorate in Biology from the University of Antwerp, Belgium. I teach and research on the topics of global vegetation dynamics, satellite data analysis, remote sensing of vegetation and modeling land surface processes in large scale models.
Selected Publications:
- Kaufmann et al., 2000. "Effect of orbital drift and sensor changes on the time series of AVHRR vegetation index data." IEEE Trans. Geosci. Remote Sens., 38: 2584-2597.
- Zhang et al., 2000. "Prototyping of MISR LAI and FPAR algorithm with POLDER data over Africa." IEEE Trans. Geosci. Remote Sens., 38(5): 2402-2418.
- Tian et al., 2000. "Prototyping of MODIS LAI and FPAR algorithm with LASUR and LANDSAT data." IEEE Trans. Geosci. Remote Sens., 38(5): 2387-2401.
- Shabanov, N., Knyazikhin, Y., Baret, F. and Myneni, R.B., "Stochastic modeling of radiation regime in discontinuous vegetation canopy," Remote Sens. Environ., 74:125-144.
- Weiss,M., Bareta,F., Myneni,R.B., Pragnre,A., and Knyazikhin, Y., "Investigation of a model inversion technique for the estimation of crop characteristics from spectral and directional reflectance data." Agronomie, 20: 3-22, (2000).
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David M. Ozonoff
Professor of Environmental Health
B.S. University of Wisconsin (Madison) 1962
M.D., Cornell University Medical College, 1967. M.P.H., Johns Hopkins, School
of Hygiene and Public Health, 1968
Prof. Ozonoff's research work centers on health effects to communities of various kinds of toxic exposures, especially from hazardous waste sites; new mathematical approaches to understanding the results of small case-control studies; and the use of scientific evidence in court. He has been principal or co-investigator of a number of major studies of waste sites, including the Silresim Superfund site and a large case-control study of cancer study on Cape Cod, Massachusetts. As Director of the Superfund Basic Research Program, a multidisciplinary effort to understand basic scientific problems connected with the Federal Superfund Program funded by the National Institute of Environmental Health Sciences he oversees the Center's administrative and outreach cores, is principal investigator of his own project involving new methods to use maps in environmental epidemiology, and coordinates the work of eight other senior investigators and their projects.
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Guido Daniel Salvucci
Associate Professor, Departments of Earth Sciences and Geography and Environment
Ph.D., Massachusetts Institute of Technology, 1994
My primary research topic is vadose zone hydrology, with special emphasis on how soil moisture interacts with the near surface atmospheric water and energy balance above, and with larger scale groundwater flows below. Understanding the hydrologic and energetic interactions at these two interfaces is crucial to explaining larger scale (e.g. hillslope-watershed-continental) behavior of the hydrologic cycle. Some of the research projects which I am currently involved in are: 1) the development of a diagnostic evaporation estimation technique that is driven by remotely sensed land surface temperature, albedo and soil moisture patterns; 2) analysis of the spatial structure of soil moisture, recharge and discharge and how they are related to soil texture and topography; and 3) the relation between canopy density, soils and climate in Australian woodlands.
Selected publications:
- Salvucci, G.D. "Limiting relations between soil moisture and texture with implications for measured, modeled and remotely sensedestimates," Geophysical Research Letters, 25(10), 1757-1760, 1998.
- Hatton, T.J., G.D. Salvucci, and H.Wu, "Eagleson's optimality theory of an ecohydrological equilibrium: quo vadis ?," Functional Ecology, 11, 665-674, 1997.
- Salvucci, G.D., "Soil and moisture independent estimation of stage-two evaporation from potential evaporation and albedo or surface temperature," Water Resources Research, 33(1),111-122, 1997.
- Salvucci, G.D., 1996: "Series solution for Richards equation under concentration boundary conditions and uniform initial conditions," Water Resources Research, 32(8), 2401-2407.
• Salvucci, G.D. and D. Entekhabi, 1995: "Hillslope and climatic controls on hydrologic fluxes," Water Resources Research., 31(7), 1725-1739.
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Robert Weller (see
website)
Professor, Department of Anthropology
Research Associate, Institute for the Study of Economic Culture
Ph.D., The Johns Hopkins University, 1980
One of my major current projects concerns the development of the environmental movement and nature tourism in China and Taiwan, especially as they relate to recent economic growth there. In a related project, I am also looking at problems of environmental policy implementation in China, and especially at the mechanisms that lead people to be more aware of environmental problems and methods they have for resovling them. Other work of mine studies the role of local voluntary assocations as mediators between state and society in China and Taiwan. I have also consulted regularly on poverty and unemployment relief in western China.
Selected publications:
- Alternate Civilities: Chinese Culture and the Prospects for Democracy. Westview, 1999.
Articles:
- "Culture, Gender and Community in Taiwan's Environmental Movement" (with Hsin-Huang Michael Hsiao). In Arne Kalland and Gerard Persoon (eds.), Environmental Movements in Asia. London: Curzon, pp. 83-109, 1988.
- "From Heaven-and-Earth to Nature: Chinese Concepts of the Environment and their Influence on Policy Implementation" (with Peter K. Bol). In Michael B. McElroy, Chris R. Nielson, and Peter Lydon (eds.), Energizing China: Reconciling Environmental Protection and Economic Growth. Cambridge: Harvard University Committee on Environment, pp. 473-499, 1998.
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