Inviting diversity and race to play an active role in conservation: 2019 Doug Walker Lecture

As an African American raised in the south who had a love affair with nature, Dr. J. Drew Lanham grew up feeling like a “rare bird”. Join us for the 2019 Doug Walker Lecture where Dr. Lanham, will discuss what it means to embrace both his history and relationship to nature, and how these two intertwine as an ornithologist, wildlife ecologist and college professor. Considered a superhero of advocacy for the natural world, Dr. Lanham will examine how conservation must be a rigorous science and evocative art – and that love of nature is not restricted by race and should play an active roles in celebrating our natural world.

Details

When: Wednesday, October 30, 2019 | 6:30 p.m.
Where: Benaroya Hall | Illsley Ball Nordstrom Recital Hall | 200 University St., Seattle, 98101
Cost: $8

About J. Drew Lanham, PhD

J. Drew Lanham is a distinguished alumni professor, provost’s professor, and alumni master teacher at Clemson University in the Department of Forestry and Environmental Conservation. In his teaching, research, and outreach roles, Lanham seeks to translate conservation science, making it relevant in ways that are evocative and understandable. As a Black American, he’s intrigued with how culture and ethnic prisms can bend perceptions of nature and its care. His “connecting the conservation dots” and “coloring the conservation conversation” messages have been delivered internationally.

Lanham is a widely published author and award-nominated poet, writing about his experiences as a birder, hunter and wild, wandering soul. His first solo work, The Home Place: Memoirs of a Colored Man’s Love Affair with Nature (Milkweed 2016; Tantor Audio 2019), was awarded the Phillip Reed Memorial Award for Outstanding Writing on the Southern Environment in 2018. Lanham is poet laureate of his home place county of Edgefield, SC, and the author of Sparrow Envy – Poems. His essay “Forever Gone” (Orion Magazine 2018), which laments the passage of the Carolina Parakeet and the roles culture may have played in that demise. It was selected as an American Best Essay (by Rebecca Solnit) in 2019.

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The UW College of the Environment is pleased to announce that Becky Alexander has been named the director of the UW Program on Climate Change (PCC).

Becky is an atmospheric chemist in the Department of Atmospheric Sciences who studies the feedbacks that arise between climate change and the chemical composition of the atmosphere. She also has a long-standing relationship with the program, as she was initially hired as new faculty spearheaded by the Program on Climate Change to promote interdisciplinary climate research and teaching.

“The Search Committee noted that there is widespread agreement throughout the PCC community that the interdisciplinary teaching and education focused on climate change that has been fostered by the PCC has created strong connections across the core units and has fostered important linkages with other units across the university. They also highlighted that PCC activities have led to tremendous results in creating and sustaining a strong community of graduate students. I am excited to have the opportunity to work closely with Becky to continue PCC’s momentum and build on its collaborative foundations so that the program continues to thrive.” said Lisa Graumlich, dean and Mary Laird Wood Professor at the College of the Environment.

The College would also like to thanks Cecilia Bitz for her service as the outgoing director.

“Cecilia’s collaborative approach and interest in a thriving climate community among faculty and students at the UW ensured that the PCC continues to be relevant after almost 20 years since its founding,” Graumlich said.

Thanks are also due to the advisory search committee for their outreach to the PCC community, energy and thoughtfulness, including Miriam Bertram (Assistant Director, Program on Climate Change), Dargan Frierson (Associate Professor, Atmospheric Sciences), Sarah Ragen (Graduate Student, Oceanography), Gerard Roe (Committee Chair; Professor, Earth and Space Sciences), and Rebecca Woodgate (Senior Principal Oceanographer, Applied Physics Lab; APL Professor WOT, Oceanography).

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Alfred-Wegener-Institut/Stefan Hendricks

When the German icebreaker Polarstern leaves Norway’s coast on Sept. 20, it will embark on a year-long drift across the Arctic Ocean. Two University of Washington researchers are among scientists from 17 nations who will study climate change from a unique floating research platform.

The Arctic has warmed dramatically over recent decades, but observations are scarce during the ice-covered winter. The MOSAiC expedition, or Multidisciplinary drifting Observatory for the Study of Arctic Climate, will enclose the research icebreaker Polarstern in sea ice for a year, creating a drifting research platform that will pass near the North Pole.

Two UW researchers — Bonnie Light, a principal physicist at the UW’s Applied Physics Laboratory and an affiliate associate professor of atmospheric sciences, and Madison Smith, a recent UW graduate who is now doing her postdoctoral research at the UW — will join for the fifth of the six two-month legs, in summer 2020.

“This project is a once-in-a-generation endeavor,” said Light, a member of the UW Polar Science Center. “It takes a tremendous amount of commitment, resources and planning to pull off a campaign of this scope.”

The UW scientists will leave from Norway in June aboard the Swedish icebreaker Oden, then travel for about two weeks to the research base, which at that point is projected to be between 85 degrees and 90 degrees north latitude, to the north or northeast of Greenland. They will then make a final leg to reach the ship.

Following the sea ice for a full year offers unique opportunities, said Light, who studies “rotting” or melting ice. She and Smith will be part of the sea ice team and will focus on how sunlight is reflected, transmitted and absorbed by the ice cover as it melts.

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Lucy Trippett

In the real world, engineers and scientists work together to conduct research and solve problems, but that is typically not the case in classrooms. But a month-long study abroad program provided an opportunity for student scientists and engineers to collaborate. University of Washington students traveled to the Queensland University of Technology in Australia, where they studied why seagrass and coral reef ecosystems are important, how to measure changes within these ecosystems and how to use robots to collect data.

Thirteen students were selected to participate in the program after an interview process that was carefully designed to create a diverse cohort. The class was co-taught by School of Oceanography research engineer Rick Rupan and graduate student Isaiah Bolden, who formed an engineer/scientist team to expose students to real-world problem-solving and promote diversity of thought. The two led by example, showing students how engineering and science can work together to solve problems.

“We wanted to push for a place-based learning experience, where students would have opportunities to interact with cutting edge instrumentation and technology to research ecological changes as they relate to local historical and cultural factors,” said Bolden.

Isaiah Bolden

Before the students even set foot on the plane, they spent a rigorous 24 hours conducting field research at Friday Harbor Laboratories where they quite literally got their feet wet. The students—many of whom have never been on a boat prior to boarding Friday Harbor Labs’ R/V Centennial—learned how to operate and collect data from an instrument known as a CTD, which measures the conductivity, temperature and depth of seawater. Students also learned about processes governing the cycling of key seawater components, like carbon, oxygen, salinity and acidity within coastal wetland ecosystems.

Armed with this baseline knowledge, the students began the actual study abroad program in Australia on June 24, 2019. June Hairston from UW Louis Stokes STEM Pathways and Research Alliance: Pacific Northwest (LSAMP) gave lectures on diversity and cultural representatives from the local aboriginal communities provided students with context of the history and customs of the land they were visiting. After a week of biogeochemical classes focused on coastal seagrass and coral reef ecosystems, students formed groups and created scientific hypotheses to test in the field. The students traveled east to the Moreton Bay Research Station on Stradbroke Island and used new field sampling techniques along with Autonomous Underwater Vehicles (AUV) to collect scientific and engineering data.

Based on research interest, four teams were formed. Using manually-controlled devices and satellite imagery, the first group looked at seagrass density as a measure for the health of certain patches of seagrass. Seagrass can sequester carbon to offset ocean acidification, but many seagrasses are dying off. Results showed that autonomous monitoring of seagrass borders at shallow depths is possible, and the group is now working on a proposal to obtain a more autonomous kind of AUV to monitor and map seagrass beds, coral reefs and other underwater ecosystems. This would effectively eliminate the need for manual ways of collecting data, like manually-maneuvered devices.

The second group studied how well seagrass sequesters carbon dioxide by looking at water and oxygen levels. Samples measuring Oxidation-Reduction Potential (ORP), nitrates and dissolved inorganic carbon were collected from three different sites with varied seagrass coverage. The group found that in terms of carbon sequestration, low ORP creates a better environment for carbon storage, resulting in healthy, high-density seagrass.

Continuing with the seagrass studies, the third group looked at the relationship between different seagrass densities and the effects turbidity has on seagrass productivity. Turbidity is the murkiness of water due to suspended particles, which impacts seagrass productivity. This team collected data at three sites and compared that with historical data from three sites in the same region from 2005 to 2014.

The fourth group looked at the parameters that influence coral health at Moreton Bay versus neighboring Lady Elliot Island in the Great Barrier Reef. Using four collection methods, the students collected seawater acidity, temperature and salinity, and coral diversity and coverage. Results show that Lady Elliot corals are healthier and more diverse than those at Moreton Bay. The group concluded that understanding the correlation between carbonate saturation state and coral health could help preserve coral ecosystems.

Together, Rupan and Bolden modeled how science and engineering can work together. “The goal was to do things we never even thought to do before,” said Rupan. “That type of diversity is something we don’t get in our classrooms, but is necessary today more than ever.”

The class, titled Discrete, Autonomous, and Robotic Observations of Marine Ecosystems in Australia was funded jointly from the College of the Environment’s Diversity, Equity and Inclusion team, UW’s LSAMP program, and the College of Engineering. Final group presentations are scheduled for Tues., Nov. 5 at 3 p.m. in room 425 of the Ocean Sciences Building.

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Please join us in congratulating Dr. Sarah Converse who received the Department of the Interior’s Distinguished Service Award in Washington D.C. on September 12th. The award is the highest honorary recognition an employee can receive within the Department of the Interior and is granted for “outstanding contribution to science, outstanding skill or ability in the performance of duty, outstanding contribution made during an eminent career in the Department, or any other exceptional contribution to the public service.”

Converse is honored for her work in whooping crane recovery and research, and the application of decision science as a management tool in support of federal trust agencies.

You can watch the live webcast of the awards ceremony on the Department of the Interior website.

Congratulations Sarah!

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Dror Shitrit/Simons Collaboration on Ocean Processes and Ecology

One of the planet’s most active ecosystems is one most people rarely encounter and scientists are only starting to explore. The open ocean contains tiny organisms — phytoplankton — that perform half the photosynthesis on Earth, helping generate oxygen for animals on land.

A study by University of Washington oceanographers, published this summer in Nature Microbiology, looks at how photosynthetic microbes and ocean bacteria use sulfur, a plentiful marine nutrient.

Sulfur is the odorous element that gives beaches their distinctive smell. The new study focused on sulfonates, in which a sulfur atom is connected to three oxygen atoms and a carbon-based molecule. In the ocean, phytoplankton use energy from the sun to create sulfonate molecules. Bacteria then consume the sulfonates to gain nutrients and energy.

Bryndan Durham, then a postdoctoral researcher in oceanography at the UW and now an assistant professor at the University of Florida, drew on the recent genetic studies of soils to learn which microbial pathways are used to process sulfonates in the ocean. The study first focused on 36 marine microbes that the team cultured in the lab, using a UW-developed method to test which organisms produce sulfonates on their own in a lab environment.

The study discovered “some striking similarities between sulfonate pathways in terrestrial and ocean systems,” Durham wrote in a “Behind the Paper” post in Nature Microbiology that discusses the project. In soils, plants typically produce sulfonates. In the oceans most sulfonates are also produced by photosynthetic organisms, in this case by unicellular phytoplankton.

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