Environmental Studies
Fall 2007 Seminar Schedule
Fridays as shown 12:20-1:10 pm
Roon Hall, Science Center
September 7
Barbara Dumke
Environmental Spirituality: science and faith
as partners
September 14
Katherine Kohel
Hormone disrupting chemicals
September 21
Laura Blake
(AU '99)
Modeling phosphorus loading and lake response in
New York watersheds
September 28
Matt Neatrour
Long-term effects of acidic deposition: the influence of
acid-induced calcium loss on the biological function of
forest and stream ecosystems
October 5
Virginia Rasmussen
How did we land in this earthly predicament?:
deciding our way out
October 12
NO SEMINAR -- FALL BREAK
October 19
Adam Burnett
Great Lake-effect snowfall and its relationship with lake
and air temperature, ice cover, and wind flow
October 26
Michael Mann
Global warming and its likely societal impacts
November 2
Eugene Wahl
Ethical considerations in the development and use
of flood forecasts
November 9
Jean Cardinale
Microbial Ecology: challenges and advances in microbial
community analysis
November 16
Emma Grigg
Studying marine mammals in San Francisco Bay, CA:
factors shaping habitat use and driving population trends
in harbor seals (Phoca vitulina) in a highly-disturbed
estuary
November 23
NO SEMINAR -- THANKSGIVING
November 30
Russell Patterson
(AU '99)
Environmental management on military installations
using Geographic Information Systems (GIS)
Information about the Speakers
Barbara A. Dumke
The Rev. Dr. Barbara A. Dumke completed her doctoral dissertation in June 2007 on Coming Home—to
Earth. In her program she studied with Matthew Fox, Brian Swimme, and several other scientists as she
developed a unique methodology that brings together science and spirituality. She first presented this approach
at Iona Abbey, an important center for spirituality in Europe, off the western coast of Scotland. She and her
husband, the Rev. Dr. Eugene Wahl, were the first non-Europeans invited to teach in the week-long, intensive
seminar series at the abbey. She continues to teach at western New York area churches, and has taught as
adjunct faculty at more than a dozen colleges, including the University of Wisconsin in Madison and Oshkosh.
She has published articles and chapters in two books and is preparing her dissertation for publication. She also
holds three master's degrees, in the fields of urban planning, divinity, and theology.
Katherine Link (formerly Katherine Kohel)
Dr. Link received her M.S. in Zoology from Texas A&M University (1994) and her Ph.D. in Zoology
from the University of Manitoba (2004). She is a comparative animal physiologist who has conducted research
on thyroid function and thyroid hormone metabolism in fish and reptiles. She teaches courses in comparative
animal physiology, animal behavior, human physiology, endocrinology, nutrition, and research methods. At
Alfred, her research focuses on the regulation of thyroid hormones in ectotherms. She has established a leopard
gecko colony and an iguana colony for student research and my research.
Laura Blake
Laura Blake is Senior Scientist with The Cadmus Group (in their Boston office), where she works on
the development of water quality management plans (also known as total maximum daily loads or TMDLs) for
impaired waterbodies. Ms. Blake’s work is conducted primarily for the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency
and numerous State Environmental Agencies.
In addition to developing TMDLs for impaired waters, Ms. Blake also supports the EPA with other
aspects of Clean Water Act implementation, including water quality standards development, urban stormwater
management, and identification of best management practices for controlling nonpoint sources of pollution.
In March 2005, Ms. Blake participated in a congressional briefing with the U.S. Geological Survey
(USGS), titled Moving from Monitoring to Prediction: The Quality of the Nation’s Streams. Ms. Blake talked
about the role of models in water quality management and highlighted her project involving the use of
watershed model to investigate nitrogen loading to Long Island Sound from the Connecticut River Watershed.
Ms. Blake received her master’s degree in Environmental Management with a focus on water resources
from Duke University’s School of the Environment. Prior to that, Ms. Blake attended Alfred University, where
she earned a Bachelor of Arts in Environmental Science and Geology.
Matt Neatrour
Dr. Neatrour is generally interested on how the biological components of ecosystems respond to
anthropogenic disturbances. To do this, he examines functional responses in forests and streams, which can
range from soil respiration and decomposition in forests to nitrogen retention in streams. In effect, he studies
what organisms do rather than who they are. Currently, he is investigating how acid-induced calcium loss from
Adirondack soils is affecting functional responses in forest and stream ecosystems.
Dr. Neatrour is a postdoctoral research associate at Colgate University funded by the NSF-RUI crossdisciplinary research program with PIs Michele Hluchy, Rich April, Randy Fuller, and Tim McCay. He has
been at Colgate for two years. He received both his PhD (2005) and Master’s degree (1999) from Virginia
Tech. For his PhD, he worked in swamps in south Georgia (during summer mostly!) and examined whether
plant responses to localized nutrient-rich patches was related to ecosystem-level attributes (e.g. flooding,
fertility). For his Master’s, he investigated whether a floodplain served as a sink or source of organic matter (i.e.
energy) for a southern Appalachian river. He received his Bachelor’s degree in biology from Bucknell
University in 1999, where he examined how aquatic insect communities responded to attempts to reduce acid
mine drainage (calcium carbonate).
Virginia Rasmussen
Dr. Rasmussen is a resident of the Village of Alfred, and teaches Environmental Studies at AU as an
adjunct professor. She is associated with the Program on Corporations, Law and Democracy (POCLAD), a
"group of people contesting the authority of corporations to govern."
Adam Burnett
Adam Burnett received his doctorate in geography from Michigan State University in 1990 and has
been teaching at Colgate University since this time. His research specialties include middle latitude climate, jet
stream variability, Antarctic Peninsula climate change, and Great Lake-effect snow. Much of this work focuses
on climate change as shown within the modern record of meteorological data, as well as the use of lake
sediments and tree rings to understand climate change over longer periods. Results of this research have
appeared in several professional journals, including Journal of Climate, Geophysical Research Letters, Climate
Dynamics, and Physical Geography. Professor Burnett's most recent lake-effect research, which addresses the
question of why lake-effect snow is increasing, is funded by the National Science Foundation.
Michael Mann
Dr. Michael E. Mann is an associate professor in the Departments of Meteorology and Geosciences, and
Director of the Earth System Science Center (ESSC) at Penn State University. He received his undergraduate
degrees in Physics and Applied Math from the University of California at Berkeley, an M.S. degree in Physics
from Yale University, and a Ph.D. in Geology & Geophysics from Yale University. Current areas of research
include model/data comparisons aimed at understanding the long-term behavior of the climate.
Dr. Mann was a Lead Author of the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC) Third
Scientific Assessment Report, and has served as chair for the National Academy of Sciences 'Frontiers of
Science'. He has received the outstanding publication award from NOAA, and in 2002 was selected as one of
the 50 leading visionaries in science and technology by Scientific American. He is author of more than 100 peerreviewed and edited publications. He was also a co-founder of the website “RealClimate.org”.
Eugene Wahl
The Rev. Dr. Eugene Wahl is Assistant Professor in the Division of Environmental Studies and Geology
at Alfred University, New York, where he teaches a range of survey, methods, and research courses. He also
teaches in his specialty areas of climate change, environmental economics, and environmental
philosophy/ethics. Dr. Wahl is Adjunct Graduate Professor of environmental ethics at St. Mary-of-the-Woods
College, Indiana. His professional experience in environmental science and economics spans over 20 years.
Dr. Wahl has a doctorate in Paleoecology, Paleoclimatology, and Conservation Biology from the University of
Minnesota, a master of Divinity from the Graduate Theological Union, Berkeley, CA, and a masters in
Economics from San Diego State University.
Dr. Wahl's research is focused in paleoclimatology and paleoecology. He has authored primary "paleoreconstruction" articles, papers establishing methodological advances, and comment articles concerning
technical and policy issues in paleoclimate reconstruction. His work on past-millennium reconstruction of
Northern Hemisphere temperatures is cited in national and international scientific summary documents
("Surface Temperature Reconstructions for the Last 2,000 Years", the National Academy of Science, 2006, and
the Fourth Assessment of the United Nations Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change, 2007), and Dr. Wahl
has briefed House and Senate staff members in this area.
Jean Cardinale
Jean A. Cardinale is an Associate Professor of Biology and Biomedical Materials and Engineering
Science at Alfred University (AU), where she teaches a range of courses mostly focused on ‘the small’:
microbiology, molecular cell biology, biochemistry, immunology and others. Currently her research focuses on
three related areas: microbial community analysis of oat rhizospheres, microbial community analysis of acid
mine drainage impacted streams, and development of a novel microarray system for bacterial contaminant
analysis.
Emma Grigg
Ms. Grigg is currently a PhD candidate at UC Davis, and a member of the Biotelemetry Laboratory
directed by Dr. Pete Klimley. Her dissertation topic is habitat use by a large marine predator in an environment
subject to high levels of anthropogenic disturbance. Her primary research interest is the use of GIS to analyze
factors influencing movement, behavior, and habitat selection in marine mammals. Prior to starting her PhD,
she worked for 8 years on a California Dept. of Transportation project, monitoring potential impacts on seals
due to the seismic retrofit of a major San Francisco Bay commuter bridge. She has a Masters degree in animal
behavior and physiology from San Francisco State University; the subject of her thesis research was bottlenose
dolphin habitat use off the coast of Belize, Central America.
Russell Patterson
A 1999 Graduate of Alfred University, Mr. Patterson went on to work for the Southern Tier West
Regional Planning and Development Board before attending SUNY Albany to obtain a Masters Certificate in
Geographic Information Systems. In 2001, Russell was hired by Zapata Engineering and moved to Charleston,
SC to serve as the GIS Coordinator for the 17,000 Acre Naval Weapons Station located in Goose Creek, SC.
Here he began to apply his education to build an enterprise GIS system to manage geographic data for all of the
departments on the installation. In April of this year, he became the Contract GeoBase Coordinator for
Charleston Air Force Base, a 4,000 acre joint-use facility. Russell was recently honored by having one of his
maps (from a research project conducted while a student at Alfred) illustrated in a book by Dr. Sinton on
teaching GIS across the liberal arts curriculum.