All posts by: Sarah Hansen, M.S. '15

Physicists Deffner and Ibrahim explain winter’s extra helping of static electricity

Winter has arrived in the northern hemisphere, and along with it an extra dose of static electricity. But do most people know how static electricity works? Why is it more prevalent in the winter months, and how can people prevent those nasty shocks?

Sebastian Deffner, assistant professor of physics, and Muhammed Ibrahim, a research collaborator in his lab, demystify static electricity in a new piece in The Conversation, republished on Phys.org and by newspapers across the United States.

“Static electricity comes down to the interactive force between electrical charges,” Deffner and Ibrahim write. Electrons coat every surface, but some surfaces hold onto those electrons more tightly than others. When two materials with different abilities to retain electrons come close together, “electrons can be ripped out of the ‘weaker’ materials and find themselves on the material with stronger binding force.” The zap we feel is the electrons moving from one surface to the other.

Drier air is the culprit for increased static in the winter. Moisture in the air allows electrons to flow more freely and return to their original surface without shocking anyone. But when the air is dry, “electrons get trapped on the surface with the stronger binding force,” Deffner and Ibrahim explain.

static zap

“They can’t find their way to flow back to the surface where they came from,” they write, “and they can’t make the distribution of charges uniform again.” Until, that is, the object that has strongly attracted the electrons, like your finger, come close to an object that hasn’t collected as many electrons, like a doorknob or your cat. Then the electrons flow quickly onto the uncharged object, creating the classic static electricity “zap.”

There are ways to avoid the pain, though. Deffner and Ibrahim recommend dryer sheets to take static down a notch on clothing. They also suggest running a humidifier to boost the amount of moisture in the air in a home or office.

The first known recorded observation of static electricity is from the sixth century B.C., and in the 18th century people mostly took advantage of static for parlor tricks. Today, Deffner and Ibrahim write, static electricity is put to use in everything from office copiers and smartphones to cutting-edge nanotechnology.

Learn more from “Static electricity’s tiny sparks.”

Banner: A boy’s hair gets charged with static electricity as he rides a playground slide; Ken Bosma, CC BY.

UMBC economist comments on the impact the new administration’s policies could have on job growth

As the calendar turns to 2017, many Americans will be looking for a fresh start in finding a new or better job. With that in mind, analysts at WalletHub conducted a study to determine the best job markets in the U.S. and they consulted a panel of experts for context of what job growth will look like in the new year.

Christine Yee, an assistant professor of economics, spoke with WalletHub and addressed a number of issues including her prediction for the job market in 2017, the impact the new administration’s policies will have on job growth, the fields that are expected to grow most in the coming decades, the biggest challenges facing job seekers today, and the most common mistakes job seekers make when seeking employment.

Yee described how public spending contributes to slightly more than one-third of GDP. With the incoming Trump administration, she shared her thoughts on how specific sectors of the economy could perform in the new administration.

“Given the current discussion about potential policies under the new administration, spending on defense and infrastructure is expected to increase, which would increase the number of jobs in those sectors. However, the growth in healthcare spending is expected to slow down, which would in turn reduce the number of additional jobs in that sector,” she argued.

Looking at the future of the American economy, Yee predicted that healthcare, energy, artificial intelligence, and transportation will be the fields that grow the most in the coming decades.

As many people in the workforce look for new jobs during the new year, Yee offered advice for job seekers in a competitive economy.

“We all need to have the right skill set to be competitive in a global and changing economy, and we need to adapt to new technology and workflows,” she said. “Employees and employers alike need to understand how they can bring value to their customers.”

Read the full article “2017’s Best and Worst Cities for Jobs” on the WalletHub website.

Professor Yee has research interests in health economics, public policy, applied econometrics, and labor economics. Read more about her work on the economics department website.

Image: Christine Yee speaks during a Dresher Center “CAHSS Micro Talks” event at UMBC. Photo by Marlayna Demond ’11 for UMBC. 

Thomas Schaller discusses origins of the Electoral College on WEAA

Note: This article was updated January 27, 2017. 

Donald Trump will be sworn in as the next president of the United States on January 20 after losing the popular vote but winning the Electoral College. Thomas Schaller, professor and chair of political science, recently joined WEAA’s The Marc Steiner Show to discuss the origins of the Electoral College, what it means for the U.S. democracy, and how the election results reflect the U.S. population today.  

“The Founding Fathers, I think in one of the most ironic twists of the Electoral College…really didn’t think it would necessarily be the…final selection mechanism,” Schaller said on the program. “In a way, they envisioned the Electoral College often working like the nomination processes do now.”

He suggested the founders’ intent was to use the Electoral College as a process for winnowing down the field to a few top contenders, with presidential elections ultimately being sent to the House of Representatives for a vote if none of these more regional candidates claimed a majority.

Schaller also discussed how the Electoral College result in the 2016 presidential election reflects the high degree of partisanship in contemporary American politics. He noted that President Obama carried 44 of the 50 largest counties in 2012, and Hillary Clinton carried 30 of the 35 largest cities, while Donald Trump received, in many cases, 80 percent or higher of the popular vote in white, rural counties.

“We have a situation where all this talk of red America and blue America… We don’t talk to each other,” said Schaller. He suggested, “there is a certain truth to that as we have one America concentrated in the cities and inner suburbs, and we have another America that lives physically far from those areas and maybe psychologically farther from those areas.”

Schaller is an expert in American politics and American political institutions and author of The Stronghold: How Republicans Captured Congress but Surrendered the White House (Yale University Press, 2015) and Whistling Past Dixie: How Democrats can Win without the South (Simon and Schuster, 2006). He was joined on the show by David Dayen, contributor to The Nation and the author of Chain of Title: How Three Ordinary Americans Uncovered Wall Street’s Great Foreclosure Fraud.

Listen to the full segment, “Electoral College roundup.”

Update: Ian Anson, an assistant professor of political science, and Nick Miller, professor emeritus of political science, appeared on Maryland Public Television’s “Direct Connection” program to discuss the Electoral College and if there’s any possibility of the system changing in the future. Watch the full segment in the video below. 

Image: Thomas Schaller speaks during the 2016 Post-Election Forum at UMBC. Photo by Marlayna Demond ’11 for UMBC. 

Ellen Handler Spitz grapples with Stéphane Mallarmé’s greatest work in New Republic

Many scholars over the years have attempted to understand the true meaning of French Symbolist poet Stéphane Mallarmé’s “Un Coup De Des Jamais N’abolira Le Hasard” (One Toss of the Dice Will Never Abolish Chance), which is widely considered to be his best and most influential work.

In a recent article in New Republic, Honors College Professor Ellen Handler Spitz, responding to a new book by Yale professor R. Howard Bloch, explains how the poem was largely influenced by Mallarmé’s own life story. She writes that tragic deaths in his family over the course of his life could have played a significant role in his thinking behind the poem, written a year before his death in 1898.

“To read Mallarmé’s poetry against a backdrop of repeated unpreventable tragic human loss is to attune oneself to its elegiac aspects. Knowing this, we can better understand how, in ‘Un Coup de Dés,’ the empty space never feels empty,” Spitz explains.

Throughout the article, Spitz writes that Mallarmé grappled frequently with the world and with the grief around him by putting his feelings into words and trying to understand what was being represented.

Spitz, who is the author of six books on the arts and psychology, writes: “An overlooked gift of the poem may be its unwitting revelation that Modernism itself is haunted by loss, that is, by a rejection of traditional ways of containing emotion, however inadequate. Another may be that psychology, proffering lenses of value, deserves not to be, in literary discussions, forsworn.”

Read “The Poem that Foretold Modernism” in New Republic.  

Image: ‘Portrait of Stéphane Mallarmé’ by Édouard Manet, 1876 / Wikimedia Commons. 

Amy Froide examines the role of women investors in England’s financial revolution on WYPR

Note: This story was updated on January 27, 2017. 

Amy Froide, acting chair and associate professor of history, recently appeared on WYPR’s Humanities Connection to talk about her new book Silent Partners: Women as Public Investors during Britain’s Financial Revolution, 1690-1750 (Oxford University Press, 2016).

The book examines the role of women investors in England’s financial revolution and explains how many women played a critical role in Britain’s rise to economic, military, and colonial dominance in the 18th century.

Silent Partners Amy FroideIn her audio essay for Humanities Connection, Froide explained that women of all ranks were early-adopters of the stock market in the 17th and 18th centuries by investing in stocks and shares for their families and British government-run state lotteries.

“Female investors exercised various types of financial agency. They actively managed portfolios of stocks they inherited, instead of passively collecting dividends; they served as financial agents or brokers, and they engaged in legal and political business with companies,” Froide explained.

Froide referenced examples such as Sarah Churchill, the Duchess of Marlborough, whose investments had an impact on Britain’s interest rates, and the noblewoman Eleanor Curzon, who sued the South Sea Company and won.

“Collectively, female investors enabled Britain’s rise to a military, economic, and colonial power in the 1700s, and women’s capital was a critical component of British imperialism. These ‘financial patriots’ are now brought to life and are silent partners no more,” she added.

Froide’s areas
 of expertise include social, economic, social, women’s, and gender history. Her other books include Never Married: Singlewomen in Early Modern England
 (Oxford University Press, 2005) and Singlewomen in the European Past, 1250-1800 (University of 
Pennsylvania Press, 1999), co-edited with Judith M.
Bennett. She has served as the book review editor for the Journal of British Studies, President of the Mid-Atlantic Conference on British Studies, and 
the founding Director of UMBC’s Entrepreneurship & Innovation Minor. Read more about her work on the history department website.

Froide’s book Silent Partners was published on December 13. Listen to the full Humanities Connection segment on the Maryland Humanities website.

Update: Times Higher Education published a review of Froide’s book on January 26, 2017. Victoria Bateman, the reviewer, wrote: “Froide adds to an important burgeoning literature that suggests that, far from being passive responders to capitalism, blown in the wind by its rough nature, women were actively involved. Whatever you think about capitalism, this new understanding of the past demands a reassessment of the way we think about the interactions between capitalism and gender. Coming back to earth, it also offers some of those all-important role models for our daughters today.”

Read the full review “Silent Partners: Women as Public Investors during Britain’s Financial Revolution, 1690-1750” on the Times Higher Education website.

Header image: Amy Froide in her office.  

Robert Provine joins WBUR’s Here and Now to explain the science of laughter

Robert Provine, psychology research professor and professor emeritus, recently joined WBUR Radio’s Here and Now to explain why people laugh, a human behavior that is largely misunderstood and is something that people do involuntarily.

During the program, Provine, a neuroscientist and author of Curious Behavior: Yawning, Laughing, Hiccupping, and Beyond, explained that laughter is not something that can be done simply on command, similar to crying.

“When we explain why we laugh, we’re assuming this voluntary control, and it’s not there. Another surprise is that laughter is presumed to be somehow related to humor, and yet only 10, 15 percent of comments preceding laughter are anything that’s remotely joke-like.”

Robert Provine

Provine went on to explain the causes of laughter, which often come from sources that may be a surprise to many people.

“The source of laughter are other people, not jokes. For example, most laughter follows comments like, ‘Hey, where have you been!’ It’s not someone telling a joke. This is a conclusion that’s easy to test — the next time you’re around friends and there’s a lot of laughter, people are not telling jokes at a furious rate, they’re just laughing. Also, the presumption that laughter’s the decision to speak ‘ha ha’ can be easily disproven by asking someone to laugh.”

Provine studies the development and evolution of the nervous system and behavior, including human social behavior. His books are frequently cited in the media, and his research and writing have received significant national and international media coverage in outlets like NPR’s Morning Edition and All Things Considered, Radio Lab, CBS 20/20, CBS Sunday Morning, Scientific American Frontiers, ABC World News Tonight, Good Morning America, The New York Times, Time, Discover, Scientific American, Nature, New Scientist, and The Times (London). 

Listen to the full segment “One neuroscientist explains the science of laughter” on WBUR.

Header image: UMBC students on campus. Photo by Marlayna Demond ’11 for UMBC. 

UMBC grad students talk STEM teaching, mentorship, and collaboration in South Korea

A UMBC delegation of Ph.D. students and their mentors traveled to Seoul, South Korea in early November to discuss with international colleagues how engineering and engineering education can improve lives at the 2016 Global Student Forum (GSF) and World Engineering Education Forum (WEEF).

The GSF theme of “global partnership for development” included four tracks that aligned with United Nations’ Millennium Development Goals and the National Academy of Engineering’s Grand Challenges. Students from around the world collaborated to tackle assigned tasks on those tracks. Gloria Opoku-Boateng, Ph.D. student in information systems, worked with her team to create a community empowerment program to reduce extreme poverty and hunger. The project, dubbed “iHelp,” won its category at the GSF.

For Saadi Habib, Ph.D. student in mechanical engineering, speaking with students from more than 15 countries through the project-based GSF program was eye-opening. “I realized what I see as a problem and a solution in the U.S. is not necessarily true in other countries or even in the entire U.S,” he shared, noting that challenges that appear purely technical can have multiple, context-dependent solutions.

The GSF program is connected to the international Student Platform for Engineering Education Development (SPEED) and was designed to complement the larger WEEF gathering, which took place just afterward and focused on “Engineering Education for Smart Society.” There, UMBC participants gave research presentations and joined in panels focused on pedagogy and mentoring.

Habib and Hector Medina, Ph.D. student in mechanical engineering and Meyerhoff Graduate Fellow, presented on how to develop a successful engineering laboratory course. Renetta Tull, associate vice provost for graduate student development and postdoctoral affairs, spoke on inclusive engineering.

Opoku-Boateng delivered a research talk on her research in engineering artificial intelligence in consumer apps for personalized pain prediction and management. She reflected, “Presenting here helped me understand that clearly presenting solutions to engineering problems is as important as finding those solutions.” She also seized the opportunity to receive and offer mentoring, sharing her experience with navigating the transition from undergraduate to graduate education.

Unable to attend the event, but present in the minds of his colleagues, was Adegboyega Akinsiku, Ph.D. student in human-centered computing, who was scheduled to speak about project-based learning. Shortly before the conference, Akinsiku discussed the importance of mentoring at the White House Conference on Inclusive STEM Education for Youth of Color. His mother, who proudly attended the White House talk, passed away shortly before the Korea trip.

Akinsiku’s experience at the White House, and Opoku-Boateng, Habib, and Medina’s time in Korea, left them with a strong sense of mission. Getting a clearer sense of the range of challenges and possible solutions out in the world, “I start to think with a broader perspective of designing, building, engineering, and developing technology for social good,” says Opoku-Boateng. “That is what truly makes a mark.”

The South Korea trip was the fourth in a series of experiences organized through the International Engagement and Broadening Participation in STEM project, spearheaded by Renetta Tull and sponsored by the UMBC Graduate School and some of its initiatives that are funded by the National Science Foundation. The participating UMBC students are also all part of the LSAMP Bridge to the Doctorate program and PROMISE, Maryland’s Alliance for Graduate Education and the Professoriate (AGEP). Other UMBC mentors and participants included Julia Ross, dean of the college of engineering and IT; Tim Topoleski, professor of mechanical engineering; Autumn Reed, program coordinator for faculty diversity initiatives; and Yarazeth Medina, PROMISE coordinator.

Image: From left to right, UMBC graduate students Hector Medina, Saadi Habib, and Gloria Opoku-Boateng; David Delaine, assistant professor of engineering education at the Ohio State University; a student attendee from Colombia. Photo by Hector Medina.

New Green Offices program engages UMBC community in campus sustainability efforts

Sustainability Matters at UMBC inducted 14 campus offices into the Green Offices program at the semiannual Green Office Training Luncheon and Certificate Reception, held on November 3. The Offices of the President and Provost, and a dozen others, joined 13 UMBC offices that qualified for the special designation in 2015 by committing to implement at least 20 items on a Sustainability Matters checklist. Green Offices upgrades include using task lighting, setting printers to automatically print double-sided, and lowering blinds during hot weather—small changes that, when combined, significantly decrease energy and other resource consumption.

President Freeman Hrabowski signed the American Colleges and Universities Presidents’ Climate Commitment in 2007, which committed UMBC to devising a climate action plan to achieve carbon neutrality. Since then, UMBC has been working to reduce the campus’ carbon footprint. For example, facilities management has updated heating and cooling systems and campus lighting. Other sustainable initiatives to date include a major renovation of the central Library Pond. Long regarded as a beautiful space for students to gather and relax, it is now also a state-of-the-art stormwater management system. Facilities staff have installed rain gardens and no-mow zones around campus, and green roofs now adorn four campus buildings.

Since President Hrabowski signed the climate commitment, UMBC has achieved a 15.5 percent reduction in carbon emissions, despite an 18 percent growth in campus population and seven percent increase in square footage of campus buildings. But even with such a positive trajectory, by 2013 it became clear to UMBC’s Climate Action Steering Committee that something important was missing. By then, says Tanvi Gadhia, UMBC sustainability coordinator, “We were looking for a way to more actively engage the UMBC community in green initiatives, to work together toward these shared goals.”

The Green Offices Program is one way that Gadhia helps faculty and staff cultivate “a visible culture of sustainability on campus.” She explains, “A lot of people wanted to be more sustainable, but didn’t feel empowered to take action,” so the program provides a scaffold upon which an office can build its own green efforts. Once an office joins the Green Offices program, it can receive signage, stickers, and recycling bins to support the implementation of its commitment.

The Green Office Program is one outcome of the Climate Action Steering Committee, created in 2007 concurrent with President Hrabowski signing the climate commitment. The steering committee oversees numerous sustainability efforts through work groups focused on energy, transportation, research and education, and waste reduction and recycling.

Student advocacy also plays a major role in campus conversation and action around climate change and sustainability. Each semester around a dozen undergraduates work as eco ambassadors to spread the message of sustainability across campus through peer education and outreach, and several student groups have a sustainability focus. One group collects markets’ surplus food that would otherwise be wasted and converts it into healthy, delicious meals for homeless people in Baltimore City. Another organizes a weekly campus clean-up.

“Sustainability has become a larger part of our identity and our culture at UMBC,” says Gadhia. “Sustainability is not a side project. It’s something we need to integrate into everything we do.”

A list of departments participating in the Green Office Program is available on UMBC’s Sustainability Matters website. To learn more about how to certify your office as a Green Office, or if you are interested in conducting research to quantify the effects of the program, contact sustainability@umbc.edu.

Image: UMBC’s recently-renovated Library Pond serves as a beautiful campus centerpiece, wildlife habitat, place for reflection, and state-of-the-art stormwater management system. Photo by Tanvi Gadhia.

 

 

 

 

Theo Gonzalves elected president of the Association for Asian American Studies

In a year that featured a record number of votes cast, Theo Gonzalves, an associate professor of American studies, has been elected to serve as president of the Association for Asian American Studies (AAAS).

The association was founded in 1979 to advance high standards of teaching, research, and service in the field of Asian American Studies. The national organization hosts conferences, events, special projects, and symposia each year to engage AAAS priorities. “Equally important is the degree to which the association’s various objectives – specifically as they intersect with advocating and representing the interests and welfare of Asian American Studies and Asian Americans – reflect multiple communities and varied identities,” notes the association’s website.

The AAAS president serves as the chief executive officer of the association, leads an executive board, convenes the annual meeting, and establishes operational budgets for the organization. Professor Gonzalves will serve a one-year term in 2017-2018 as president-elect, and a two-year term from 2018 to 2020 as president.

Gonzalves has research interests in Asian American studies, ethnic studies, U.S.-Philippine relations, Filipino American histories and cultures, and performance studies. He has a particular focus on the power of expressive forms.

His book-length projects include: Stage Presence: Conversations with Filipino American Artists (2007); The Day the Dancers Stayed: Performing in the Filipino/American Diaspora (2009); Carlos Villa and the Integrity of Spaces (2011); and, with Rod Labrador, Filipinos in Hawaii (2011). His work has been supported with a Fulbright award, a Meet the Composer grant, and senior fellowships at the Library of Congress and Smithsonian.

“Since 1989, the Association for Asian American Studies has been my professional home,” Gonzalves says. “I have served as a graduate student representative, Hawaii Regional representative, a member of site and program committees, and a member of the Filipino Studies caucus. I have seen up close how colleagues have worked diligently to sustain our Association. I continue to fight for our field by mentoring young scholars, helping to build an Asian American studies minor program from scratch, creating new courses, and founding UMBC’s Asian American Faculty Council.”

As president, Gonzalves says he will aim to coordinate a robust AAAS social media presence; improve external funding to support students, community activists, and conference attendance; advance opportunities for professional development for K-12 instructors; and explore international exchange opportunities in Asia and other regions.

Read more about Gonzalves’ work and research on the American studies website, and learn more about his Smithsonian fellowship to study music’s cultural impact in UMBC Magazine.

Image: Theo Gonzalves. Photo by Marlayna Demond ’11 for UMBC. 

Baltimore Stories final event focuses on listening to communities, strengthening coalitions

On December 3rd, more than 100 humanities scholars, cultural organizers, educators, and students convened at UMBC to discuss their efforts over the past year to amplify the voices of Baltimore communities and to use narrative as a tool to promote change.

“Reflecting on Baltimore Stories” was the culmination of a year-long series of public programs examining how stories of and about Baltimore influence the lives of its people. UMBC’s Dresher Center for the Humanities hosted the day-long event that considered what is changing in stories of identity in the city and what these changes mean for the future of Baltimore.

Baltimore Stories, made possible by a $225,000 grant from the National Endowment for the Humanities, connected UMBC with partners University of Maryland, College Park (UMCP); Maryland Humanities; Enoch Pratt Free Library; and the Greater Baltimore Cultural Alliance. Sheri Parks, associate dean of UMCP’s Center for Synergy, and Phoebe Stein, executive director of Maryland Humanities, led the effort.

“We so often want to think that personal stories and storytelling are about simple themes, direct connections, and easy understanding of truths,” said Jessica Berman, director of the Dresher Center for the Humanities. But frequently, she suggested, “it’s about complexity. Stories should be complex, and they often are.”

This complexity was a central theme of the Baltimore Stories concluding event, which included panels and roundtable discussions on how public universities engage with their communities, the power of media and collective memory in telling stories about Baltimore, and Baltimore Stories in the context of national discussions.

WYPR's Aaron Henkin speaks during Baltimore Stories panel.

Young people from UMBC’s CHOICE Program shared digital stories about their lives, and students from Midtown Academy in Baltimore spoke about the process of learning to write and publish their own creative work about Baltimore. Lee Boot, director of UMBC’s Imaging Research Center, presented Art of Transformation, a project that examines how Baltimoreans are telling their own stories to counteract misleading narratives about life in the city. Denise Meringolo, associate professor of history at UMBC, shared Preserve the Baltimore Uprising, which aims to ensure that the stories activists tell about their experiences are preserved for future historians.

President Hrabowski participates during Baltimore Stories panel.

Campus leaders from UMBC and UMCP approached the event as an opportunity for reflection. They discussed the genesis of Baltimore Stories and how such projects can help universities more effectively engage with their local communities. President Freeman Hrabowski‘s remarks offered a few examples from UMBC, including the BreakingGround initiative and the university’s leadership through last year’s Imagining America conference.

University collaborations with communities must start with understanding the needs and perspectives of people in those communities, President Hrabowski emphasized. “First, we must ask. Listen, and then act,” he said. “What we work to do here…is to struggle to understand what people are going through, and we often do it through stories.”

Bonnie Thornton Dill, dean of the University of Maryland College of Arts and Humanities, shared how the idea for Baltimore Stories emerged from critical conversations about more complex, nuanced, and interdisciplinary approaches to working with communities.

Bonnie Thornton Dill speaks during Baltimore Stories.

“We felt that the arts and humanities could bring a perspective and understanding of these issues that was often missing,” explained Dill. “Community engagement is not something that just happens…it’s the building of relationships over time.”

The Baltimore Stories project included 20 public events throughout the past year. During these events, local humanities scholars, cultural organizers, artists, educators and other Baltimore residents participated in dynamic discussions about building democracy, fostering social justice, and improving Baltimore’s future. Project participants are now developing a curriculum based on this work for K-12 educators nationwide.

UMBC's Bev Bickel, David Hoffman, Kathy O'Dell, and Ana Maria Schwartz Caballero participate in roundtable during Baltimore Stories.

WombWork Productions, Aaron Henkin’s Out of the Blocks, The Kids Safe Zone, New Lens, and Charm Literary Magazine are just a few of the many organizations that were involved in the Baltimore Stories project and participated at the culminating event, and partners intend to keep the collaboration and conversation going.

Artwork by Maryland Institute College of Art (MICA) students Ben Hamburger and Justin Stafford on display at Baltimore Stories.

“Now more than ever, it is crucial to consider the role of coalitions, forged across boundaries, in practicing public humanities and supporting the work of active and engaged communities,” said Berman.

For additional coverage of the “Reflecting on Baltimore Stories” event, read “‘Baltimore Stories’ event aims to discuss race, narratives effect” in The Baltimore Sun. 

Header image: Baltimore Stories concluding event, December 3, 2016. All photos by Abnet Shiferaw ’11 for UMBC.

Erle Ellis asserts value of social sciences in defining onset of human impact on Earth

Scientists agree the Anthropocene, a new geological epoch defined by humans’ effects on the Earth, is upon us, but when did it begin? The Anthropocene Working Group (AWG) of the International Commission on Stratigraphy is poised to make that call, but Erle Ellis and colleagues argue that voices from highly relevant social science disciplines have been thus far excluded from the conversation.

To date, the AWG has focused primarily on markers in the rock record from the 1950s onward that demonstrate human impact, such as plastics, but “this ignores millennia of previous human influences, from our use of fire to the emergence of agriculture,” writes Ellis, professor of geography and environmental systems at UMBC. Ellis is lead author on a comment published in Nature on December 8 that contends social sciences and humanities researchers should play a prominent role in the formalization of the Anthropocene.

Currently, only three of 37 members of the AWG are social scientists focused on long-term social change. In particular, Ellis voices a need for archaeologists to be involved in the Anthropocene formalization process. “They have always studied the physical evidence of human societal relationships with environmental change,” he says.

Most fundamentally, Ellis argues, it is essential that AWG seek to understand “why humans, and no other species in Earth’s history, have put our planet on a new trajectory,” and including the perspectives of social scientists would “change the evidence base, the scientific methods, and the time-frame within which the Anthropocene would be formalized.”

Ellis is an AWG member and had raised concerns within the group about its biases. He decided to write the Nature comment because “it became clear that more external effort was needed to…bring the social and the natural sciences together as equal partners in understanding what humans are doing to Earth.”

Ellis isn’t surprised that the AWG focuses on 20th-century evidence, which he describes as the “most clear and abundant evidence of human transformation of Earth,” but he also argues more distant and ambiguous information must be examined.  “Evidence of anthropogenic global environmental changes deeper in the past are more complex, less abundant, and must be reconstructed with tools and using evidence that are unfamiliar to the Earth sciences,” he says.

Anthropocene science is an emerging, interdisciplinary field, which will be most successful when all voices are at the table, Ellis maintains. Answering the question of when and how humans began transforming Earth might guide us, he suggests, toward “more desirable outcomes both for human societies and for non-human nature.”

The comment in Nature: Involve social scientists in defining the Anthropocene

Image: Erle Ellis speaks at a research symposium at UMBC; photo Marlayna Demond ’11 for UMBC.

Additional news coverage:
Why efforts to define the Anthropocene must be more inclusive and transparent (Future Earth)
Scientists still don’t understand the Anthropocene — and they’re going about it the wrong way (The Conversation)

 

New visibility for Herbert Run Greenway highlights importance of green space at UMBC

A small group of dedicated supporters gathered on October 21, despite steady rain, to celebrate the Herbert Run Greenway (HRG), a 1.4 mile pathway that begins at the Joseph Beuys Sculpture Park and follows the Herbert Run stream as it meanders across UMBC’s campus and through the university’s Conservation and Environmental Research Areas.

The event included a ribbon cutting and community hike to enjoy recent improvements designed to increase the HRG’s visibility and to make it a recreation destination on campus. These updates include new directional signs labeling the route and trail map brochures, as well as an expanded website.

Patricia LaNoue, director emerita of interdisciplinary studies, advised the group of students who designed the Herbert Run Greenway in 1995, and she has stewarded it ever since. The greenway opened in 1996, but has been a hidden gem for much of that time, unknown to many in the campus community. LaNoue and a core group of students are dedicated to changing that.

HRG ribbon cutting

Sarah Burton ‘16, environmental studies, and Ethan Griffin ’18, interdisciplinary studies, have been working to increase visibility of the HRG under LaNoue’s steadfast guidance and motivated by her passion for the project. Burton shares, “There are green spaces on campus. I want to encourage students to take advantage of our green resources.”

Griffin hopes the entire campus community will utilize the HRG for a variety of purposes, including both recreation and research in areas from geography and environmental systems to urban design to life sciences. “We want faculty, staff, and students to use it, and we also want them to seek to understand it in the context of their disciplines,” he says.

Griffin and UMBC Eco Ambassadors now provide trail tours each spring at UMBC EcoFest and on a rolling basis throughout the year, and there is interest in expanding this public engagement. “Every year we hope to involve more students, staff and faculty in leading tours as part of orientation for incoming students and new faculty and staff,” says LaNoue.

Burton_HRG

The HRG runs alongside UMBC’s new events center, currently under construction, and the building’s footprint carefully avoids several historic trees that have been in place since before the American Revolution. That project has provided some funding for trail updates, to mitigate any impact of construction on the greenway. Looking ahead, the HRG team plans to create an advisory council to preserve the greenway as UMBC continues to grow, and to facilitate maintenance.

LaNoue sees the greenway as an essential complement to classroom experience at UMBC, connecting students to the campus, themselves, and each other in unique ways. “It provides a way to see elements of nature on campus and find a place for reflection and repose,” says LaNoue, who notes that students who traverse the greenway “discuss ethics and religion, policy and land use, ecology and athletics,” while also taking in the sound of the stream and the tracks of local wildlife.

Just as she enjoys helping UMBC students find their place in the world, LaNoue also treasures seeing them “find their place along the trail.”

Image: Sarah Burton ’16 (right) gives regular tours of the Herbert Run Greenway. All tours include a stop at Pig Pen Pond, shown here. Photo by Tanvi Gadhia, UMBC sustainability coordinator.

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