Alumni News and Information

Dr. M. Lee Allison (UMass PhD’86) presented a talk entitled “Intelligent Design and the Assault on Science and Religion” on Friday, October 2. Dr. Allison, currently State Geologist of Arizona, was Policy Advisor for Science and Energy to Gov. Kathleen Sebelius of Kansas in 2005 when the Kansas State Board of Education put Darwin on trial as the culminating event in a six-year long battle to impose the teaching of certain religious beliefs, including Intelligent Design, in primary and secondary science classes. Dr. Allison worked together with others in the state and nation to help assure that science classes covered scientific topics and did not include supernatural explanations of natural phenomena. The circumstances surrounding this case focused national attention of the teaching of Evolution, Creationism and Intelligent Design. Dr. Allison discussed the nature of the controversy and provided commentary on this important topic. After the talk Dr. Allison received the Department of Geosciences Distinguished Alumni Award.

 

Art Goldstein (PhD '80) and Mike Williams

Geosciences take Portland by storm!  Late in March faculty, grad students and undergrads ventured north to Portland, Maine for the annual meeting of the Geological Society of America, Northeast section.  The meeting, organized by UMass grad Art Goldstein (PhD, ’80), now Dean of Arts & Sciences at the University of New England, attracted over 1100 geoscientists from northeastern US and Canada.  Papers and posters were presented by UMass faculty (Laurie Brown, Chris Condit, Sheila Seaman and Mike Williams), grad students (Jason Kaiser, Chris Koteas, and Paul Low) and undergrads (Mariel Schottenfeld and Tim Sime).  In addition a large number of UMass alums were evident, giving papers and posters, running sessions, and chairing committees.  Over a dozen current undergrads attended, getting their first taste of a professional meeting and helping out as volunteers – doing registration, answering questions, uploading and trouble shooting power points, and generally helping to keep the meeting running smoothly.  A highlight of the meeting was a special session honoring Joe Hartshorn, “Modern Glacial Processes and the Glacial Sedimentary Record”, organized by alums Mike Retelle and Tom Weddle

• Brian Conz has completed his Ph.D and is now an assistant professor in the Department of Geography and Regional Planning at Westfield State College in Westfield, Massachusetts.  Conz's dissertation, "Re-territorializing the Maya Commons: Conservation Complexities in Highland Guatelmala," is a cultural and political ecology-informed analysis of the past and present environmental change and conservation in a region with dynamic state territoriality and community identity and autonomy relationships and where forest commons recently have been declared a protected area.  The dissertation is based on multiple rounds of collaborative ethnographic fieldwork with K'iche' Maya in villages and communal forests and grazing lands in the Totonicapan region of the Sierra Madre in highland Guatemala.  Conz's research was supported in part by a prestigious Fulbright-Hays Doctoral Dissertation Abroad Fellowship.  He will continue to contribute to UMASS geography as an adjunct faculty member.  Brian and wife Siobhan also recently celebrated the birth of their son Desmond.

• Cultural geographer George Roberson (UMass Geosciences PhD 2006) has been named a Fulbright Scholar by the Council for International Exchange of Scholars (CIES). CIES offers academics from the USA granting opportunities in 150 countries and awards approximately 160 research grants annually.

Roberson’s ten month “traditional” Fulbright research grant will support his ongoing cross-cultural inquiry in Tangier, Morocco.  Roberson recently launched the project with a paper titled “Visualizing Tangier” at the Annual Tangier International Conference, Dr. Khalid Amine, Director and again at a one day symposium at Abdelmalek Essaâdi University, Tetouan, Morocco.

To express interest and/or to read more about the project, click here. [posted 6/26/07]

George Roberson (left) with friend and dissertation adviser Dick Wilkie.

• A geologist and environmental consultant is being remembered for his many antics, the muffins he baked and the lasting impacts of his tireless civic involvement. Barry Sturtevant Timson earned his master’s from the Geosciences Department at UMass Amherst in 1972 under the guidance of Don Wise. He launched his career with the Maine Geological Survey and settled in Hallowell. The Kennebec Journal’s obituary remembered his commitment to rebuilding Water Street after the 1987 flood when others proposed destroying the damaged structures. “Barry held steadfast, and stood thigh deep in water, orchestrating operations as if he were directing the Boston Pops.”  Timson died April 15 in Augusta, Maine. Read the Bowdoin Magazine obituary. [posted 4/27/07]

• Art Goldstein (who worked under the guidance of Don Wise at UMass Amherst) was recently appointed permanent head of the Earth Sciences Division (EAR) at the National Sciences Foundation. Art came to NSF from his position as head of the Colgate University Geology Department to serve as a section chief in EAR.

• James Bradbury, who recently received his PhD in Geosciences, is working as a Congressional Fellow of the American Meterological Society. He is in Congressman Jay Inslee's (D-WA-1st district) who has a national-scale focus on Energy and Environment and is assigned to the Energy and Commerce and Resources Committees. Read more about the program.

.• Mark Serreze was recently highly visible in news reports about the loss of Arctic ice cover. Mark told BBC News, "September 2005 will set a new record minimum in the amount of Arctic sea ice cover. It's the least sea ice we've seen in the satellite record, and continues a pattern of extreme low extents of sea ice which we've now seen>for the last four years." Mark is a Research Associate at the National Snow and Ice Data Center in >Boulder, Colorado. This Fall Cambridge University Press will publish a book by Mark & Roger Barry, on "The Arctic Climate System"

• Lee Allison (Ph.D. 1986 with Don Wise) has been appointed policy advisor for science and energy to the governor of Kansas and the Kansas Energy Council. Less has been chair of the Kansas Energy Council and Director of the Kansas Geological Survey since 1999. Read more.

• Chris Hamilton (‘92) Featured in UMass Magazine Marine science instructor for Long Island University’s SEAmester program

• Bran Potter named Tennesee’s Carnegie Foundation Professor of the Year

Photos from the 2003 GSA reception
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