CSIS News

News:

Vanessa Hull's panda collaring project was featured at NSF Web News.

WWJ TV's "Building Bridges" program and Video show #3 segment 4 features pandas, Wolong and some of our work in Wolong and our associate Wei Liu are featured in the program.

Dr. Nils Peterson had his paper "Property rights and landscape planning in the intermountain west: The Teton Valley case" published in Landscape and Urban Planning.

A media report about Nils Peterson's paper entitled "Household Location Choices: Implications for Biodiversity Conservation" in Conservation Biology (in press), was featured in Science News.

CSIS is delighted to host Dr. Peter Raven, a world-renowned environmental scientist and botanist. Dr. Raven is visiting MSU from April 30 to May 3 to receive an Honorary Degree of Science, to deliver the keynote speech at the Advanced Degree Commencement Ceremony, to give a Rachel Carson Distinguished Lecture, and to meet faculty, students and administrators at MSU. More information about Dr. Raven is available here.

"Coupling Humans and Complex Ecological Landscapes" is the theme of the 2009 annual conference of US-IALE (US Regional Association, International Association for Landscape Ecology). The conference will be held in Snowbird, Utah, from April 12-16, 2009. More information about the conference can be found here. Background papers about the conference theme can be found at the following links -
CHANS_Science and CHANS_Ambio.

Neil Carter has received an International Pre-dissertation Travel Award ($3000) from International Studies and Programs. He will use the award to study tigers in a coupled human and natural system in Nepal.

Wei Liu has been selected to be a FAST (Future Academic Scholars in Teaching) Fellow by MSU's Graduate School.

Jack Liu has begun his 2-year presidency of US-IALE (US Regional Association, International Association of Landscape Ecology) since April 8 at the annual conference in Madison,WI.

The symposium "Sources, Sinks, and Sustainability" at the 2008 annual US-IALE conference was a great success. It was organized by Jack Liu, Vanessa Hull, Anita Morzillo (Postdoctoral fellow at USEPA), and John Wiens (lead scientist at The Nature Conservancy). A book is being planned for Cambridge University Press.

Dr. Nico Keilman presented a special seminar on “Household changes in industrialized countries: Impirical trends and modelling issues” on Monday, April 14th, 2008.

Dr. Ruth DeFries presented the Rachel Carson Distinguished Lecture on Changing Dynamics of Tropical Deforestation and Atmospheric Carbon Emissions on Tuesday, March 18, 2008. Presentation materials are available here.

Jack Liu is quoted in an article published in Scientific America.
The article is entitled "China's Three Gorges Dam".

Mao-Ning Tuanmu won "Honorable Mention" for the best presentation in the recent symposium of the Department of Fisheries and Wildlife.

Biologial Conservation published a new article in the February 2008 issue.

Dr. Patricia Wright will be presenting “Climate Change in the Tropics: News from the Rainforests of Madagascar” Wednesday March 12 at 3:30pm in 247 Plant Biology .

Wei Liu has received a Bill Burtness Fellowship from the Rocky Mountain Goats Foundation.

Conservation Biology published a new paper Human Impacts on Regional Avian Diversity and Abundance .

Dr. James Millington was published in the Jan. 30, 2008 issue of Landscape Ecology.

Science published the article "Revolutionizing China's Environmental Protection" in the Jan. 4, 2008 issue.

AMBIO published the article "Coupled Human and Natural Systems" in the December 2007 issue.

Vanessa Hull's work with tracking giant pandas has been highlighted by the NSF. Vanessa's quest is being documented by MSU's University Relations and can be followed here.

PNAS published "Environmental Impacts of Divorce".
For A PDF copy of the Article click here. For comments, press releases and news reports click here.

Dr. William C. Clark presented the Rachel Carson Distinguished Lecture on Thursday, December 6, 2007 here at MSU on the topic of Sustainability Science. Materials on the lecture can be found here.

Dr. Zai Liang presented a seminar titled "Migration Networks and Migration Processes: The Case of China" at the Center for Systems Integration and Sustainability on November 29, 2007.

Science published "Complexity of Coupled Human and Natural Systems"
(1) for an online copy of the article at the Science Magazine website, see http://www.sciencemag.org/cgi/content/full/317/5844/1513
(2) for a PDF copy of the document click here.
(3) for a press release, see
http://newsroom.msu.edu/site/indexer/3174/content.htm.

The International Union of Forest Research Organizations (IUFRO) will be holding a conference on Landscape Ecology and Forest Management - Challenges and Solutions in Chengdu, Sichuan, PR China from Sept. 16-18, 2008. For more information please see the conference advertisement.

Dr. Bill Taylor was named University Distinguished Professor.

Dr. James Millington has joined CSIS as a Research Associate after completing his PhD in LUCC/Ecological Modelling at King’s College London.

Megan Matonis comes to CSIS and the Forestry Department after earning her bachelor’s degree at Colorado State University and will continue her education by pursuing her Master’s degree. Megan has also been awarded an Academic Achievement Graduate Assistantship through the College of Agriculture and Natural Resources for Fall of 2007 and Spring of 2008.

Nils Peterson will complete his PhD in August and has accepted a position as Assistant Professor at North Carolina State University.

Nancy Leonard returned from the Study Abroad Course “An Island Apart: Cultural and Natural Resources of Madagascar”, that she co-taught. Students learned the natural history of endemic species as well as the challenges of balancing the needs of fisheries and wildlife with the needs of Malagasies. Students had a hands-on experience; observing species in their natural habitats; and meeting with villagers, representatives of non-government organizations, researchers, and naturalists working in the national forests and reserves.

Nils Peterson recently had a paper published in The Journal of Wildlife Management.

Jianguo (Jack) Liu has been elected as the President-elect of the
US-IALE (US Regional Association, International Association for Landscape Ecology) (www.usiale.org). He will serve
US-IALE as the president from 2008-2010.

Nick Reo has received a 3-year Ford Foundation Fellowship.

Former Ph.D. student Christopher Lepczyk has accepted an offer to become a tenure-track assistant professor at the University of Hawaii at Manoa starting in August.

Neil Carter will join CSIS as a Ph.D. student with a University Distinguished Fellowship in August after finishing his Master's degree at the University of Michigan in Ann Arbor.

Jianguo (Jack) Liu has been awarded the 2007 Ralph H. Smuckler Award for Advancing International Studies and Programs at MSU. This is the University's most prestigious award related to internationalization. More information can be found at the MSU Newsroom.

The Center has recently moved to the newly renovated space in the Manly Miles Building. An Open House is scheduled for March 27, noon-2:00 pm, in 115 Manly Miles Building, 1405 South Harrison Road, East Lansing.

Merritt Turetsky has been chosen to serve on the editorial board for the journal Ecosystems. (Jack Liu’s 2nd term on the editorial board is ending this year.)

Vanessa Hull has been selected to receive a Rocky Mountain Goat Foundation Bill Burtness Award.

Jack Liu was invited to write an opinion piece for PBS on China’s environmental future.

Panda research is featured on Discovery Channel. It is an online accompaniment to the Planet Earth TV series that will air on Discovery Channel beginning on Mar 27. There are animal profiles for the following episodes: Shallow Seas, Deserts, Jungles, Forests, and Mountains. Our panda research is highlighted under Mountains. You can go directly there following this link. Note that for each animal there are several sections to the profile: Intro, Sight Unseen, Unique Behavior, Status/Conservation and Outlook. It aired in the UK already but was revoiced by Sigourney Weaver for a US audience.

Jack Liu was recently recognized by the National Research Council of The National Academies for his “Outstanding Service” on the Committee on Independent Scientific Review of Everglades Restoration Progress of the National Academies. The committee was established at the request of the US Congress to evaluate the achievements and issues of the $10.8 billion restoration project.

Nick Reo has been given an AISES A.T. Anderson Scholarship Award.

Former student Ann Krause has taken a faculty position at the University of Toledo.

Former student Branda Nowell has taken a faculty position at North Carolina State University.

Tom Dietz co-authored a paper in Science, entitled “Millennium Ecosystem Assessment: Research Needs” (Science: October 13, 2006)

Merritt Turetsky’s research featured in Time.

Lester Brown, Founder and President of Earth Policy Institute, visited MSU and gave a public lecture on October 17, 2006. The event was co-sponsored by CSIS.

Nils Peterson received a NASA Earth Systems Fellowship. This is the fourth such a fellowship received by students in CSIS.

Former student Sara Hughes has completed her MS degree and has moved to University of California at Santa Barbara for her Ph.D. Program.

Jianguo (Jack) Liu has been given a Guggenheim Fellowship Award.

Paul Ehrlich, Bing Professor of Population Studies and President of Center for Conservation Biology at Stanford University, has been selected to receive an Honorary Degree of Science from MSU and serve as the Commencement Speaker for the candidates for advanced degrees on May 5. MSU President Simon has asked CSIS to host Professor Ehrlich's visit. In addition to the Commencement Speech, Professor Ehrlich will meet with MSU Administrators, faculty, and students including those at CSIS.

Li An, Marc Linderman, Jiaguo Qi, and Ashton Shortridge and Jack Liu have been given the Best Paper Award by US-IALE (US Regional Association of the International Association for the Landscape Ecology for the paper entitled "Exploring Complexity in a Human-Environment System: An Agent-based Spatial Model for Multidisciplinary and Multiscale Integration".

The paper was published in the Annals of the Association of American Geography 95(1): 54-79. Li and Marc are former students at CSIS and are now faculty members at San Diego State University and University of Iowa , respectively. Jiaguo and Ashton are faculty members at the Geography Department at MSU.

Together with Garik Gutman (Program Manager of NASA),, Jack Liu and Bill Taylor have been recognized with the "Distinguished Service Awards" by the US-IALE (US Regional Association of the International Association for the Landscape Ecology for the NASA-MSU Professional Enhancement Awards Program, which has supported about 20 students to attend the annual US-IALE meetings since 1998, when Liu and Taylor hosted the 1998 US-IALE at MSU.

Bill Taylor received the Ralph H. Smuckler Award for Advancing International Studies and Programs at MSU.

Nils Peterson has been selected as a FAST Fellow for 2006-07 by MSU. This is the first year that MSU initiates this program to help who have great potential to become successful faculty members in the future.

Vanessa Hall has finished her MS work. She will continue her Ph.D. at CSIS.

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Dr. Jared Diamond, Professor of Geography at UCLA and Pulitzer Prize Winner for his book "Guns, Germs, and Steel", is going to deliver a public lecture entitled "Collapse: How Societies Choose to Succeed or Fail", in 147 Communication Arts and Science Building at 2:00 pm on December 9, 2005. This lecture is part of the Center's Distinguished Lecture Series. Dr. Diamond will also deliver a Commencement Speech and receive an Honorary Doctorate of Science in the Breslin Center at 10:00 am on December 10. During his visit hosted by the Center on behalf of President Simon, Dr. Diamond will meet with a large number of MSU students, faculty, and administrators. Dr. Diamond co-authored a cover-story paper in Nature (June 30, 2005) entitled "China's Environment in a Globalizing World" (with Jack Liu). More information about Dr. Diamond is available at: http://www.edge.org/3rd_culture/bios/diamond.html .

Nature has published a cover-story feature paper by Jianguo Liu and Jared Diamond. The paper is entitled “China’s Environment in a Globalizing World – How China and the Rest of the World Affect Each Other” (June 30, 2005; Volume 435, pages 1179-1186). For the article, visit Nature.com or click here for a .pdf version of the paper. For the news release, visit Michigan State University Newsroom

Tom Dietz has been recognized by the Ecological Society of America (ESA) with the 2005 Sustainability Science Award for the paper "The Struggle to Govern the Commons" (Dietz et al. Science 2003). The award is given to the authors of a scholarly contribution that makes the greatest contribution to the emerging science of ecosystem and regional sustainability through the integration of ecological and social sciences. The award will be presented at the annual ESA meeting in Montreal Aug. 8-12.

Two former Ph.D. students, Li An and Marc Linderman, have accepted Assistant Professor positions at San Diego State University and University of Iowa, respectively.

Jack Liu was given this year's "Distinguished Faculty Award" by the Alumni Association of the College of Agriculture and Natural Resources. MSU President Lou Anna Simon presented the award to Jack at the ANR Luncheon on March 8.

Sara Hughes, a graduate student in the Center for Systems Integration and Sustainability, was recently awarded the West Michigan Chapter of Trout Unlimited’s Schrems Scholarship award. This is awarded to a current Michigan State University student of the Department of Fisheries and Wildlife who works toward the mission of SWMTU to conserve, protect and restore West Michigan's coldwater fisheries and their watersheds. Sara plans on using the scholarship to further her work on groundwater withdrawals’ impacts on coldwater fish, and value-based decision making for, and impacts of, groundwater policy.

William W. Taylor was recently given the "Fisheries Excellence Award" -- the highest honor that the North Central Division of the American Fisheries Society offers to a member who has made outstanding contributions to the fisheries profession. Bill has devoted much of his professional life to fisheries research and conservation and is an exemplary recipient that the award attempts to recognize. The award was presented to Bill at the 65th annual Midwest Fisheries and Wildlife Conference held on December 13th, 2004, in Indianapolis, IN.

Ann E. Krause won the 2005 Albert S. Hazzard Award given by the Michigan Chapter of the American Fisheries Society. This award is given in recognition of excellence in student research in fisheries or aquatic biology at a college or university in Michigan. The Chapter presented the award for her dissertation research entitled, "The role of compartments in food-web structure and changes following biological invasions in southeast Lake Michigan."

Congratulations to Anita Morzillo and Scott Bearer. Anita will be starting a Post-Doc with the EPA in August 2005. Scott will be starting a Post-Doc with the USFWS in Februrary 2005.

Anita Morzillo (Ph.D. student) has received a NASA Earth System Fellowship and Honorable Mention of the Canon Park Scholarship. Anita also received a grant from Texas Parks Service and is being given another grant by the National Fish and Wildlife Foundation for her to work on an integrated ecological and socioeconomic study of Big Thicket National Preserve in Texas.

Vanessa Hull (Ph.D. student) is a recipient of NSF Graduate Fellowship and MSU’s University Distinguished Fellowship.

Nils Peterson (Ph.D. student) has received a Budweiser Conservation Scholarship.

Jack Liu has been appointed by National Academy of Sciences to serve on the new Committee on Independent Scientific Review of Everglades Restoration Progress. This Committee was established to meet a congressional mandate to review the $8 billion restoration project in Florida. Other committee members include Rita Colwell (former Director of NSF).

Dr. William J. Mitsch (Distinguished Professor at Ohio State University), laureate of the 2004 Stockholm Water Prize ("Nobel Prize in Water Research", a global award under the patronage of HM King Carl XVI Gustaf of Sweden), spoke at 3:30 pm on November 11 (Thursday). Dr. Mitsch gave the laureate address that he delivered when receiving the prize, entitled "Applying Science to Conservation and Restoration of the World's Wetlands." In addition to the address, Dr. Mitsch had a lively breakfast meeting with students in FW852 ("Systems Modeling and Simulation") on November 12. For more information about Dr. Mitsch, please visit http://swamp.ag.ohio-state.edu/Mitsch.html. More information about the Stockholm Water Prize is available at http://www.siwi.org/press/presrel_04_SWP_Winner_Eng.htm. Another recipient of the 2004 Stockholm Water Prize is Professor Sven Jorgensen, who visited us and gave lectures at MSU in 2003 and 1998.

Dr. David Anderson (Colorado State University and USGS) gave a special seminar entitled "Model Based Inference in Ecology" 9:00 am on October 28. In addition, he delivered a guest lecture to FW852 ("Systems Modeling and Simulation") at 1:00 pm on October 28. Dr. Anderson has made enormous impacts on ecology and has provided distinguished service to wildlife conservation, through his 15 books and numerous journal articles and book chapters as well as teaching and workshops around the world. He has won many prestigious awards, including a number of best publication awards and the 2004 "Aldo Leopold Memorial Award and Medal", which is the highest honor bestowed by The Wildlife Society and is considered the ultimate recognition for a professional wildlife ecologist. More information about his research can be found at http://www.cnr.colostate.edu/~anderson/.

Dr. Jacqueline Geoghegan from Clark University presented a special seminar about the effects of government policies on land use and residential development at 9:00 am on December 2 (Thursday), 2004. In addition, she gave a guest lecture to the students in FW852 ("Systems Modeling and Simulation") at 1:00 pm on December 2. Since receiving her Ph.D. from the University of California at Berkeley, Dr. Geoghegan has been on the faculty of the Department of Economics and Graduate School of Geography at Clark University. She is also affiliated with Clark's Program in Environmental Science and Policy. Dr. Geoghegan's research focuses on developing spatially explicit models of land use change using Geographic Information System (GIS) and other quantitative methods. More information about Dr. Geoghegan is available at http://www.clarku.edu/departments/econ/faculty/geoghegan.cfm.

Congratulations to Li An (Ph.D. 2003), who has been chosen as the recipient for the 2004 "MSU Gill-Chin Lim Award for Outstanding Doctoral Dissertation in Global Studies." MSU recognizes and awards one graduate student each year for her/his outstanding doctoral dissertation, completed the preceding year, focusing on global studies. This award is named after Dr. Gill-Chin Lim, former Dean of International Studies and Programs. Li will be honored at the Fourteenth Annual International Awards Ceremony on March 29.

Two former Ph.D. students (Chris Lepczyk and Marc Linderman) have received NSF Postdoctoral Fellowships.

One recent Ph.D. student (Li An) is doing his postdoctoral research on an NSF Biocomplexity project at the University of Michigan - Ann Arbor.

Ed Laurent (Ph.D. student) has received a NASA Fellowship and a Budweiser Scholarship for his work on integrating field data with satellite imagery to describe landscape patterns in ways that promote a strong inference approach for investigations into causal mechanisms.

Scott Bearer (Ph.D. student) has received a Fellowship on GIS and Remote Sensing from the Smithsonian Institution.

Nils Peterson, a doctoral student and University Distinguished Fellow, is expanding the study of household impacts on biodiversity and the environment.

Mason Bradbury is a Professorial Assistant and Alumni Distinguished Scholar (one of the top 20 students in the 2003 class of more than 6000 freshmen) who is studying long-term changes in household sizes.

Dr. Paul Ehrlich at Stanford University was honored with the McPherson Endowed Professor for the Understanding of Science in 2004. He visited MSU from April 13-16, 2004 and gave a public lecture to the MSU community and a seminar to the Ecology, Evolutionary Biology, and Behavior Program. For more information, visit (http://www.stanford.edu/group/CCB/Staff/paul.htm) and (http://www.newsbulletin.msu.edu/june1/mcpprof.html).

Dr. Jane Lubchenco was given an Honorary Doctoral Degree by MSU in May, 2003. She was also the first ecologist and environmental scientist to be chosen as a Commencement Speaker in the history of MSU. Visit http://www.newsbulletin.msu.edu/april24/leaders.html for more information.