Department News

In spite of the challenges associated with the past year, the ERE community continues to engage and lead. While delivery varied between in-person and online modes, we sought to provide high quality instruction in all courses. Assistant Professors Tim Morin, Bahram Salehi and Yaqi You all developed new courses to expand engineering elective and graduate course offerings delivered by the department this year. We are excited to finally be launching our Master of Engineering (M.E.) degree in the fall 2021 semester. This one-year program offers a practice-oriented course of study focused on engineering design, business skills, and engineering project management, culminating in a team-based engineering design project.

ESF faculty are engaged in impactful research across the disciplines, for example Dr. Giorgos Mountrakis is collaborating with EB’s Dr. James Gibbs on a NASA Ecological Forecasting Program grant that will fuse satellite and field data to create a decision support system to guide rewilding efforts of tortoises on the Galapagos Islands. Dr. Chuck Kroll is part of a team of researchers recently awarded a multi-year NASA Modeling, Analysis, and Prediction (MAP) grant to investigate the role of vegetation–groundwater coupling on drought evolution. This project has the potential to improve drought characterization, forecasting,
and management, a critically important issue throughout the world. Doug Daley ’82 is a project director with the New York State Center for Sustainable Materials Management, a new initiative between ESF and the NYSDEC. He is conducting research on the feasibility of large-scale composting of non-recyclable paper products. Besides promoting NYSDEC’s sustainability and economic development goals, this project supports New York’s climate change initiative by reducing methane emissions associated with landfill disposal of paper products.

ERE faculty, staff, and students also remain heavily committed to service. Dr. Bahram Salehi was co-organizer and technical chair of the 2021 Systems and Technologies for Remote Sensing Applications Through Unmanned Aerial Systems (STRATUS) conference. The conference was held virtually on May 17-19, 2021, with about 200 national and international attendees. ERE graduate students Haifa Tamiminia and Sarina Adeli won first and second place, respectively, for oral presentations, and Rabia Khan won the UAV-trivia contest. ESF will host the 2022 STRATUS conference in May 2022.

ERE students once again received recognition for academic and leadership excellence this year. Molly Mulhare and Tim Web-Horvath both received the SUNY Chancellor’s Award for Student Excellence, the highest award given to SUNY students. At the Spring Awards Banquet, Briana Fitzgerald and Jourdyn-Evonne Lee received the Robin Hood Oak Award for Academic Excellence, and Jessica Divens received the Robin Hood Oak Award for Student Advocacy. Many students also received recognition at ESF’s Student Organization and Leadership Achievement Recognition Ceremony: Lauren Claeys: Distinguished Graduating Officer; Briana Fitzgerald: President of the Year; Olivia Heilbronner: Rising Student Leader (Sophomore); Zachary Patterson: Rising Student Leader (Senior); Martin Cain: Jeff Dupuis Award; Maya Wells and Julian Thornton: RAs of the Year; and Mark Dunckel: Tutor of the Year.

The ERE faculty, staff, and students moved through the hurdles presented during the past year with true ESF spirit and determination. I am very proud to be part of such a committed group of individuals.

While the academic year was challenging in many ways, we are proud of the many accomplishments of our students and faculty, which I am delighted to share
with our alumni.

The Department of Environmental Studies is now the new official home of the Environmental Education & Interpretation (EE&I) Program, under the direction of Dr. Shari Dann, who came to ESF in fall 2020 from Michigan State University’s Department of Community Sustainability. EE&I is a natural fit with the department’s Environment, Communication and Society Program, and plans are in motion for expanding its offerings and enhancing its
graduate program.

Our faculty continue to excel in teaching and research, often in collaboration with students. Dr. Mary Collins’ students Dustin Hill (Ph.D., ENRP) and Brielle Howell (B.S., ES) have published a number of scholarly papers with her guidance and support. Several students from Dann’s Introduction to Personal Interpretation course joined Dann and others to present on a professional panel about their online learning experiences. The session was titled “Technology Tips and Examples for Interpretation in Pandemic Times: What Gen Z Recommends.”

Dr. Josh Cousins published papers in “Ecological Economics” and the “Journal of Environmental Policy and Planning.” Students in EST 427/627: Environmental and Energy Auditing provided data analysis for Manlius and Lewis County’s Climate Action Plan. He also presented and organized sessions at the Annual Meeting of the Association of American Geographers on water scarcity and some results from a new project on energy transitions in the American West.

Dr. Andrea Feldpausch-Parker co-edited/co-authored a book titled “Routledge Handbook of Energy Democracy.” This book includes authors from across the globe and from various social science and humanities disciplines. Feldpausch-Parker also worked with colleagues Dr. Silje Kristiansen (ESF) and Dr. Anke van Kempen (Munich University of Applied Science in Germany) to deliver a five-week inter-cultural experience during the spring 2021 semester between three classes (two from ESF) to write, illustrate and edit for a science and technology blog called Tech Talkers.

The Certificate of Advanced Study in Environmental Leadership, developed by Dr. Paul Hirsch over the past five years, hit its stride this year. Eleven students completed the certificate last spring, with 12 more on track to complete next year. With the 17 students who have already completed the certificate, that brings the total to 40 students, 24 of whom are newly matriculated students who enrolled at ESF just to receive the graduate certificate. These newly matriculated students include recent and non-so-recent college graduates, working professionals in the environmental sector and other fields, and active leaders with environmental advocacy organizations. Building on this success, Hirsch led the developmental process for two other advanced graduate certificates, one in science and environmental communication and public relations (just approved by SUNY and New York state!), and one in environmental justice and inequality, as well as a fully online Masters of Professional Studies Degree in Environmental Leadership, Justice, and Inequality.

Kristiansen planned the International Communication Association’s Environmental Communication division’s yearly conference, with a fantastic line-up of presentations. Students in her undergraduate classes submitted their stories once again to Planet Forward’s competition, StoryFest. Kristiansen’s students, Calvin Bordas (ESF) and Kenna Kelley (SU), took first place in two different categories. Once again it was a successful year in terms of getting accepted to competitive peer reviewed conferences, and the biggest excitement was that several conference abstracts were co-authored with ESF undergraduate and graduate students. Kristiansen published two co-authored manuscripts that analyze media coverage of environmental issues related to food.

Dr. Valerie Luzadis ’97 shared that as of January 2021 the National Council for Science and the Environment is now the Global Council for Science and the Environment (GCSE), continuing its mission at a global level to span the boundaries between science and decision making in service to the environment, with commitment to systemic justice, collaborating across all perceived boundaries to resolve the most pressing issues of the day. Luzadis is chair of the council’s board of directors.

Dr. Sharon Moran’s new project on the shores of Lake Ontario will explore how people’s cell phone snaps of the shoreline can be used to help improve the accuracy of erosion modeling. Funded by the Center of Excellence for Healthy Water Solutions, her citizen science project will be one of the first U.S. efforts to build on a methodology developed in Australia. Another recent accomplishment involves leading ESF’s curriculum to address important challenges of the era, with the undergrad course called “Diversity and Knowledge of the Environment,” and a graduate level class titled, “Deconstructing Environmental Despair.” Finally, because of changing opportunities for visiting speakers in the wake of our global online transition, Moran was able to address groups at universities in Tehran, Iran, as well as Karachi, Pakistan, about stream restoration and environmental justice.

Dr. Theresa Selfa is the principal investigator on a National Science Foundation grant from the Science Technology and Society program for a project titled, “How Competing Sociotechnical Imaginaries Shape Trust and Governance of Gene Editing in Agriculture and Food: A Cross Country Comparison.” For this project, Selfa and colleagues will conduct research in the U.S., Japan, Netherlands, Mexico and New Zealand. In October 2020, she, along with colleagues at Iowa State University and the Keystone Policy Center, organized an online conference, “Gene Editing in Agriculture and Food: Social Concerns, Public Engagement, and Governance,” that was attended by over 300 people from around the world.

In 2020-21, the challenge for Dr. David A. Sonnenfeld, professor of sociology and environmental policy, was how to make the best of difficult circumstances. In fall 2020, Sonnenfeld moved his long-running “International Environmental Policy Consultancy” graduate course fully online and expanded it to include colleagues and students at Van Lang University in Vietnam and at Wageningen University in Netherlands. Students at the three institutions worked together  virtually, via Microsoft Teams, as “externs” for a United Nations Interagency Task Team on Emerging Technologies and Sustainable Development, submitting their final, integrated report, titled, “Pathways for Harmonious Social-Ecological System Interaction.” Likewise, in spring 2021, Sonnenfeld moved his “Water in the Middle East: Issues and Opportunities” course fully online and took advantage of its virtual character to include live sessions with experts from Israel, the Palestinian Territories and Jordan. Closing out the year, in May 2021, Sonnenfeld co-hosted a two-day, virtual symposium, titled, “Weathering xtremes: African Environmental Politics in a Destabilized World,” with a majority of participants from Africa, and others from Europe and North America.

Dr. Lemir Teron’s work was recently featured in the PBS initiative “Peril and Promise: The Challenge of Climate Change.” He has worked with a variety of partners on environmental projects throughout the region, including urban forestry efforts in Syracuse and the CNY Environmental Justice Task Force. Since 2018 he has served on the Milton J. Rubenstein Museum of Science & Technology’s Board of Trustees and was recently installed on its executive committee.

Dr. Elizabeth Vidon served as co-chair of the Recreation, Tourism, and Sport specialty group of the American Association of Geographers and has joined the editorial board for the journal “Tourism Geographie.” She was also invited to speak at a symposium recognizing the 50th anniversary of the June 1971 establishment of the Adirondack Park Agency, scheduled for late June 2021. She published two papers with her graduate students and one with colleagues and  has two more papers in review, both with graduate students. She is also PI on a grant that was just awarded from the Northeastern States Research Cooperative (NSRC) to conduct research on the impacts associated with crowding and user density in high-use areas of the Adirondack Park. She is co-PI on a USDA McIntire-Stennis grant with a colleague from the University of Connecticut, funded to study access and social carrying capacity in forest recreation sites in New York (Adirondacks) and Connecticut.

Dr. Jill Weiss was awarded a three-year USDA NIFA McIntire-Stennis Grant that will fund a new Ph.D. student and continue the study of recreational user
behaviors and management in alpine zones and other wildlands across the Northeast. Weiss, along with Dr. Peter Palmiotto of Antioch University New England had a paper on communities of practice in conservation accepted to the 2021 Association for Environmental Studies and Sciences Annual Conference. Weiss will be joining the Professional Development Committee for the International Association for Society and Natural Resources.

We look forward to welcoming in a new cohort of students this fall and introducing them to the many facets of our program. Be safe, stay well and keep in touch!

Along with everyone else writing about the past year, we, too, can say it has been a wild ride. In spite of everything, the students, faculty and staff have worked extremely hard to retool and proactively address the many challenges and opportunities that have presented themselves. We have much to celebrate and look forward to.

Marshall Hall is finally undergoing a complete renovation. Gone will be the leaking and banging radiators, dripping ceilings and so many other “cherished”
features. Soon we will have restored skylights; a restored center staircase and first-floor lobby; state-of-the-art studio spaces, classrooms and offices; a dedicated gallery for exhibitions of professional and student work; space for our digital fabrication facilities; heat AND air conditioning; a deep energy retrofit; real accessibility; and much more. Construction work — demolition, actually — began in the fall, and interior framing and mechanical work is well underway as I write this. We expect to return to Marshall Hall as early as fall 2022 or spring 2023.

In the meantime, we have moved the department to two floors of an Art Deco-era office building on Harrison Street in downtown Syracuse, centrally located among the Everson Museum, the new Salt City Market, and numerous neighborhoods and city spaces that we have already taken advantage of while teaching outdoors more often than usual. Our facilities provide lots of classroom space, informal gathering spaces and consolidated studio spaces for student integration across years. And fortunately, we have fantastic computer networks and facilities. Located on the seventh and eighth floors, we have 360-degree views of downtown, the SU hill and Onondaga Valley – a truly diverse landscape in which to learn.

And learning is taking place! With the majority of classes online, we still managed desk crits and presentations, and more inverted classes (live discussion, recorded presentations). In the fall semester, many studio classes and reviews took place outdoors — around campus, in Thornden Park and in the downtown area. Students experimented with sound and light, rising waters, re-envisioning urban networks, restoration of over-loved landscapes and much more. Looking forward to the fall semester and beyond, we hope to take advantage of the best tools and techniques from all the modalities of teaching we have practiced this past year.

Needless to say, in our 50th year of the Off-Campus Program, the COVID pandemic created a significant disruption. While we first flipped semesters to attempt to buy more time, the course of the pandemic quickly made it clear that there would be no international destinations. Students retooled their projects for domestic locations around the United States. They wrapped up their projects, and reports from faculty advisors suggest there will be a continuation of our history of novel and interesting projects on landscape topics.

Our MLA students grapple with developing robust professional skills and taking on global challenges by examining the many facets of social justice in our landscape monuments, sustainability principles in development, equality and accessibility, urban environmental quality along with landform design, materials, construction documents, community engagement, representation, and others.

In spite of many challenges this year, our students have accomplished so much. This fall a team of students under the mentorship of Professors Anne Godfrey and Margaret Bryant were named as finalists in the Land Art Generator (LAGI) International Design Competition with their proposal entitled “Desert Bloom: Planting a Paradigm Shift.” The student team consisted of George Beinetti, Ari Raeburn, Hannah Noll, Jeancarlo Barrientos, Shuhua Li, Meaghan Keefe and Sean Satchwell. For a peek at the work please see https://landartgenerator.org/LAGI-2020/desert-bloom-planting-a-paradigm-shift/.

Earlier in 2021, the NY Upstate ASLA recognized graduating MLA student Anna Tiburzi ’21 as the Distinguished Student. Anna received recognition for her work with the Center for Cultural Landscape Preservation (CCLP) (www.esf.edu/cclp) on digital modeling of the Statue of Liberty for the National Park Service, her work on the challenges facing memorial landscapes and monuments, and other accomplishments. A panel of NY Upstate ASLA members also interviewed student nominees for the ASLA Student Honor/Merit program and recognized BLA students Nikita Richardson ’21 and Jingjing Cui’21, and MLA student Anna Tiburzi ’21 with Honor Awards, and BLA student Michael Paw ’21 and MLA student Meaghan Keefe ’21 with Merit Awards. BLA graduating student Angelia Rossi ’21 was named a Scholar of the Class of 2021 for having the highest GPA in the department. First year MLA student Diane Portugal is the recipient of two very distinguished scholarships from the American Academy of University Women, and Dumbarton Oaks. We are very proud and excited to recognize and showcase the many accomplishments of our students.

Faculty deserve equal accolades for rapidly pivoting away from traditional teaching to a new set of challenges in preparing students to be leaders in the profession. Assistant Professors Rachel Leibowitz and Aidan Ackerman have joined in many works with the National Park Service through the CCLP, and have initiated new courses and new research in landscape history and digital technologies, and have been frequent invited speakers at other universities and professional organizations. Anne Godfrey has also seen great success in the publication of her first book “Active Landscape Photography” with her second book under way and a third book under contract. Her courses in landscape and science photography are drawing students from across campuses. Margaret
Bryant is offering a new course called “Shaping Cities: Resilience Planning.” Associate Professor Emanuel Carter received approval to create the ESF
Center for Biosphere Reserves, while Associate Professor Robin Hoffman ’82 is a co-chair of the Visual Resources Stewardship Conference which will be hosted by ESF this fall. Professor Matt Potteiger has been involved in a number of initiatives centered on local food systems including the Syracuse Urban Food Forest Project.

This year also saw a number of other milestones in the department. Last September, Caroline Bailey, who for so long was the face of the department to students, retired from the College. She joined the department in January 1979. Also, Tony Miller ’72 has announced his retirement at the end of this academic year. Both will be missed.

Amongst all these changes in our “normal” situations, we reinforce the idea that landscapes are dynamic and this is the special challenge for our profession. We must help lead society toward a future that isn’t quite known, not quite predictable, but always subject to improvement. We know our students will be well prepared to take on this role.