think tank explores ways to visualize environmental change

COE Think Tank
2021-22 Think Tank members, from top left: Olivia Baglieri ’22, Dylan Judd ’22, Jennifer Raynor, Skye Hawthorne ’22, Alton C. Byers, Helen Poulos, Suzanne O’Connell, Courtney Fullilove, Antonio Machado-Allison.

Each academic year, the COE gathers a small group of Wesleyan faculty members, a scholar of prominence from outside Wesleyan, and undergraduate students into a year-long academic think tank on a critical environmental issue. The aim of the COE Think Tank is not only to generate a deeper understanding of the thematic issue, but also to produce scholarly works that will influence national/international thinking and action on the issue. The Think Tank theme for 2021-22 is visualizing environmental change.

Our 2021-22 COE Think Tank faculty fellows are: Suzanne O’Connell, the Harold T. Stearns Professor of Earth Science; Jennifer Raynor, assistant professor of economics; Courtney Fullilove, associate professor of history; Helen Poulos, adjunct assistant professor of environmental studies; Antonio Machado-Allison, university professor in the College of the Environment; and Alton C. Byers, senior research scientist at the Institute of Arctic and Alpine Research (INSTARR) at the University of Colorado at Boulder and this year’s Menakka and Essel Bailey ‘66 Distinguished Visiting Scholar in the College of the Environment. Olivia Baglieri ’22, Dylan Judd ’22, and Skye Hawthorne ’22 will also be joining the Think Tank as student fellows this academic year.

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visiting scholar byers champions wetland conservation

Elizabeth and glacier larkspur in the middle of the Ngozumba Glacier, Gokyo, Nepal.

Elizabeth A. Byers is the 2021-22 visiting scholar in the College of the Environment. She is a senior wetland scientist with the West Virginia Department of Environmental Protection. During the last five years at WVDEP she has worked to create and implement an assessment tool that will become the law of the land in West Virginia in early 2022.  Prior to joining DEP, she worked for 11 years as a Natural Heritage Ecologist and for 20 years as a hydrologist and conservationist in the Himalayas, East African rift, Andes, Rocky Mountains, and Appalachians.  In 2020, Elizabeth published the first-ever field guide to the flora and ethnobotany of Mount Everest National Park.

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celebrating our 2021 envs majors!

Congratulations to the class of 2021! Read on for more about some of our 31 class of 2021 ENVS majors!

Sanya Bery: My thesis  title is A Walk in the Neighborhood: Exploring the Crucial Role That Small Municipalities Play in the Face of Climate Change. Super excited to announce that I will be joining the University of Michigan-School for Environment and Sustainability’s master’s program, with a concentration in Sustainability and Development in Fall 2022. Thank you so much to everyone who has helped me reach this point in my life. I’m thrilled for the adventures that this coming gap year holds and for all to come in the future!

Liana Biasucci: My capstone is an essay called How to Build Back Better: Greening the Recovery from COVID-19, about using government stimulus packages to advance climate mitigation in the US and combining economic goals with environmental ones.  Next year I’ll be working in DC doing sustainability consulting. What I’ve learned most from ENVS is how multifaceted environmental problems are and that to have true solutions we need to look at all impacts of policies and actions. 

Lizzie Edwards: My senior essay title is Politics of Thirst: Privatized Water, the Shadow State, and Citizenship Claims in Jordan. My essay examines the different water realities of residents of different socio-economic classes within Jordan. I argue that water has become a key medium in which state responsibility is being privatized and relationships to the state are being negotiated. I will be a member of the CBYX for Young Professionals cohort for 2021-2022 academic year! This fellowship is a fully-funded public diplomacy program through the U.S. government and German government that is offered to 75 Americans every year. I will be studying German intensively for two months, taking college classes in Arabic and migration studies (most likely in German) for a semester, and interning in the field of refugee resettlement for five months. I hope to learn firsthand how organizations in Germany are welcoming refugees and immigrants as well as combatting anti-refugee and immigrant sentiment. From being an ENVS linked major, I’ve learned how to more adeptly discuss environmental issues in an interdisciplinary space. My advice for future ENVS classes is to take classes outside of their comfort zones. 

Phoebe Landsman: In my project, Combatting Politicization and Polarization: Re-Framing Climate Change to the American Public, I researched ways to re-frame climate change to appeal to the American public and combat the stagnancy surrounding climate policy in the United States. After graduation, I will be working for an immigration law firm in Boston! I love that everyone comes into the ENVS major with different interests and approaches to environmental studies. I have truly learned so much from my classmates and teachers. 

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congrats to our 33 coe summer fellows!

Every year, the COE awards fellowships to fund summer research opportunities for Wesleyan students across all majors and class years. Introducing our 33 COE 2021 summer (and a few fall) fellows. Read more about their projects, below!

Nick Bowman ’23
archaeology
My research will focus on the recreation of ancient cultural and environmental conditions in relation to the cultivation of ancient medicinal plants by drawing on archaeological site reports, coring and shoreline data, geological maps, soil samples, and other source material to contextualize Professor Birney’s chemical findings.

Belle Brown ’22
environmental studies and government

This summer, I will work as a multimedia intern for the Rodale Institute in Kutztown, Pennsylvania, using social media, videography, and photography to share information about organic agriculture. In this position, I will continue to pursue my passion for sustainable agriculture, while also gaining invaluable experience in using multimedia to spread a message that grows increasingly urgent as the climate crisis intensifies.

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poulos receives $300k nasa research grant

 Dr. Helen Poulos, adjunct assistant professor of environmental studies, has been awarded a $300,000 NASA grant to examine forest type-conversion through the lens of evapotranspiration (plant sweat) in response to high-severity wildfire in southeastern Arizona. Poulos and her team will conduct their research using imagery gathered by the ECOSTRESS sensor mounted on the International Space Station. It will be the first-ever test of the ECOSTRESS sensor’s applicability for wildfire-related research.

Plants facing the aftermath of wildfire often have insufficient water, which causes their temperature to rise. The ECOSTRESS radiometer measures the temperatures of plants across Earth to an extraordinarily accurate degree. Poulos’s NASA-funded project will specifically investigate the effects of the 2011 Horseshoe Two Fire on post-fire plant and site water balance and evaluate the potential of using data gathered from the ECOSTRESS sensor to predict wildfire effects on plant community structure and water relations in an Arizona Sky Island pine-oak forest.

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get to know our envs military vets: freiburger ’21 & snashall ’21

The Posse Veteran Scholars Program identifies talented veterans interested in pursuing bachelor’s degrees, and places them at top tier colleges and universities, where they receive four-year full scholarships. Each year, Wesleyan accepts a “posse” of 10 veterans. Today, on Veterans Day, we honor all U.S. military veterans by shining the spotlight on two of our own: Gabe Snashall ’21 and Michael Freiburger ’21.

You’re both Posse Veterans here at Wes, class of 2021. Why did you join the military and what was your role?
Michael Freiburger (MF): I joined the Army right out of high school. I didn’t know what I wanted to do in life, and college wasn’t an option, but I knew that I needed to get out of my hometown. I spent the majority of my service at Fort Bragg North Carolina (5 years), and two years station in Germany. I deployed to Afghanistan twice and worked as an Explosive Ordnance Disposal Technician – Bomb Squad.

Gabe Snashall (GS): I joined right after graduating from High School in Fresno, California in 2011. At the time, the unemployment rate in my hometown was +18% and rising, so everybody I knew was leaving to either go to college, the peace corps, or the military. For me, the better option seemed to be a military program that offered college credit, a year or two of formal military training, and, of course, a decent amount of travel experience. Broadly speaking, I chose the military option for the opportunity to focus on and explore what I wanted to do in life, what I wanted to study, and where I wanted to go to school. I found that opportunity with the Naval Submarine Service and left my hometown a short two weeks after signing paperwork. That decision took me to Chicago for bootcamp and Connecticut for Submarine School. I was then stationed on the USS Pittsburgh (recently decommissioned) from 2011-2016, and was deployed to the Middle East, the North Pole, the Indian Sea, the Arctic Sea, and the Caribbean. In fact, I think we sailed the globe over three times while I was on board. On land, we would port in Scotland, Spain, the UAE, and Norway. On ‘The Pit’, I officially served as an Electronics Technician (ET)—specializing in satellite telecommunications, cryptographic operations, and radar and periscope maintenance. Unofficially, my peers knew me as “Snooki,” a nickname that was a reference to, and mostly making fun of, the loud and annoying way I would persuade submarine officers to accept my work requests or proposals. I won’t go into detail here, but the highly chaotic working world on a submarine brings out the most competitive side of all who work on board—so it’s an anything goes world, really.

How did you find out about the Posse Veterans program?
MF: I found out about the Posse Veterans program while I was processing out of the military. I was pretty fortunate that Posse representatives were at Fort Bragg the same week I was in mandatory exit briefs. I was lucky enough to meet with the program that week and began the process that brought me here to Wesleyan.

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