Lia Morris

Documentary films play a vital role in generating public awareness and mobilizing change, and films about the environment are no exception. Ever wonder what it takes to bring environmental stories to life through documentaries? Filmmaker Andrea Palombella will share her experiences, highlight the essentials of effective storytelling and the craft of documentary filmmaking, and discuss […]

Come enjoy fast-paced presentations from environmental studies majors who spent their summers exploring career paths. Host organizations include Oceana, Apex Clean Energy, National Institutes of Health, Hurricane Island Foundation, Wildlife Safari, Energy Crossroads, and Maria Mitchell Center. Lunch is available at 11:30 a.m., and presentations begin at noon.

Mike Pulaski, vice president at Thorton Tomasetti Consulting, will discuss the process of how sustainable high-performance buildings come to fruition. Drawing from more than 10 years experience on projects at Colby and from others around the globe, Pulaski will provide insight into how difficult design decisions are made and the rapidly evolving set of analytical […]

Silvia Newell, assistant professor at Wright State University in Dayton, Ohio, will discuss cyanobacterial harmful algal blooms (HABs) in Lake Taihu and western Lake Erie, which are driven largely by agricultural nitrogen and phosphorus. Cyanobacterial community dominance and HAB development may depend on ammonium (NH4+) availability, and increased NH4+ has been linked to increased toxin […]

Shermin de Silva will discuss Asian elephants, the sole survivors of the genus Elephas. This six-million-year-old, evolutionarily unique species must now make a living alongside its historic predator — humans — on the most densely populated continent on the planet. More than half the human population lives in Asia, and development is accelerating. With large herbivores […]

Sonja Pieck, associate professor of environmental studies at Bates College, researches the struggles over nature in South America and Germany, including the border region between East and West Germany. Shaped for decades by demographic and economic decline, it became an ecological refuge for more than a thousand endangered plant and animal species. When the wall […]

David Shribman serves as executive editor and vice president of PG Publishing Co., Inc. He joined the Boston Globe after serving as national political correspondent for the Wall Street Journal, covering national politics for the New York Times, writing for the feature and national staffs of the Washington Star, and working in the Washington bureau […]

Blair Braverman (Colby Class of 2011), dogsledder, journalist, and essayist, has been an Iowa Arts Fellow and a MacDowell Fellow. She was an environmental policy major and creative writing minor at Colby. Her work has appeared on This American Life, and Buzzfeed, and in Orion, and Atavist magazines. Last May she was named to the inaugural Outdoor magazine 30 […]

The Maine Island Trail is America’s oldest recreational water trail. The trail has grown from an initial 30 islands to include more than 200 properties spanning the entire Maine coast. Come learn from Brian Marcaurelle how this unique recreational resource—built on simple handshakes and maintained by conscientious users—has risen from humble beginnings to become a […]

Lunch at 11:30, lecture at noon. Sandy Gilbreath is the project coordinator for the Maine Food Strategy, where she provides oversight of the organization’s councils, support for collaborative projects, and engages the project in regional work and outreach. Come learn about the Maine Food Strategy and other organizations that are building networks, increasing stakeholder engagement, […]

Low-income and minority communities are often characterized by lack of access to healthy and affordable foods. Large grocery stores are sometimes scarce while food outlets such as gas stations, corner stores, and pharmacies abound. Though terms like “food desert” have been used to describe this phenomenon, this talk by Dorceta Taylor will examine the problematic […]

Forests sequester carbon dioxide from the atmosphere, storing it in wood. Northern hardwood forests are an important sink for anthropogenic emissions of carbon dioxide (CO2). These forests can be used as a tool to mitigate CO2 emissions and their effect on our climate. To maximize carbon storage, we must understand how events impact the capacity, stability, […]

Marketing sustainable products to a mass consumer audience has had ups and downs the past two decades. Many sustainable products have failed to gain mass appeal. Why? Doug Sweeney, chief marketing officer at Nest and VP marketing at Google, will share his experience leading marketing for big global brands and also smaller start-ups. From the […]

Hear from Matt Kearns, Colby Class of ’93, chief marketing officer with Longroad Energy. Over the last 10 years, large-scale wind and solar projects have been built across the U.S. to meet renewable energy goals set by states. In the past, utilities were the only customers for energy from these large scale projects. As the cost of […]

Increasingly the seafood sustainability discussion includes calls for transparency as a solution to combatting illegal, unregulated, and unreported fishing (IUU) and mislabeling and fraud. Seafood-value chains remain some of the most opaque in our global food system, and thus traceability is being forwarded as a way to validate transparency claims. Yet whether or not sustainability […]

Brooke Williams will read from his Open Midnight, which weaves two parallel stories about the great wilderness: that of the author’s year alone with his dog, ground truthing, backcountry maps of southern Utah and that of his great-great-great-grandfather, William Williams, who in 1863 made his way with a group of Mormons from England across the […]

The present crisis in U.S. democracy has its origins in our history and political system. Much the same can be said for our slow and inadequate response to climate change now underway. David W. Orr, counselor to the president at Oberlin College and Paul Sears Distinguished Professor of Environmental Studies and Politics, Emeritus, will discuss how […]

Building materials are responsible for many environmental issues throughout their life cycle, including human illness, pollution, habitat and species loss, and resource depletion. How do you design a building with a low environmental impact that promotes occupant health? Emma Reif, Colby Class of ’16, consultant for Thornton Tomasetti, will explain how the company is partnering […]

John de Graaf, founder and outreach director of the And Beauty For All campaign, contends that a new focus on natural beauty and human design, restoring ecosystems, and revitalizing communities can help bring polarized Americans together toward greater justice and sustainability. Is he right? Come, judge for yourself, and prepare to be inspired. An Environmental […]

A foray is defined as an attempt to become involved in a new activity or sphere or an incursion into enemy territory. For a consumer economist who studies genetically engineered (GE) food policy, both definitions fit. This talk with Jane Kolodinsky, chair, department of community development and applied economics, and director, Center for Rural Studies, […]

Ongoing and future climate change challenges land managers in the region to protect current and future ecosystems. Some species will be able to weather these changes and remain part of the landscape, other species may decline due to increasing stress, and still other species currently found further south may expand their ranges north into Maine. […]

Excess nutrient runoff from agricultural fields can enter nearby streams and rivers, harming sensitive species, contaminating water supplies, and fueling downstream algal blooms and low-oxygen “dead zones.” Research by Jen Tank, Galla Professor of Biological Sciences, University of Notre Dame, examines the benefit of two conservation strategies that potentially prevent excess nutrients from being transported […]

What role can comics and other forms of literary-visual art play in our conversations about the environment? This talk by Thomas Doran, assistant professor, Rhode Island School of Design, explores how comics-art functions as a unique medium for telling stories about how humans and other animals relate to their environments, focusing especially on the form’s […]

Students who undertook summer internships will share their experiences. This is a great opportunity for sophomores and juniors to get ideas of places to consider applying for an Environmental Studies-funded internship. A casual lunch from 11:30-noon followed by quick-fire presentations beginning promptly at noon. Sponsored by the Environmental Studies Program.

Andrea Warren, research associate in the Environmental Studies Program at Colby, will discuss the role of implementation research in advancing global nutrition agendas. For the past decade, the goal of improving population-level nutritional status by way of targeting maternal and child nutrition in the first 1,000 days of life has received unprecedented attention in low- and middle-income […]