The second annual Scientists Serving Communities workshop brought together UMD researchers with expertise in climate adaptation and resilience and connected them with regional stakeholders and community members who will use the information to strengthen their communities. This approach to science actively deconstructs the “ivory tower syndrome” that is often present in academia and encapsulates IAN's work on scientific application and community engagement.

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“If we accept that we should seek not to save the Bay from people but for people, we will create a movement and watershed that works for everyone—for us and for nature.” - Hilary Harp Falk, President and CEO, Chesapeake Bay Foundation … Sunset from Spa Creek Drawbridge:

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An account of the January 2020 Chesapeake Watershed Report Card workshop, a convening to discuss development of a comprehensive new report card. Includes a song by Bill Dennison!

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"It's Still Flowing;" a song and video created by Bill Dennison and voiced by Kat Parsons. Click for link to video

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Last week on October 4-5, several of us at IAN attended the annual MEES Colloquium at the Institute of Marine and Environmental Technology (IMET), which is located along Baltimore’s Inner Harbor. IMET director Russell Hill kicked off the program with a brief welcome to the impressive multi-institutional laboratory.

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Earlier this month, several IAN team members attended the first annual Chesapeake Studies conference. This multidisciplinary conference was hosted at Salisbury University from June 5th to 7th, and was focused on the scholarly study of the Chesapeake region. It was an excellent opportunity for us to meet other Chesapeake Bay researchers, and to showcase some of IAN’s approaches for learning more about the Bay, engaging Bay stakeholders, and communicating Bay science.

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The Cozzarelli Prize, a prestigious award recognizing excellence in scientific research, was awarded to UMCES very own Bill Dennison, Rebecca Murphy, and Jeremy Testa, lead author Jon Lefcheck (Smithsonian Environmental Research Center), and their co-authors (listed below) for their study of human impacts on underwater grasses in the Chesapeake Bay. The prize recognizes 6 papers, selected by the editorial board of the Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences , each year.

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Earlier this month, Bill, Katie May, Vanessa, and I travelled to Portland, Oregon to attend the Society for Applied Anthropology (SfAA) conference from March 19-23. We were all excited for the opportunity to learn from researchers and practitioners who work in the social sciences, and to absorb new ideas and approaches that will help us enhance IAN’s capacity to do work that spans natural and social science disciplines.

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The tomato icon was used to represent the Food Security and Land Use Change CRA … IAN has been working with the Belmont Forum since December, 2016 to help communicate the added value of transdisciplinary and transnational … research approaches as a pathway to sustainability.

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This blog post is the first of a two-post series examining cownose ray (Rhinoptera bonasus) history and ecology in the Chesapeake Bay. In 2007, an article appeared in the reputable scientific journal Science asserting that declines in large shark populations along the eastern coast of the United States had led to an “explosion” of rays and skates due to lack of predation.

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