UMCES hosted an environmental summit on November 30, 2018, which marked the official inauguration of our new president, Dr. Peter Goodwin. The event attracted attendees from all UMCES campuses and several other institutions within the University System of Maryland, as well as from outside of the academic community.

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The Arctic Ocean, its surrounding land masses, and the people and animals that depend on arctic ecosystems are changing rapidly. Global climate change is particularly acute in the arctic, with large scale biophysical changes evident, leading to ecological and social impacts. One of the Collaborative Research Actions (CRA) initiatives by the Belmont Forum is addressing the changing arctic.

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Every fall, the American Geophysical Union hosts the largest meeting of Earth and space scientists from around the world for a week of workshops, presentations, field trips, networking events, and so much more. Rumored to have had more than 27,000 attendees this year, it’s an impressively large and exciting conference, overflowing with opportunities to learn, share, and network.

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View of Downtown Seattle from the waterfront. Photo credit: Yesenia Valverde. Last month, the IPCC released its special report, Global Warming of 1.5°C , a report requested by the Paris Agreement to detail the projected impacts of a 1.5°C rise in global temperature. It is of crucial importance to note that, according to the report, we as a global society are not currently on track to maintain warming below 1.5°C. Sobering, the report is an immediate call to action.

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The UMCES Environmental Summit. Photo credit: UMCES Flickr. On November 30, 2018 the University of Maryland Center for Environmental Science (UMCES) community gathered at the Institute of Marine and Environmental Technology (IMET) in Baltimore to discuss environmental science and application to resource management and policy with our new president, Dr. Peter Goodwin.

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The Integration and Application Network (IAN) teamed up with the Belmont Forum for a synthesis workshop on 8-10 Dec 2018 in Washington, D.C. IAN staff facilitated the workshop, which Belmont Forum calls a "valorization workshop" with three groups of projects, identified by the Belmont Forum as Collaborative Research Actions (CRAs). The three CRAs were 1) "Food security and land use change", 2) "Arctic observing and science for sustainability", 3) "Mountains as sentinels of change".

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The Integration and Application Network (IAN) had an eventful and exciting year. We were able to report some really good news in the improvements in the health of Chesapeake Bay and Maryland Coastal Bays with our annual report cards. In addition, the publication of a scientific synthesis paper that IAN staff helped generate was able to reach a broad audience. This paper identified that the nutrient reductions into Chesapeake Bay were leading to ecosystem health improvements.

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Class logo. In the revised Marine Environmental and Estuarine Science (MEES) curriculum, the Environment and Society Foundation is the only track that expressly incorporates social sciences. With my marine ecology background, I combined efforts with Michael Paolisso, an environmental anthropologist, to co-teach the Foundation course. Michael and I had a lot of help from our excellent teaching assistant, Suzi Spitzer, a variety of superb guest lecturers (Drs.

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After 12 years of working with the University of Maryland Center for Environmental Science (UMCES), Dorothy "Dottie" Bradford Samonisky decided to retire at the end of the calendar year. Dottie was a powerful force at UMCES, and she helped make the Integration and Application Network (IAN) functional and fun. We held her retirement party at Annie's Paramount Steak and Seafood House on Kent Narrows.

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On 14 Dec 2018, I traveled to the Virginia Institute of Marine Science (VIMS) for the retirement party of my friend and colleague Ken Moore. Ken worked at VIMS for 45 years, which is a remarkable tenure. I recounted some vignettes of Ken that I used to describe him. There are 10 words that I used to describe Ken Moore: welcoming, fun, interesting, companion, collaborative, heliophilic, persistent, mentor, friend, and sweet.

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