James Shannon Building at the National Institutes of Health. I attended a Story Circles session at the National Institutes of Health in Bethesda, Maryland on 7 Feb 2019. My friend and colleague Randy Olson was conducting a one day training program and I rarely miss an opportunity to connect with Randy, based on our intertwined career journeys and our mutual interest in improving science communication.

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Since this is the 500th blog that I have posted to the Integration … and Application Network website, it seems appropriate to reflect on my blogs. Originally, I was a reluctant blogger, and it took some time before Drs. Adrian … Jones, Peter Tuddenham and Bill Nuttle could convince me to start posting … blogs. My blogs started in earnest in 2011 when I was on sabbatical at the … International Water Centre in Brisbane, Australia.

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As part of the 21st International Riversymposium, I presented a keynote talk entitled “Creating and communicating environmental intelligence“. Elements of environmental intelligence include the following: • The ability to acquire and apply environmental knowledge. • The collection of information of environmental value. • The ability to perceive your surroundings. The word ‘environment’ is derived from a French word ‘environ’, meaning surrounding.

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Many of the Chesapeake Bay crowd gathered at an Eastport pub on a snowy evening to toast farewell to Maryland Department of Natural Resources (DNR) Secretary Mark Belton. Mark was Secretary of DNR for four years, as part of the Hogan Administration. Mark and his colleague Ben Grumbles Secretary of Maryland Department of Environment (MDE), led the Maryland contribution to the Chesapeake and Maryland Coastal Bays restoration efforts and I have enjoyed working with them.

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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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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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