Sometimes the best way to tell a story is to go straight to the source. Our scientists go out for field studies, travel the state, nation, and globe, work in the lab, teach the next generation of scientists, and share their data with managers and policymakers. As a result, they have the best points of view. These podcasts and radio interviews become a window into their world, so we can sit back and listen to the experts weigh in.
FEATURED PODCAST: Bridging the Gap - Women grad students talk rise of STEM, power of diversity in science
We asked female graduate students at each of the University of Maryland Center for Environmental Science’s four laboratories to share their thoughts on pursuing science today and offer their advice for anyone following in their footsteps. Listen to all six podcasts here.
Advice for the next generation
Diversity in science
Horn Point Laboratory
Listen to our podcast with HPL's Melanie Jackson, Emily Russ, Hannah Morrissette, Maureen Brooks, Pinky Liau, Jacqueline Tay, Christine Knauss, Katie Hornick, and Sam Gleich.
Appalachian Laboratory
Listen to our podcast with AL's Tan Zou, Stephanie Siemek, Annie Carew, Claire Nemes, and Kelly Pearce.
Institute of Marine and Environmental Technology
Listen to our podcast with IMET's Kaila Noland, Shadaesha Green, Amanda Lawrence, Ana Sosa, and Daniela Tizabi.
Read the transcript: English | Spanish
Chesapeake Biological Laboratory
Listen to our podcast with CBL's Zoraida Pérez Delgado, Hadley McIntosh, and Christina Goethel.
Listen to more interviews
Speaking truth to power - StoryCorps interview with outgoing UMCES President Don Boesch
Eric Davidson, American Geophysical Union (AGU) president and University of Maryland Center for Environmental Science (UMCES) Appalachian Laboratory director, interviews outgoing UMCES President Don Boesch, longtime advocate for applying science to policy (especially in the Gulf of Mexico and Chesapeake Bay), at the AGU meeting in New Orleans in December 2017.
Listen to soundbites on:
Taking global leadership roles (1:49):
The #WeAreStillIn movement (6:29):
The March on Science and "speaking truth to power" (9:25):
Changes in the criteria used for evaluating tenure and promotion (9:03):
Bigger, stronger, disastrous: How climate change fuels wildfires
Mark Cochrane has been studying the characteristics and behaviors of wildfires since graduate school. Now a professor at the University of Maryland Center for Environmental Science's Appalachian Laboratory, Cochrane discusses how wildfires differ across regions, if places like California are more prone to fires than others, and his research that shows wildfires will occur more because of climate change.
Working the night shift: Scientists seek answers as bat populations change
For the bat scientists at the University of Maryland Center for Environmental Science, the busiest part of the work day happens well after most people have ended theirs.
We joined Beth Stevenson, a faculty research assistant at UMCES' Appalachian Laboratory, and members of her team for a night in the field and as we wait in the dark for bats to come, we discuss what have they have so far learned about a disease killing off some bats in Maryland. We also talk about some of their favorite bats, misconceptions, and overall get a better appreciation for the oft-misunderstood creature of the night and the scientists dedicated to saving them.
What forecasting "dead zones" teaches us about Chesapeake Bay
Scientists forecast a larger-than-average dead zone—an area of low to no oxygen that can kill fish and aquatic life—in Chesapeake Bay during summer 2017, but summer hypoxia reports suggested the forecast overpredicted. What happened and why can teach us a lot about the Bay, so we turned to Jeremy Testa, a hypoxia expert with the University of Maryland Center for Environmental Science's Chesapeake Biological Laboratory, who helps with the forecast, to learn more about what makes a dead zone, why the forecast might have missed the mark, and what the general public can do to help.
Flight of the rockfish: What migration taught us about Maryland's state fish
David Secor, a fisheries scientist at University of Maryland Center for Environmental Science's Chesapeake Biological Laboratory, has made a career out of understanding where fish migrate and why. As for Maryland's state fish, the striped bass, also called rock fish, he wanted to know where they went after they left Chesapeake Bay. With funds and support from Atlantic States Marine Fisheries Commission, NOAA Chesapeake Bay Office, MD Department of Natural Resources, and the Potomac River Fisheries Commission, Secor embarked on a study to understand migration paths of Potomac and Atlantic Striped Bass. We discuss his findings, the cause of a once decline, and how warming waters could change its habits.
Citizen science helps Dr. Bailey track dolphins in Chesapeake Bay
After years of studying dolphins and their movements, Helen Bailey, a scientist at the University of Maryland Center for Environmental Science's Chesapeake Biological Laboratory, wanted to take her research to a new level. Earlier this summer, she oversaw the launch of a web-based application to kick-off Chesapeake DolphinWatch, a citizen science-driven project aimed at helping her find some answers.
Aboard R/V Rachel Carson with her crew of two
The University of Maryland Center for Environmental Science's Research Fleet is the backbone of the Center’s coastal science research programs and Research Vessel Rachel Carson is the flagship of that UMCES fleet. But a ship is nothing without her crew.
The history behind UMCES' President's Award
When Don Boesch started the President’s Award 18 years ago for the University of Maryland Center for Environmental Science, he considered there are many awards faculty can receive for research and teaching.
“But," he recalled thinking, "we don’t celebrate and reward people for what most people in Maryland think we’re there for, and that is to provide good science that can be used.”
Does Science Matter? More than you know.
Proposed funding cuts and debate over climate change is questioning a subject that has given us a variety of technological and other advances from cell phones to modern medicine. We asked some of our scientists at the University of Maryland Center for Environmental Science to discuss why science matters, not just to them, but to our world and everyone in it. They cite examples from history and even our labs, and discuss the unforeseen values of discovery.
Women in science share stories of inspiration
Choosing a career in science is becoming more common for women. According to the National Science Foundation, nearly 11,000 women held doctoral degrees in science and engineering in 1973, compared to more than 100,000 in 2010. Science wasn’t always regarded as a career for women, however. Some faced obstacles they had to overcome to stay competitive. Some were encouraged instead to be wives and mothers, a notion that hasn’t wholly disappeared. These women often became role models for the next generation of scientists, including many at the University of Maryland Center for Environmental Science. For Women’s History Month, eight women from UMCES shared their stories about family, colleagues, teachers, and even brief acquaintances who inspired them.
Horn Point Laboratory on WHCP 101.5
WHCP 101.5 FM, Cambridge's community radio station, has been featuring Horn Point Laboratory's faculty scientists on Diane Marquette's MidShore MidDay show. Participants have included graduate students Emily Russ, Melanie Jackson, Blake Clark, and Jacqueline Tay, and faculty members Cindy Palinkas, Jamie Pierson, Raleigh Hood, Victoria Coles, and Sairah Malkin, who shared stories about how they got into their fields, discoveries that stood out to them, and what they want the public to know about the work they do and why they do it. Listen to each below.
Associate Professor Cindy Palinkas and graduate student Emily Russ on coastal sediments
Cindy Palinkas and her graduate student Emily Russ talk about their research in coastal sedimentology, the study of sand and mud on our coastlines, and how mud and seagrass interact with each other.
"A project we're about to start on living shorelines: If you put in a living shoreline, what happens to SAV habitat just off shore of that living shoreline. We take advantage of the fact that people have installed living shorelines all around the Bay and if we know when those living shorelines went in, then we can look in the sediments and see what happened in that sediment record before and after that living shoreline went in."
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Assistant Professor Jamie Pierson on the value of plankton in Chesapeake Bay
Jamie Pierson speaks about the most numerous multi-cellular organism on earth—copepods—and how they respond to low-oxygen levels in the water.
"I got really excited about zooplankton after looking at them under a microscope for the first time. There's this world of tiny animals that are living there in a dorp of water... and I realized I wanted to be the person that asked the questions and not just collected the samples."
Graduate student Melanie Jackson on oysters as water filters
Melanie Jackson speaks about her efforts to understand how much nitrogen that oysters, a known filter, can pull from the water.
"We know that the oysters can filter up to 50 gallons of water a day, and they're removing algae from the water. That's their normal food source, and those algae are filled with pollution, such as nitrogen and phosphorous. The oysters are consuming those algae and bringing all of that stuff to the sediment and storing it there on the bottom, so that our waters aren't as polluted."
Professor Raleigh Hood & graduate student Jacqueline Tay on jellyfish in Chesapeake Bay
Graduate student Jacqueline Tay, who has been studying jellyfish alongside her adviser, Raleigh Hood, answer some commonly asked questions, such as "What are jellyfish good for? "and "How many are there in Chesapeake Bay?"
"In the Chesapeake Bay, we have one of the longest records of jellyfish in the world," Tay says. "It started in the 1960s at our sister laboratory, Chesapeake Biological Laboratory, in Solomons, Maryland. It consisted of a scientist named Dave Cargo going out every day, walking along a pier, and counting how many jellyfish are there. And that's how we know most of what we know about natural populations of jellyfish."
Assistant Professor Sairah Malkin on bacteria found around the world
Sairah Malkin, a microbial ecologist, discusses microorganisms that do their part to help Chesapeake Bay and how she studies something that can't readily be seen without a microscope.
"There's an expression in microbial ecology that says, 'Everything is everywhere, but the environment selects.' What that means is that we probably have all the genes of all the bacteria just about found all over the Earth, so if we go to the deep sea in the Pacific Ocean, or Chesapeake Bay, or we go to a lake in Wisconsin, we'll be able to find all the different components that make up all of the microbes. But in every location, the environment will narrow down what's actually found and can thrive there by the temperature, by the oxygen concentration, and everything else that creates the environment."
Graduate student Blake Clark on the wonder of wetlands
Blake Clark talks about his graduate studies at Horn Point Laboratory, including his research about wetlands and estuaries and the chemistry of each and how they interact.
"Wetlands are very productive. We live in Dorchester County, and we have one of the coolest wetlands out there: Blackwater Wildlife Refuge... These wetlands grow every year. They get massive. What they're doing is taking a bunch of carbon dioxide out of the atmosphere and making it into organic matter, or living tissue... That's why the wetland grows. You go out there, and it has a bunch of peat. Well, peat is dead plant matter, for the most part. I'm interested in what happens when you have tidal water that comes into the wetland and that peat loses some of its organic matter in the form of this stuff called dissolved organic carbon. It is why the Blackwater is black."
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Associate Professor Victoria Coles on approaching climate change as a scientist
Victoria Coles talks about her training as a physical oceanographer, her transition over time to focus more to chemistry and biology, and her discoveries of climate change both around the world and at Chesapeake Bay.
"Probably my most famous discovery happened really early, and that's partly because over time we understand more about the importance of the things that we find, and so what seems kind of neat at the beginning could turn out to have even more importance later on. We were seeing really large changes in the properties of the ocean near the Arctic. At the time we weren't sure if that was due to climate change, and now we know it was."
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