Biography: Eran Andrechek received his B.Sc. and Ph.D. from McMaster University in Ontario. His dissertation research characterized the role of HER2 in both normal development and in breast cancer using innovative new genetically engineered models under the training of Dr. William Muller. For postdoctoral work, Dr. Andrechek joined the lab of Dr. Joseph Nevins at Duke University where he integrated bioinformatic analysis with mouse models of breast cancer. Since starting his laboratory at Michigan State, Dr. Andrechek has focused on the integration of genomics with mouse models of breast cancer. This has included the generation of new models as well as use of CRISPR/Cas9 systems to rapidly test bioinformatically generated hypotheses in human breast cancer cell lines. Each student in the lab is trained in both computational work and traditional “wet work” in an interdisciplinary approach. Research in the laboratory has been supported by the NIH / NCI, DoD, Pardee Foundation, AICR, Metavivor, Aitch Foundation and Susan G. Komen. This has resulted in numerous publications since starting the laboratory in 2009 in journals including Molecular Cell, PLoS Genetics, Cancer Research, Oncogene and many others.

Biography: Dr. Aliakbar Ashkarran is an Assistant Professor at Precision Health Program and Department of Radiology, College of Human Medicine, Michigan State University (MSU). He received his B.S. and M.S. in solid-state physics and Ph.D. in nanoscience and nanotechnology from Sharif University of Technology, Tehran, Iran. He was an Assistant Professor of physics at the University of Mazandaran in Iran and then moved to US and started a postdoctoral position at Harvard University. Prior coming to MSU, he was a Postdoctoral Fellow at Department of Chemistry and Chemical Biology and Center for Nanomedicine at Brigham and Women’s Hospital, Harvard Medical School at Harvard University. His current research interests include nanomedicine, protein corona, magnetic levitation, disease detection and diagnostic devices, bioelectronic and point-of-care. His research interests include, nanomedicine, protein corona, disease diagnostics, magnetic levitation, and bioelectronics.

Biography: Babana-Hampton´s most recent book, Réflexions littéraires sur l´espace public marocain dans l´oeuvre d´Abdellatif Laâbi (Summa Publications, 2008), focuses on the work of eminent Moroccan writer Abdellatif Laâbi. Her publications also include articles and book chapters examining conceptions of multicultural citizenship, transnational identities and artistic hybridity in Francophone literary and filmic narratives from North Africa, the North African diaspora in France and Québec. Her current research project is a comparative study of images of multicultural citizenship in literary and filmic productions in the Maghreb and the Maghrebi diaspora in France. 

Biography: Saul Beceiro-Novo Is an Assistant Professor in the Department of Physics & Astronomy since 2015 and adjunct at the National Superconducting Cyclotron Lab. Since his undergraduate studies, Saul has been very curious about the “small world” and took the decision to focus in the study of nuclear matter when he started his Ph.D. He worked in the study of light exotic nuclei within the R3B collaboration of GSI (Darmstadt). His main interests were reactions of astrophysical interest. After graduation, Saul moved to MSU to continue exploring exotic light nuclei with the Active Target Time Projection Chamber (AT-TPC). It was an exciting time, since he built, commissioned and started running the detector.At the same time, his passion for education made him focus in developing new physics courses, applying active learning techniques. In particular, Dr. Beceiro-Novo has worked in the ISP209 and 209L intro physics classes for non-science majors. Mentoring is also a very important part of his work. He incorporate several undergraduate and graduate students in the laboratory work and also coaches the learning assistants of the department to better work with students.

Biography: There are somewhere between 2 and 10 million living species on earth – possibly more. What processes create this incredible diversity? The deep and difficult question of how new species form has challenged biologists for a long time. This question is at the heart of my research program. A unifying theme of my work is to understand how an organisms’ behavior generates selection that results in diversification, and how diverse behavior itself evolves under the influence of multiple forms of selection. Behavioral traits are thus the primary phenotypes of interest, but can also be the agents of evolutionary change.

Biography: Dr. Brenden is originally from South Dakota and graduated with a BS degree in Biological Sciences from South Dakota State University. He then attended Virginia Tech and received MS and PhD degrees in Fisheries and Wildlife Sciences; and received an MS degree in Statistics. Shortly before completing his PhD, he moved to Michigan and was employed as a Post-Doctoral Research Associate at the University of Michigan. Dr. Brenden’s assignment in the Michigan State University Department of Fisheries and Wildlife is 55% research, 10% instruction, 20% extension/outreach, and 15% service/administration. He serves as co-Director of the Quantitative Fisheries Center, (QFC; www.canr.msu.edu/qfc), a research, outreach, and education center that provides analytic and modeling assistance to fishery management agencies within the Great Lakes region. Prior to serving as co-Director, Dr. Brenden was Associate Director for the QFC from 2006 to 2021. He develops, apply, and teach simulation modeling and advanced data analytic/computational techniques to address contemporary fishery management challenges.

Biography: Professor Emeritus Daniel Bronstein taught in the College of Agriculture and Natural Resources as well as the Medical School. Professor Bronstein was admitted to the bar in both Michigan and Maryland. In the American Bar Association he served as Chair of the Committee on Environmental Law and Vice-Chair of the Committee on Rules and Procedure. He was one of the seven founders of the International Association for Impact Assessment and edited its international journal, Impact Assessment and Project Appraisal, from 1993-1999. He also served as a consultant to local, state and federal government agencies, private corporations and international organizations. 

Biography: Steven Bursian, Associate Chair, Animal Science, conducts research examining the effects of toxicants of industrial, agricultural, or natural origin on domestic animals or on wildlife species maintained in a laboratory setting. He lectures in undergraduate toxicology courses to better inform students of chemical contaminants in the environment and to prepare students for more advanced studies in the field. 

Biography: Dr. Alex Burt is a professor in the department of Psychology in the College of Social Science. She received her PhD in Clinical Psychology/Behavioral Genetics and MA in Clinical Psychology/Behavioral Genetics from the University of Minnesota. She received her BS in Psychology & History, Emory University, 1996. Dr. Burt has several research interests. The first focuses on understanding the etiology of aggressive and rule-breaking behaviors across the lifespan. Her particular focus is on the role of environmental influences (e.g., neighborhood danger/deprivation, environmental toxicants), both as main effects and also as moderators of genetic influences (e.g., how these environments may turn genes “on and off”). She is equally interested in those youth who demonstrate resilience – or adaptive outcomes despite exposure to a clear environmental risk. Her funded NIH grants for this work seek to 1) identify the neural pathways affected by neighborhood disadvantage (the so-called 'biological embedding of disadvantage'), and 2) illuminate the ‘active ingredients’ (e.g., exposures to neurotoxicants, community violence, harsh parenting) through which disadvantage alters the developing brain, as well as those that protect the brain and promote resilience (i.e., protective neighborhood social processes, prosocial parenting).

Biography: Associate Dean in the Graduate School and professor of wildlife ecology, Rique Campa’s research interests are in the areas of wildlife-habitat analysis and management, ecosystem management, habitat disturbance impacts, and wildlife nutrition; also, the career and professional development associated with graduate education. 

Biography: Siddharth Chandra is Director of the Asian Studies Center and Professor of Economics in James Madison College at Michigan State University. He received his Ph.D. in economics from Cornell University, his A.M. (Ph.D. pass) in economics from the University of Chicago, and his B.A. (with honors) in economics from Brandeis University. Prior to joining Michigan State University, he was Director of the Asian Studies Center and Associate Professor at the Graduate School of Public and International Affairs at the University of Pittsburgh.

Biography: Steven M. Chermak is a professor in the School of Criminal Justice at Michigan State University. He received his BA in 1987 from Bowling Green State University, and MA and Ph.D. from State University of New York at Albany. Dr. Chermak is interested in studying terrorism, school shootings, mass shootings, criminal justice organizations, and media coverage of crime and criminal justice. Much of his work in the last ten years has focused on terrorist and extremist activity. He and several colleagues are responsible for building the Extremist Crime Database (ECDB), one of the leading databases on domestic terrorism activities in the US. The ECDB has allowed him to publish articles understanding patterns of violence of far right, far left, and al-Qaeda inspired extremists, documenting how lone wolf attacks are different than group-inspired terrorist attacks, and examining the characteristics of foiled terrorist plots. More recently, he and colleagues have received funding to build another database on fatal and non-fatal school shootings. This database is in the final stages of completion, and it will provide an opportunity to better understand the characteristics of perpetrators that commit school violence and discuss differences in schools victimized by fatal and non-fatal attacks. Dr. Chermak’s research has been funded by the Department of Homeland Security, National Institute of Justice, and the Michigan State Police. He has published two books, seven edited books, and numerous research reports. His research has appeared in a number of journals including Journal of Quantitative Criminology, Criminology and Public Policy, Justice Quarterly, Policing: An International Journal of Police Strategies and Management, Journal of Criminal Justice, Criminal Justice Policy Review, and the Journal of Crime, Conflict, and the Media.

Biography: C. Kurt Dewhurst was a founder of the Folk Arts Division at the museum. In addition to his administrative duties, he coordinates a variety of folk life research, collection development, and outreach and engagement programs. He is one of the founding directors of the Festival of Michigan Folk life, a coordinator for the National Folk Festival (when it was in East Lansing), and co-Director of the Great Lakes Folk Festival. His research interests include cultural change and continuity in folk arts, material culture, ethnicity, and occupational folk culture. Other areas of research include museum studies theory and practice and national and international cultural heritage policy. He teaches courses in folk life, material folk culture, and museum studies-including an annual MSU Education Abroad Program on expressive arts, cultural heritage and museum studies in South Africa. 

Biography: Christina Difonzo grew up in northwestern Pennsylvania and attended Mercyhurst College in Erie, PA for a Bachelor’s degree in Biology and a minor in English literature. Her Masters and PhD degrees in entomology were from the University of Minnesota. Both degrees focused on the epidemiology and management of aphid-vectored viruses of commercial and seed potato. After graduation, Christina was a BARD Postdoctoral Fellow at the Volcani Center, the Agricultural Research Organization for Israel, where she did further work on plant viruses and aphids. In 1996, Christina started as the Pesticide Education Coordinator and field crops entomologist at MSU, transitioning to full-time in field crops 2002 after the discovery of soybean aphid in North America. Her fondness for aphids earned her the nickname ‘Aphid Queen’

Biography: As a Teaching Specialist, Dr. Eustice’s teaching assignment includes instruction of CSUS 200 (Introduction to Sustainability), CSUS 273 (Introduction to Travel and Tourism), CSUS 301 (Community Engagement for Sustainability), CSUS 310 (History of Environmental Thought and Sustainability), and CSUS 474 (Advanced Topics in Tourism Management). Crystal also serves as an undergraduate academic adviser and internship coordinator for SPRT students in the Department of Community Sustainability. Crystal holds a Ph.D. in Sustainable Tourism and Protected Area Management with a specialization in Ecological Food and Farming Systems from MSU, a M.S. in Community, Agriculture, Recreation, and Resource Studies, and a B.S. in Environmental Studies and Agriscience with a specialization in Community Engagement and Education. As an interdisciplinary researcher, her interests and projects include applied research in parks and recreation, sustainable tourism, local and regional food systems, as well as research focused on teaching and learning.

Biography: Dr. Everett is a Professor of Practice, and Internship Coordinator within the Department of Community Sustainability College of Agriculture & Natural Resources at Michigan State University. He has degrees in Mathematics; Crop and Soil Science; and Community, Agriculture, Recreation and Resource Studies. Michael has taught or is currently teaching courses in community sustainability, educational theory and experiential learning, and teaching practice. Dr. Everett’s research investigates the application of social psychological theories to Conservation Education and Human Dimensions of Wildlife and Ecosystems. He also engages in Teaching-as-Research and the SoTL.

Biography: Eric Freedman is a Professor of Journalism and Chair of the Knight Center for Environmental Jounalism. He is a winner of the Pulitzer Prize for reporting. Freedman is a former Fulbright senior scholar in Lithuania and Uzbekistan and has conducted training workshops for professional journalists in Central Asia sponsored by the State Department, Internews, Freedom House, and other organizations. Freedman's research interests include press rights and journalistic practices in Central Asia and media coverage of international environmental issues. His research interests include press systems and journalism practices in the former Soviet Union: international journalists’ professional standards and education; public affairs reporting; news coverage of human and political rights; and U.S. political history.

Biography: Freymueller is an internationally recognized leader in the field of geodesy, and utilizes satellites from the Global Positioning System (GPS) to make highly precise measurements of movement on Earth’s surface. In his far-reaching research activities, he has made discoveries in a wide range of topics including plate tectonics and plate boundary zones, faults dynamics, the continuing rebound of the Earth’s surface from the melting of ice-age glaciers, inflation and deflation of volcanoes, and interpreting how changing water and ice levels deform the Earth. He is particularly well-cited for his work on using GPS to understand the crustal deformation in China, related to the formation of the Himalayas and the Tibetan Plateau.

Biography: Stephen Gasteyer researches the structures and processes that influence community level access to critical natural resources and capacity to manage those resources. Relatedly, he also applies a systems analysis to understanding community leadership and economic development decision making. 

Biography: Bin Gu, Ph.D. received his BS degree in Bio-technology and his Ph.D. degree in Cell Biology from Zhejiang University in Hangzhou, China. He completed postdoctoral training at the Hospital for Sick Children in Canada from 2013 to 2020 in the Program of Developmental and Stem Cell Biology. He is now an Assistant Professor in the Department of Obstetrics, Gynecology and Reproductive Biology within the College of Human Medicine. His areas of expertise include, early embryo development, live imaging, genome engineering, and mouse models of human genetic diseases. Research- The focus of Dr. Gu’s, infertility and genetic disease. Bin’s lab developed new genome engineering technology to generate mouse models for complex mutations to model human diseases. He studies them using cutting-edge technologies, such as live imaging and in-vivo genetic engineering, to understand the mechanism and develop new treatments for human

Biography: Keith Hampton, Ph.D., enjoys sharing and exploring new research across disciplines, and introducing students to the study of social network analysis. He is a focused teacher whose research-rich style brings concepts to life through the study of media and information theory and methods. Hampton studies community and the relationship between digital technologies, social networks, democratic engagement and the urban environment. A dual citizen of the U.S. and Canada, Hampton received his doctorate and Master of Arts in sociology from the University of Toronto, and his Bachelor of Arts (Hons.) in sociology from the University of Calgary. Before joining the faculty at MSU, he was the Endowed Professor in Communication and Public Policy and Co-Chair of the Social Media & Society Cluster in the Department of Communication in the School of Communication and Information at Rutgers. Other previous posts include assistant professor at the Annenberg School for Communication, University of Pennsylvania; as well as Assistant Professor of Technology, Urban and Community Sociology, and Endowed Class of ’43 Chair in the Department of Urban Studies and Planning at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology.

Biography: Associate Chair Daniel Hayes' position is funded through the Partnership for Ecosystem Research and Management, a cooperative venture between the Michigan Department of Natural Resources and Michigan State University. His primary research interest is to determine how fish habitat affects their population dynamics. By linking population dynamics with habitat, he hopes to help fishery managers in their goal of sustaining valuable fisheries. In addition to this, he is also interested in the impact of fishing on fish populations, as well as the general ecology of fishes. 

Biography: Heather Howard is an Assistant Professor in the Department of Anthropology. She teaches cultural and medical anthropology courses, including Indigenous Peoples' Health. Her Native research interests include women and youth, the role of history in community and social service organizing, and transformations in community-based health knowledge and practice. She is currently developing research projects which examine Native experiences with and approaches to Type-2 Diabetes in Michigan, and in Toronto where she has worked with the Native community since 1995. Dr. Howard has also worked as a professional ethno historian for tribes in California and in the Great Lakes area on projects involving resource rights, tribal jurisdiction, federal acknowledgment and land claims. She is preparing publications of research she conducted on connections between Canadian boarding school and contemporary Native experiences of chronic illness, as well as on the impact of the vicissitudes in federal policy on Native people's health in early twentieth century central California. 

Biography: Rex LaMore is State Director of the Michigan State University's Community Economic Development Program and a member of the faculty of the Urban and Regional Planning Program in the newly established School of Planning, Design and Construction at MSU. His current research is focused on Michigan's "knowledge economy and creative communities" where he and a team of scholars at MSU have developed a knowledge economy index for Michigan's counties and municipalities. As the architect of the 1992 Outreach Partnership Act with Senator Don Riegle of Michigan, Dr. LaMore's work has affected the nature of University/Community partnerships nationwide. In 1995 he was the national recipient of the Community Development Society's Distinguished Service Award, in recognition of his leadership and sustained commitment to excellence in community development. 

Biography: Nick Little is Managing Director of the Railway Management Program at the Eli Broad College of Business at Michigan State University. Nick has extensive industry and international experience in Railways, Supply Management and Supply Chain Management. After completion of British Rail's prestigious Supplies Management Training Scheme, he worked within the UK Railway industry and its subsidiaries in Derby and London. He then moved to the UK Post Office where he established a regional and business unit supply management organization and led a complete review of both internal and external Post Office supply chains reducing annual operating costs by 25% in two years and achieving a recurrent annual saving over £10 million ($16 million). Nick also was involved in internal education and development. Nick has a Bachelor of Arts in Business Studies from Ealing CHE in England and, professionally, is qualified MCIPS (UK Chartered Institute of Purchasing and Supply) and CPSM from ISM (US) Since joining MSU in 1995, Nick has led work on a number of benchmarking/research projects, including Supply Chain Performance, Procurement Strategy Development/Implementation, and Indirect Purchases. In addition Nick compiled a Strategy Focus Report on Services Purchasing. Nick chaired the Supply-Chain Council's North America Leadership Team, Supply Chain World - North America Conference & Exposition (Baltimore, MD, May 2011) and tracks at several of their annual conferences. Nick was an elected member of the APICS Education & Research Board, serving as Treasurer and Company Secretary. Nick is passionate about people development and their role in delivering competitive advantage for their employers. A founding member of the global Supply Chain Talent Academic Initiative, he has working globally with industry, academia and professional bodies to close the gap in supply chain talent supply and demand in terms of quantity and quality. Throughout his career, Nick has designed, developed and delivered training at managerial and executive levels for purchasing and other operational and administrative staff groups. Nick brought that valuable industry-based expertise to complement the academic strengths of Michigan State University faculty as a key member of its Executive Development Programs group, specializing in customized programs and client relationships covering supply chain management globally. Nick has assumed leadership of the Railway Management Certificate Program and new programs, workshops and seminars as part of the Railway Research and Education team. In this role, he brings his extensive knowledge of railways and their management into play.

Biography: Michael Lockett is a curriculum scholar with a background in literary studies and mathematics. He completed his PhD at Queen’s University and he’s held teaching posts at the University of Calgary, the Royal University of Bhutan, and Simon Fraser University. Though Michael’s approach to education is influenced by a variety of scholars both contemporary and classical, two Canadian academics, Jan Zwicky and Ross Leckie, are of paramount importance to his practice. He finds the pairing of pragmatic and theoretical concerns in curriculum work rewarding and he’s particularly interested in educational questions pertaining to pedagogical language and aesthetic experience.

Biography: David Long does research and teaching in the areas of Aqueous and Environmental Geochemistry.  He has been: studying the biogeochemical cycles and interactions of elements (including trace and heavy metals) and dissolved organic compounds in surface environments (e.g., wetlands, rivers, lakes, groundwater); working to understand both the natural and human induced changes in water chemistry as it moves through the water cycle using stable isotopes, multivariate statistics, and geochemical modeling; quantifying the influences of human activities on environmental systems using sediment chronologies; and relating knowledge learned from the above studies to evaluate the influences of the environment on human health through exposure analysis.

Biography: Dr. Morteza Mahmoudi is an Assistant Professor of Radiology and Precision Health Program at Michigan State University (MSU). Prior coming to MSU, he was an Assistant Professor of Anesthesiology at Brigham and Women’s Hospital, Harvard Medical School. His specific research interest is in nanomedicine and regenerative medicine for the development of new nano-based platforms for prevention/treatment of life-threatening conditions such as cardiomyopathy, cancer, and neurodegenerative diseases. Aside from nanomedicine and regenerative medicine, Dr. Mahmoudi is also very active in social sciences and specifically in drawing the attention of the scientific community in the rising issue of academic bullying. In addition, he is also working on identifying the reasons behind the enormous disparity between the numbers of major prize winners between the sexes (which currently stands at more than an order of magnitude in favor of male nominees) and seek to draw the attention of award agencies, researchers, entrepreneurs, and media to reexamine the historical imbalances between the sexes in winning major scientific awards. He is among 2018 highly cited researchers in 2018 as reported by Clarivate Analytics

Biography: Rebecca Malouin is director of research for the Institute for Global Health. Dr. Malouin received both her PhD and MPH at the Johns Hopkins University Bloomberg School of Public Health and completed postdoctoral training in epidemiology at Michigan State University. She also serves as an external evaluator for the Priority Health Patient-Centered Medical Home Initiative, the Children’s Healthcare Access Program in Grand Rapids, Michigan, and the UnitedHealthcare PCMH pilot project in Arizona. She has written a monograph for the American Academy of Pediatrics, describing available tools to measure the pediatric medical home. Rebecca was awarded a K01 Mentored Research Scientist Award from the Agency for Healthcare Research and Quality in October 2009 for a project “Defining and Building a Patient-Centered Medical Home.”

Biography: Steven A. Melnyk is Professor of Operations Management for the Department of Marketing and Supply Chain Management specializing in operations management. From 1995-1999, he was chosen as one of the 10 Best MBA faculty at MSU's Eli Broad School of Business by Business Week. In addition, he has won many grants including a research grant from the Manufacturing Research Consortium in 1994, and a National Science Foundation grant in Environmentally Conscious Manufacturing from 1995-1997. 

Biography: Steven R. Miller specializes in applied economic methods for forecasting and impact analysis. As a graduate, Steven maintained and programmed the Oklahoma State University Econometric Forecasting model and served as investigator on several Oklahoma Department of Human Resources studies of TANF funding, and child support studies for impact and needs assessments. He has produced numerous impact assessments for Wichita, Kansas area businesses seeking state and local sponsored incentives, produced papers on aviation demand across competing regional airports, and papers on alternative estimation methods of systems modeling. 

Biography: His doctoral research at Northwestern University was with Aryeh Routtenberg where he investigated the neurochemistry of memory, resulting in a Science publication. Dr. Morgan’s postdoctoral studies addressed aging-related changes in rodent and human brain in the laboratory of Caleb “Tuck” Finch. Morgan became a faculty member at the University of Southern California in 1986 where his research projects focused on astrocytes and microglia in aged brain, including Alzheimer's tissues. Dr. Morgan moved to the University of South Florida (USF) in 1992, where he was involved in generating the APP+PS1 transgenic mouse model of amyloid deposition as a tool to screen treatments for Alzheimer’s disease. The Morgan Lab was the first to show that immunotherapy against the amyloid peptide rescued the memory deficits in APP mouse models, published in Nature. In 2009 Morgan became CEO/Executive Director of the Byrd Alzheimer’s Institute at USF where he developed programs in Community-Based Memory Screening, the multispecialty Center for Memory C.A.R.E., and established a mobile clinical trials unit to promote clinical research participation at retirement centers. In 2017 he relocated to Michigan State University in Grand Rapids. He is presently an MSU Foundation Professor and Director of the College of Human Medicine Alzheimer’s Alliance. Dr. Morgan has over 200 peer-reviewed publications and has been continuously funded through NIH since 1989. Morgan served for 6 years on the Program Committee for the Alzheimer's Association International Conference, the last 3 years as Chairperson

Biography: Dr. Mowbray is a research methodologist specializing in the use of big data and health records to answer timely research questions concerning nursing care provided for older ED patients. Further, Dr. Mowbray supports the education of statistics and research methods for the College of Nursing, providing consultation to doctoral students and faculty as needed. Dr. Mowbray is currently an Associate Fellow with the United States branch of interRAI ©, where he works with geriatric clinicians, researchers, and methodologists to develop national and institutional assessment items to support the care and evaluation of older adults.

Biography: Fritz Nelson has conducted field research in Alaska almost continuously since the late 1970s, and has field experience in Siberia, Mongolia, Tibet, and subarctic Canada. He has served as President of the U.S. Permafrost Association, as a member of the Board of Governors of the Arctic Institute of North America, as Councilor and Vice-President of the American Geographical Society, and as a Councilor of the International Permafrost Association. Nelson’s research group focuses on several themes: (1) the evolution of cold, nonglacial (periglacial) landscapes; (2) the impacts of climatic change in permafrost environments; (3) terrain-climate interactions (topoclimate); (4) the distribution and mapping of permafrost and periglacial features; and (5) the history of American geography and cold-regions science. He has supervised M.S. and Ph.D. research in each of these areas. He is currently a co-PI on the Circumpolar Active Layer Monitoring (CALM) program, an international global-change monitoring effort involving investigators from 15 countries and more than 200 permafrost observatories operating in Antarctica, the Arctic, the Tibetan Plateau, and several high-elevation regions in the mid-latitudes. Nelson also co-manages an extensive field-based climatology program in the Upper Peninsula’s Huron Mountain Club, one of the largest areas of old-growth forest in the eastern United States.

Biography: Maria Porter is an Assistant Professor in the Department of Agricultural, Food, and Resource Economics. She is currently involved in research projects in Burkina Faso, China, and the UK. This research involves work on intra-household labor allocation decisions, factors influencing households' adoption of new agricultural technologies, understanding adult children's motivations for giving transfers and support to parents, and household bargaining between spouses. She employs a variety of research methods, including randomized control trials, laboratory experiments, and survey data analysis. Maria holds a Ph.D. in Economics from the University of Chicago. Before coming to MSU, she was a research fellow at the University of Oxford. She has taught graduate courses in household and development economics, and undergraduate courses in intermediate microeconomics and development economics. 

Biography: Dr. Robert Quinn was raised in Bancroft, Ontario, Canada in close proximity to Algonquin Park, which sparked his early interest in biology through constant interaction with the outdoors. He received his Undergraduate and Master’s degrees in microbiology at the University of Guelph in Ontario, Canada. He then completed a PhD with Dr. Andrei Chistoserdov at the University of Louisiana at Lafayette studying the microbiome of Epizootic Shell Disease in the American Lobster. He completed his postdoctoral studies with Dr. Forest Rohwer at San Diego State University and Pieter Dorrestein at UC San Diego studying the cystic fibrosis lung microbiome, coral reefs and other complex microbial systems. As an assistant professor at Michigan State University, Dr. Quinn uses multi-omics methods including metagenomics, metabolomics and classic microbiology approaches to understand the causes of dysbiosis in host associated microbial communities. Dr. Quinn has studied the microbiome of everything from salmon, to lobsters, to corals, to lungs, to guts, to….whatever is next. He is a huge sports fan and spends some of his spare time trying figure out how to apply advanced baseball statistics to microbiome research.

Biography: Laura Reese is Professor of Political Science and Director of the Global Urban Studies Program (GUSP). Professor Reese's main research and teaching areas are urban politics and public policy, economic development, and local governance and management in both Canada and the US. She has conducted large-scale evaluations for the Economic Development Administration, U.S. Department of Commerce. Her research on sub-state economic development programs includes Tax Increment Finance Authorities and Industrial Tax Abatements. 

Biography: Kristen Renn is professor of Higher, Adult, & Lifelong Education (HALE) in the Department of Educational Administration at Michigan State University, where she also serves as the Associate Dean of Undergraduate Studies for Student Success Research. She teaches courses related to student development, diversity and equity, and education research in the Student Affairs Administration MA program and the HALE MA and PhD programs. Prior to coming to MSU, she was assistant professor of higher education and qualitative research at Southern Illinois University Carbondale, a policy analyst for the Massachusetts Board of Higher Education, and, for ten years, a dean in the Office of Student Life at Brown University. A Mount Holyoke College alumna, she received her PhD in Higher Education from Boston College. Dr. Renn’s research interests include student success and persistence, identity and identity development in higher education; mixed race college students; women in higher education in the US and global contexts; and LGBTQ (lesbian, gay, bisexual, transgender, queer) issues in higher education. A grant from the Spencer Foundation supported her international study of women’s postsecondary institutions. She is MSU’s co-liaison to the University Innovation Alliance and co-PI on several grants related to increasing success for low-income and underrepresented students.

Biography: Kelly Richmond is an artist-scholar, teacher, amateur circus performer, avid flower photographer, part-time cat rescuer, and full-time ghost hunter. Born and raised in Toronto, she has since lived in Montréal, Québec; Ottawa, Ontario; and Ithaca, New York. Kelly has published on queer circus, new materialist performance, and environmental stewardship in theatre education. Her research examines the intersections of queer performance, environmental activism, and gothic aesthetics.

Biography: Douglas Roberts, Director Emeritus- Institute for Public Policy & Social Research, holds more than 28 years of experience in Michigan government, including 10 years as state treasurer, time as director of the Senate Fiscal Agency, deputy superintendent of the Department of Education, deputy director of the Department of Management and Budget (DMB) and acting director of DMB. He played a major role in the creation and adoption of what is now called "Proposal A." He also served for two years as a vice president with Lockheed Martin IMS. 

Biography: Rick Sadler is a Flint native and urban geographer with expertise in environmental science, GIS, food systems planning, and land use policy in legacy cities. He attended the University of Michigan-Flint (BSc, 2007) to pursue his life-long dream of becoming a cartographer, and later attended graduate school in the Department of Geography at the University of Western Ontario (PhD, 2013) to--among other things--immerse himself in the Canadian system of urban planning. More recently, Rick was awarded a Bloomberg Fellowship to study at the Johns Hopkins Bloomberg School of Public Health (MPH, 2020). His experiences growing up in the Flint region--where industrial growth, subsequent deindustrialization, and fragmented planning practices have had a profound influence on the built form--shaped his drive to resolve inequalities that arise from imbalances between the salutogenic and pathogenic properties of urban areas. Rick’s research interests reflect this concern, and include an integration of urban planning and public health topics related to neighborhood/built environmental effects on health. Some such topics include local food systems, urban agriculture, access to healthy food, crime, urban disorder, blight elimination, residential segregation, and active travel. Methodologically, he combines spatial analysis and community-based participatory research approaches to address challenges in the urban environment.

Biography: Richard Casey Sadler, PhD, MPH, is an assistant professor in the Department of Family Medicine who engages in public health research through the CHM’s Division of Public Health in Flint. He earned a BSc in Environmental Science and Planning from the University of Michigan-Flint and a PhD in Geography from the University of Western Ontario. A geographer through and through, he was initially a ‘fish out of water’ in public health. But since joining MSU in 2015, he has expanded his expertise, working with a range of research and community partners and completing his Master’s in Public Health from Johns Hopkins University (where he attended as a Bloomberg Fellow). Dr. Sadler’s research is aimed at strengthening the understanding between the built environment and health behaviors/outcomes, with the goal of shaping land use policy to build healthier cities. His work is integrated with community organizations, and leans heavily on geographic information systems to identify and address disparities in the social determinants of health.

Biography: Kim Scribner is an evolutionary ecologist with broad interests in population genetics and vertebrate life history, demography and behavior. Research in his lab involves novel application of molecular genetic markers and evolutionary theory to examine important questions in ecological genetics and conservation biology including: levels of gene flow through heterogeneous aquatic and terrestrial landscapes, the evolution of life history traits as adaptations to thermal spawning environments, how environmental heterogeneity and mating systems affect inter-individual variance in reproductive success and genealogical relationships within populations, intra-specific and comparative phylogeography, and development of non-invasive DNA collection methods to estimate population abundance and spatial genetic structure. He is one of several faculty in the Department of Fisheries and Wildlife who holds a cooperative appointment through the Partnership for Ecosystem Research and Management (PERM) program with regional Fisheries and Wildlife agencies. His appointment is affiliated with the Fisheries Division of the Michigan Department of Natural Resources. 

Biography: Janice Siegford has two main areas of research interest: (1) animal behavior and (2) animal welfare. My interests in animal behavior include cognition, communication, social behavior, and their neural basis, as well as companion animal behavioral therapy, and interspecific interactions. Her interests in animal welfare focus generally on understanding what current practices or environments impact animal welfare and determining how we can practically address these situations. In addition, she seeks to develop non-invasive automated strategies for collecting data about animal behavior and welfare from animals in their home environments. 

Biography: Dr Huff is a social scientist in the Department of Forestry at Michigan State University. She is interested in the effect of humans on natural resources availability and quality. Dr Huff’s work focuses most on forested systems, both rural and urban. She has also worked on human dimensions of wildlife topics and collaborate with scholars from ecology, psychology, sociology, engineering and policy. Emily’s work is meant to inform better management, stewardship and conservation of trees and other green spaces with the overall goal of improving human health and wellbeing while keeping the environment healthy and functional.

Biography: Michael Stamm specializes in American media and journalism history and holds a joint appointment at MSU in the Department of History and the School of Journalism. He received his Ph.D. from the University of Chicago in 2006, where he studied American cultural and political history. Stamm's other areas of research include media reform movements, the relationship between radio sound and print culture, religious broadcasting, the intellectual history of communication theory, and the business history of the American newspaper. 

Biography: Dr. Stevenson employ his technical expertise in algal taxonomy and ecology to test ecological theory and to develop approaches for solving environmental problems. He is particularly interested in how ecological systems respond to environmental change. Dr. Stevenson also works with federal and state officials to develop protocols for ecological assessment and development of water quality criteria. Working with resource managers and policy makers often stimulates new directions for my research.  One of these new directions is relating ecosystem services and condition in coupled human and natural systems.

Biography: Caroline was born and raised near Lancaster, Pennsylvania - a special place known for its both farmland and chocolate. From 2005-2009 she completed her undergraduate studies at Lafayette College, which included a memorable semester spent in Madrid, Spain. She headed to Boulder, Colorado for her graduate studies (2009-2014)After completing her Ph.D, she moved to Nice, France for a postdoctoral position (Université de Nice - Sophia Antipolis)In September 2017 she returned back to the USA and was a Research Professor in the Department of Chemical & Biological Engineering at Northwestern University for two years, enjoying Chicago and the proximity to Lake Michigan during this time. Since August 2019 Caroline has been a member of the Department of Chemical Engineering & Materials Science at Michigan State University and is excited to explore more of the mid-west in this new position.

Biography: Veronique Theriault is an associate professor in the Department of Agricultural, Food, and Resource Economics at Michigan State University. Reducing poverty and improving food and nutrition security through rural and agricultural development in Africa form the core of Dr. Theriault’s research agenda. Her research portfolio includes projects to increase performance and enhance inclusiveness along agricultural value chains; from input provision to farming, processing, and trading. She is interested in understanding how to better link smallholder farmers to agribusinesses and improve livelihood opportunities of smallholder farmers, women, and youth. She has worked extensively on the effects of institutional arrangements, such as contract farming schemes, on cash and food crops, as well as on the impact of technology adoption, including fertilizer, on farm household productivity. Her current research focus involves the study of intrahousehold resource allocations and decision-making, fraudulent pesticide sales, and market opportunities for processed cowpea products.

Biography: Jeremy Wilson is a Professor in the School of Criminal Justice. At MSU, he founded and directs the Center for Anti-Counterfeiting and Product Protection (A-CAPP) and the program on Police Consolidation and Shared Services (PCaSS). Both programs are built specifically to develop through research and disseminate through education and outreach evidence-based lessons for decisionmakers, practitioners, policymakers, and scholars. The A-CAPP is the first and only University program dedicated specifically to building a science of product counterfeiting and anti-counterfeit strategy. Also unique in its University home, the PCaSS program focuses on understanding the nature, function, implementation, costs and benefits of all forms of police consolidation, shared services, and contracting. 

Biography: Aurora Wolfgang is a Professor of French specializing in 17 th-and 18 th-century literature. She is author of Gender and Voice in the French Novel: 1730-1782 and co-editor and translator of Jacques Du Bosc’s L’Honnête Femme: The Socially Respectable Woman (1632-36, Selections) and New Collection of Letters by Contemporary Women (1635). She is interested to connect with the University of Montreal for a direct French Immersion Program.

Biography: Gabriel Wrobel is an Associate Professor in Anthropology and Director of the Central Belize Archaeological Survey Project. He received his Associate of Arts and Bachelor of Science degree from Oxford College of Emory University. He received his Ph.D. in Anthropology from Indiana University in 2004. His primary research specialty is bioarchaeology, which concerns the analysis and interpretation of skeletal remains from archaeological contexts. He has conducted most of his research at Maya sites in Belize. (http://anthropology.msu.edu/cbasproject/). Located in the Caves Branch and Roaring Creek river valleys in west-central Belize, this project focuses on a variety of sites, including ritual rockshelters and caves, several large urban ceremonial centers, and surrounding settlement zones. The excavations and analyses conducted so far show that ancient Maya communities used the cave sites for various ceremonial and mortuary purposes over a span of approximately 2000 years. The changes over time in the rituals performed at the rural rockshelters and caves closely parallel sociopolitical transitions identified at the monumental centers we have investigated within our research area, as well as at other sites found throughout the rest of the Maya region. For this reason, the sites in central Belize are important in characterizing the effects of large-scale sociopolitical transformations on ancient Maya communities. The data derived from small rural agrarian contexts continue to provide a different perspective than that of the larger urban centers at which most archaeological investigations are focused. Gabriel’s recent work focuses on shape analysis of crania using 3D photogrammetric models. He is working on two projects, one focused on the ancient Maya and the other on the peopling of Papua New Guinea.

Biography: Jay Zarnetske's research interests cover hydrologic processes of the Earth’s Critical Zone: Water quality and resources; Groundwater – surface water interactions; Hydrological and biogeochemical responses to climate and land use change; Hydroecology – coupling of hydrology, biogeochemistry, and aquatic ecosystems; Aquatic ecosystem services and restoration; Cryosphere hydrology and biogeochemistry