Student Research Opportunities

Honors Research
Environmental Studies majors with a minimum cumulative grade point average of 3.50 at the end of the January term of the junior year or with special program approval are eligible to apply for the Environmental Studies Honors Research Program.

Research Assistant Positions with Faculty

Erin Love ('14) presents her summer research at the Geological Society of America conference.

During the academic year and during the summer break there are research assistant positions open to ES students.  Please review the faculty research statements below to find a link to your own research interests.  

Summer or Jan Plan Internships
Internships with non-profits, government, or private business are an essential part of education beyond the classroom.  Many of the positions held by past students have had a research component as part of their internship work.  This not only helps students gain real world skills but also helps the agency which is employing the students. The ES Program supports these efforts through mentoring and also through funding, which students can apply for.

Faculty and Staff Research Statements
(Student collaboration available)

Full listing of faculty/staff publications

ES Program Faculty
Environmental Studies- Assistant Professor Denise Bruesewitz
Professor Denise Bruesewitz is interested in how human activities alter aquatic ecosystem function. Specifically, she studies nitrogen, phosphorus, and carbon cycling in aquatic ecosystems with the goal of understanding how ecosystem function and ecosystem services change in response to human activities. Her ongoing projects include understanding how restored oyster reefs in New York City mitigate nutrient pollution, how lakes across the globe process carbon, and determining how rivers and estuaries in south Texas respond to drought and storms. At Colby, she will build upon ongoing research in the Belgrade Lakes, as well as local streams and rivers, with a focus on carbon and nutrient cycling in these aquatic systems.

Environmental Studies - Visiting Professor Gail Carlson
Gail's interests focus on the ways in which the environment impacts human health, including via climate change, extractive and polluting industrial activities, and human exposures to hazardous chemicals in the environment. She works with students on advocacy campaigns in the state of Maine to raise awareness about these issues and to advance support for legislative initiatives. Her research focuses on the role of state policy-making in advancing innovations to improve environmental health.

Environmental Studies - Oak Professor of Biological Sciences Russ Cole
Professor Russ Cole's research investigates the natural history,ecology, and conservation of mammals. He also studies the impact of exotic species on the biota of the Hawaiian Islands, plant/animal interactions and their ecological implications, Maine lake water quality in relation to watershed land use patterns, and sustainable development and campus resource use.    

Environmental Studies Research Scientist - Manny Gimond
Manuel Gimond’s research interest lies in modeling the thermodynamic processes at the earth/atmosphere interface from a second law of thermodynamics perspective with an emphasis on exergy analysis and emergy synthesis. He is particularly interested in quantifying the influence of spatial and temporal scales on such models using GIS. While employed at the Kennedy Space Center, Manuel has worked on validating land surface thermodynamic models using data from an extensive network of meteorological and Eddy-Covariance towers. Other interests include remote sensing of aquatic systems where Manuel has developed an open source stochastic model that simulates the propagation of light in water bodies.

Environmental Studies -  Assistant Professor Loren McClenachan
A New England native, Loren first became interested in conservation growing up on an organic farm in southern Vermont. Loren was an Environmental Studies major Middlebury College, and continued to work to cross disciplines in her graduate and post-graduate research. She is deeply concerned with long-term human impacts on marine species and ecosystems, and in her research, she works to (1) assess and quantify changes in the distribution and abundance of marine species over century-long time scales and (2) determine links between social history and changing marine environments. This research crosses the disciplines of marine ecology, conservation biology, and environmental history, and is motivated by the desire to conserve and restore degraded ocean and coastal ecosystems. To this end, Loren also aims to establish more accurate baselines for marine species—on which recovery targets can be set—and to understand past human interactions with the sea so that we can more successfully manage marine resources today. Loren has worked in tropical marine environments in the Caribbean, Florida Keys, and most recently in the Hawaiian Islands.

Environmental Studies - Environmental Studies Coordinator Lia Morris
During Lia's tenure as graduate student in natural  resource policy at Tufts University, her research efforts focused on studying  trends in community and natural resource development on lands adjacent to  national parks.  This research culminated in her gradate thesis Demilitarizing  Nature: Ecological Restoration of Military Land, Acadia National Park.  Upon graduation she worked for three years as the Outreach Coordinator for  the Penobscot River Restoration Project.  Lia currently serves on the board  of Maine Rivers, helping to address a broad range of issues affecting the rivers  of Maine.  In addition, Lia advises students on issues of campus greening and approaches to engaging with environmental issues here in Maine.

Environmental Studies Research Scientist - Ben Neal
Ben’s research is focused on understanding impacts to tropical marine ecosystems, particularly coral reefs, and how these ecosystems can recover from disturbance. Recent anthropogenic stresses to coral reefs and climate change impacts are causing unprecedented declines in coral reefs globally, and his work aims to develop and use new tools that allow for rapid, large scale, objective monitoring of these endangered ecosystems. This research uses primarily optical methods to measure in-situ coral cover and condition, including custom multispectral instruments utilizing coral fluorescence. Ben majored in Environmental Studies at Dartmouth College, and did his graduate work at the Scripps Institution of Oceanography.

Environmental Studies - Associate Professor Philip Nyhus
Professor Nyhus' interdisciplinary research bridges the natural and social sciences to address human interactions with the environment.  He is particularly interested in the policy dimensions   of human-wildlife conflict and endangered species conservation.  His current research includes developing new tools and processes for biodiversity risk assessment, GIS-based spatial models, and tiger and   large mammal conservation in the US and Asia.

Environmental Studies - Teaching Assistant Abby Pearson
Abby's graduate research focused on assessing ecosystem functionality in a restoring salt marsh using arthropod food webs. This involved describing arthropod distribution in an affected salt marsh in relation to associated common salt marsh plants. Arthropods were collected, identified, and processed using stable isotope analysis of 13C and 15N. These data were used to describe food web structure (i.e. what arthropods are found where) and function (i.e. how carbon passed through the food web)

Environmental Studies - Assistant Professor Travis Reynolds
Assistant Professor Travis Reynolds' primary research interests are in the fields of international environmental policy and sustainable international development. Drawing on institutional theories and ecological economics his research looks at common pool resource management problems and the roles of international, national, and local organizations involved in forestry and other natural resource management systems. His current work focuses on the design and performance of small- and large-scale carbon forestry projects in Sub-Saharan Africa.

Emeritus Faculty
Biology - Professor Emeritus. Clara C. Piper Professor of Environmental Studies David Firmage
Professor Firmage investigates problems in plant ecology. Recent studies focus   on pollen viability and stigma receptivity, solar tracking of several species   in Israel, and the reproductive biology of an important endemic plant in Bulgaria.   He also conducts watershed analyses to determine sources and amounts of phosphorus   additions to local lakes.  

Economics - Professor Emeritus, Mitchell Family Professor of Economics Tom Tietenberg
Professor Tietenberg is  author or editor of eleven books (including Environmental and Natural Resource Economics, one of the best selling textbooks in the field, and Emissions Trading, one of the most widely cited books in the tradable permits literature) as well as over one hundred articles and essays on environmental and natural resource economics. Elected President of the Association of Environmental and Natural Resource Economists (AERE) in 1987-8, he has consulted on environmental policy with the World Bank, the InterAmerican Development Bank, the Agency for International Development and the Environmental Protection Agency as well as several state and foreign governments. Tom attended and spoke at the first Earth Summit in Rio in 1992 and has lectured on sustainable development at many international conferences. In 2006 he was designated one of six inaugural AERE Fellows and in 2010 he received the "Outstanding Public Service Though Economics" award from the Northeastern Agricultural and Resource Economics Association. 

ES Affiliated Faculty
Biology - Associate Professor Cathy Bevier
Professor Cathy Bevier's research interests include the behavioral and physiological   ecology of vertebrates, particularly how behavioral performance during reproductive   and locomotor activity is correlated with physiological and biochemical characteristics   of the animal. Her current work focuses on the behavior, energetics, and thermal   biology of frogs using techniques such as sound recording and analysis of vocalizations,   focal behavioral observations, mark-recapture census, muscle biochemistry, and   respirometry.

History-  Professor Paul Josephson
Professor Josephson investigates the American infatuation with the highly polluting   engines used for jetskis, snowmobiles, snow blowers, ATVs, ORVs, weed wackers,   and leaf blowers; the influence of Soviet technological style on energy, agricultural   and housing techniques and technologies in East Central Europe; and "industrial   deserts," and the destructive impact of the metallurgical and nuclear industries   of the Soviet development paradigm.

Chemistry -  Dr. Frank and Theodora Miselis Professor of Chemistry Whitney King
Professor Whitney King recently began a study of the chemical and physical characteristics   of local lakes, employing underwater mapping computer programs and chemical   analysis equipment that he developed. This project will continue for several   years as different lakes within the region are investigated.

To find out more about the Belgrade Lakes Watershed Sustainability Project visit http://web.colby.edu/epscor/

History - Professor Jim Webb
Professor Jim Webb's research is in the field of historical malariology.  He is working on interpretations of the microbiological evidence from the genomes of Plasmodium vivax and Plasmodium falciparum, the two most important malarial parasites. He is also investigating the global history of quinine, the first disease-specific drug in the western materia medica that was used as a cure and prophylaxis for malaria, as a means of understanding the origins of global public health.

Biology - Leslie B. Arey Professor of Biological Sciences Herb Wilson
Professor Wilson research interests include the study of the impacts of climate change on the migration of Maine migratory breeding birds; winter foraging of Maine songbirds; ecology of damselflies, damselflies and butterflies.