Fridays for a Sustainable Future: Biodiversity Futures: Are We in the Next Silent Spring?

The Insititute for a Sustainable Future special initiative will be holding a research discussion on March 3rd from 12:00-1:30 PM in WALC 2124. In this event for the Imgaining a Sustainable Future Initative, researchers will discuss the problems of mass biodiversity loss and the potentials for imgaining and building different human-environmental relations. Panelist for this research discussion include Christie Shee, a visiting clinical assistant professor at the John Martinson Honors College. She is a entomologist by training, and focuses on plant-insect interactions in agricultural systems and cultural realations to biodiversity. Dr. Kristen Bellisario is Clinical Assistant Professor at John Martinson Honors College and Assistant Director of the Center for Global Soundscapes. She is interested in unraveling the mysteries of patterns in natural sounds, text, and structured data using machine learning techniques to help with the real-world problems of biodiversity loss, noise pollution, infectious disease and invasive species due to climate change, and concerns related to co-habitation of spaces with wildlife and people. Robert Marzec is a professor of English. He studies the colonial histories of environmental degradation, the cultural formations of human-environmental relations, and environmental ethics. He is currently researching the impact of neocolonial and neoliberal human ontologies on biodiversity.