Faculty Research Interests

Vanessa Beauchamp, Ph.D.

Dr. Beauchamp’s research program goals are to test and refine ecological models of succession, identify environmental thresholds involved in plant community change, and elucidate the role of arbuscular mycorrhizal fungi in plant community dynamics. A large part of my research program also involves practical applications related to management, conservation and restoration of plant communities.

Dr. Besterman is an ecologist generally interested in the role of landscape-scale, physical drivers (e.g., tidal flooding dynamics) on habitat formation in ecosystems, and the resulting organization of biological communities and ecosystem functions. She uses diverse methods integrating theory and techniques from many fields including ecosystem ecology, geomorphology, hydrology and population/community ecology.  

Dr. Besterman is interested in socially relevant research and global changes provide the context for much of her work. In both her research and teaching she emphasizes diverse perspectives. Dr. Besterman's collaborations include applied scientists, land trusts, and natural resource managers. In order to better understand local ecology and the problems that human communities face she works closely with community organizations.

More information can be found on her website. 

Research in Dr. Bulmer's lab focuses on the immune defenses of social insects, specifically termites and their fungal pathogens. Termites appear to have exploited elements of the conserved innate immune system for socially mediated protection. Immune proteins that are usually associated with the hemolymph (insect blood) in other insects are spread among termite colony members by mutual grooming and incorporated into nest building materials. Dr. Bulmer is investigating the evolution and mechanism of these secreted proteins as well as the fungal pathogens that they appear to target.

Dr. Casey’s research focuses on the ecological responses of clams and snails to natural and anthropogenic environmental disturbances on long timescales. In particular, she uses the fossil record as a natural laboratory to test ecological and evolutionary responses that operate at timescales beyond direct human observation and to determine the pristine ecological baseline of modern ecosystems in need of conservation or restoration. Past and current projects include: 1) Evaluation of commercial fishing, eutrophication, and hypoxia stressors in Long Island Sound and their effects on modern and recent fossil mollusks; 2) Use of stable isotopes (N and C) to evaluate trophic position (i.e., predator versus omnivore) of modern drilling gastropods and evaluate changes in diet associated with ecosystem change or stress; 3) Taphonomic and feeding experiment approaches that evaluate the amount and kinds of data we can reliably obtain from fossil shells, including changes in predatory behavior, predator identity, and predation intensity; and 4) Evaluation of geographic range size through time and its impact on extinction risk, including the study of factors that govern the preservation of a ​species’ geographic distribution in the fossil record.

Dr. Nicole Fabricant is an associate professor at Towson University who teaches courses on environmental justice and resource extraction. 

Much of Dr. Fabricant's contemporary ethnographic research in Curtis Bay feeds into her historical and archival agenda which has collected primary data on industrial development throughout the 19th and 20th century. From the late nineteenth century, when the peninsula became a major importer of guano fertilizer from Peru or its World War II-era shipbuilding, to the later post-war decay of those industries, these waves of industrialization have cumulatively wreaked havoc upon lands, soils, and bodies. Theoretically, Dr. Fabricant uses the concept of slow and fast violence to try to understand both environmental and bodily violence of industrial capitalism in Curtis Bay and trace the ways in which community residents are using, mobilizing this history to create alternative uses of land through community land trusts. Some central questions of her research are: who pays the price for industrial development and resulting pollution? In what ways does this history of violence inform movement building and collective imagining of a more sustainable (both economic and ecologically) future? 

Dr. Fabricant's forthcoming book, Fighting to Breathe in the Black Butterfly, currently under contract with University of California Press (2021) narrates the rise of local community-based development, through which poor people across race and class are claiming rights to land, affordable housing, and economic co-operatives in their neighborhoods. It tells the story of one of the most environmentally unhealthy and uninhabitable places in Baltimore, the neighborhood of Curtis Bay, where asthma rates are higher than in any other U.S. city and where poor people are engaged in grassroots struggle for community control over land and rights to implement an alternative model of development. This book is about generative movement-building that resulted in the post-2015 Uprising environment of Baltimore, by focusing on one neighborhood’s struggle for housing and environmental justice amidst environmental toxicity.

Dr. Kenreich conducts research on the enactment of global citizenship in the school curriculum. His interests lie in teacher professional development and geography education. He also directs the Maryland Geographic Alliance, a network of geographers, K-12 educators, and teacher educators working together to promote geographic education across the state. The alliance champions geography as a key to civic engagement, environmental stewardship, and global understanding in the 21st century.

Coevolution of Acropyga ants and mealybugs: Acropyga ants display a fascinating behavior termed trophophoresy. Trophophoresy is the behavior of a queen ant taking with her on her mating flight a mealybug from her birth nest (LaPolla, 2002). This mealybug serves as a "seed" individual through which a new colony of mealybugs will be created. The ants feed on the sugary substances produced by the mealybugs. It is believed the ants and mealybugs are mutually dependent on one another for survival. Acropyga ants are, in a sense, the dairy farmers of the ant world.
We know virtually nothing about the symbiosis between Acropyga ants and their mealybug “cattle.” Investigating the biological aspects of this complex symbiosis has become a major component of Dr. LaPolla's research program. In collaboration with Drs. Ted Schultz & Sean Brady (National Museum of Natural History) and Dr. Joseph Bischoff (National Institutes of Health-GenBank), several important studies are planned over the next several years.

Biodiversity Studies: Dr. LaPolla has employed the replicable "ALL" (Ants of the Leaf Litter) protocol to examine patterns of ant diversity across South America. In collaboration with Dr. Ted Schultz (NMNH) and doctoral student Jeffery Sosa-Calvo (U Maryland-College Park), his research project will continue gathering and examining leaf litter ant data from Guyana, Suriname, French Guiana, Brazil and Peru. Over the next three years, the team will complete ongoing studies comparing the Guiana Shield fauna to the rest of South America to extrapolate patterns of endemism and identify areas of conservation concern. Dr. LaPolla is also Lead Scientist for Conservation International’s Tropical Ecology Assessment and Monitoring in Suriname. This project involves periodic ant sampling at Raleighvallen in the Central Suriname Nature Reserve.

Revisionary Systematics: Dr. LaPolla is completing a world revision of the ant genus Paratrechina, a large genus of over 140 species, and a group that contains many invasive species of agricultural and economic importance. With no taxonomic monograph available, most Paratrechina species are currently impossible to identify. Defining the species will help efforts at using biological control methods to control invasive species. The genus has never been revised and there are undoubtedly many new species awaiting discovery. He is also beginning a world revision of the genus Discothyrea with doctoral student Jeffery Sosa-Calvo (U Maryland-College Park). These enigmatic ants are found worldwide in subtropical and tropical localities. They are thought to be specialist predators on arthropod eggs.

James Manley, Ph.D.

Working in the Economics Department, Dr. Manley is an empirical microeconomist interested in using data to investigate events and policies. He has worked with survey data to investigate the damage caused by air pollution, and also has done systematic reviews and meta-analysis to estimate the effectiveness of social protection programs on child nutrition.

Victoria McAlister, Ph.D.

Dr. Victoria McAlister is a historian and archaeologist specializing in the landscapes and material culture of pre-modern Ireland. She joined the History Department in 2022, having previously been at Southeast Missouri State University. Her current book manuscript, The Insular Globe: Animals and Landscapes of Colonization, Ireland c. 700-1700, examines the landscape changes associated with colonization and the transition of medieval to modern. This work benefits from the digital heritage project Human-Environmental Exchanges in the Landscapes of Medieval Ireland on which she is co-Principal Investigator. This study uses data collected from drone flights combined with the historical record to trace the remnants of the Middle Ages in modern-day landscapes; explaining why some landscape remnants are particularly resilient in an era of mechanized and intensive land use. Her research has been supported by the National Humanities Center, the National Endowment for the Humanities, the American Philosophical Society, and the Castle Studies Trust. 

Joel Moore, Ph.D.

Research Focus: Earth surface processes, hydrology, and biogeochemistry

Dr. Moore’s research focuses on using geochemical tools to understand earth surface and atmospheric processes in natural and anthropogenically-impacted systems. Past and current projects include: 1) Mineral weathering and how it is affected by, or affects by a) Soil age, b) Ecosystem development, and/or c) Tectonic uplift and erosion; 2) Anthropogenic release, transportation, and fate of pollutants, particularly metals; and 3) Atmospheric CO2 concentrations and carbon isotopes to measure cycling in urban areas. He is also in the initial stages of a couple of projects in built and engineered systems including assessing the effects of subsurface sequestered CO2 leaking into drinking water aquifers and the relationship between concrete chemistry and microbial communities.

Dr. Muhoro's research involves "Novel Syntheses and Applications of Phosphorus- and Boron-Containing Bifunctional Ligands". She and her team utilize highly efficient homogeneous catalysis to synthesize phosphanyl(organyl)borane compounds, and apply these molecules as ligands in the synthesis of transition metal complexes. These unique ligands can be applied as functional ligands e.g., as nucleophile binding agents, Lewis acid cocatalysts in polymerizations reactions or as monomers in the synthesis of uncommon Lewis Acid-Base polymers.

Undergraduate researchers conduct this work exclusively under inert-atmosphere on a Schlenk line and in a glove-box. The students characterize the compounds by proton, carbon, boron and phosphorus NMR spectroscopy, GC-MS, and IR and UV-Vis spectroscopies. Another area of Dr. Muhoro's research involves "Mechanisms of Decomposition of Organic Pesticides in Aqueous Environments." The aquatic fate of organic pesticides depends on numerous parameters that are unique to a given aquatic system such as pH, temperature, dissolved oxygen content, metal ion content, and salinity. Her group is interested in investigating the pathways of decomposition of organic pesticides under specific conditions. The research involves travel to study sites, located in tropical regions, to characterize the aquatic environments in which organic pesticides are found. The field work is followed by laboratory studies involving kinetic studies on pesticide degradation. Undergraduate students measure reaction rates using proton NMR and UV-Vis spectroscopies.

Research Focus: Environmental chemistry and ecotoxicology 

A general theme present in Dr. Ownby's research is the goal of developing models and utilizing novel statistical approaches to accurately predict the effects and fate of metals, both singularly and in combination in both aquatic and terrestrial systems. His research addresses issues of how the chemistry of a system affects the bioavailability of metals and the consequential affect of the metal on the organism. Other projects that have been a part of his research include fate and distribution of mercury in the environment, bioaccumulation of explosives, species sensitivity distributions, and adaptation of organisms to contaminated sites.

Research in Dr. Sivey’s group focuses on environmental organic chemistry and the chemistry of drinking water treatment.  Specifically, Dr. Sivey’s group examines the chemistry of aqueous disinfectants (including free chlorine and free bromine) as well as the generation disinfection by-products.  The reactivity of biologically-important molecules (e.g., amino acids) toward chlorinating and brominating agents is of particular interest. The group also examines the transformation mechanisms and environmental fate of agrochemicals (including pesticides and so-called "inert" ingredients).

Dr. Tasch conducts research on the human dimensions of climate change and resource development, particularly in the Arctic, Caucasus, Central Asia and Pacific Russia. His work addresses conflict and cooperation between multiple stakeholders where natural resources are the drivers of development or where their absence creates alternative development  dilemmas as well as opportunities.

Dr. Wang’s research primarily focuses on urban climate, terrestrial ecosystems, land-cover/land-use change, and agricultural and natural resources management using remote sensing, GIS, and spatial modeling techniques. Dr. Wang also has a strong interest in small Unmanned Aerial Systems (sUAS)-based remote sensing system and its applications in geospatial and environmental research. Dr. Wang currently serves the as the Director and the PI of MarylandView, which is part of the AmericaView network that promotes remote sensing education, research, and outreach through cooperative partnerships with federal and state agencies, educational institutions, non-government organizations, and businesses in Maryland.