Environmental Geographer Shows True Genius

She can find her way through the Brazilian Amazon. She develops technology to measure deforestation. Most importantly, Ruth DeFries (left) analyzes the effects of global carbon emissions and climate change. Now, as the winner of a prestigious MacArthur award, she can call herself a genius.

DeFries, who holds a joint appointment in the Department of Geography and the Earth System Science Interdisciplinary Center, was one of 24 recipients to be awarded a no-strings-attached “genius grant” by the MacArthur Foundation in 2007. She was selected for her creativity, originality and potential to make important contributions in the future.

"The MacArthur Foundation supports highly creative individuals and institutions with the ability and the promise to make a difference in shaping and improving our future,” said MacArthur President Jonathan Fanton.

As an environmental geographer, DeFries uses remotely sensed satellite imagery to explore the relationship between the Earth’s vegetative cover, human modifications of the landscape and the biochemical processes that regulate Earth’s habitability.

Through her research, DeFries compiled datasets that have significantly changed the scale and focus of ecosystem research and contributed to understanding how human activities are altering habitat needed to conserve biodiversity.

At the regional level, she has played a key role in exploring the impact of human-induced changes in land cover, initially focusing on central Africa and moving on to map areas in Southeast Asia and the Amazon.

DeFries joined the Maryland faculty in 1991 and is the seventh Maryland faculty member or alumnus to win a MacArthur fellowship. —SD

Comic Relief for Serious Water Problem

Click picture to enlarge.

Stop in at The Diner or South Campus Dining Hall for a meal-on-the-go and you won’t find bottled water to take with you. Cathy, the neurotic, diet-obsessed brunette who’s starred on the comic pages since 1976, explains why.

Cathy showed up in the cafeterias last semester, after Dining Services Associate Director Joe Mullineaux saw her bemoaning the 22 billion plastic water bottles that end up in landfills and incinerators annually. Mullineaux had already removed bottled water from the university’s two most popular dining rooms because he viewed them as an environmentally unfriendly status item.

Artist Cathy Guisewite’s strip echoed his concerns, so Mullineaux contacted the publishers. They agreed to allow the university to post copies (left) near water stations.

The initiative is the latest at the university to focus on recycling, reusing and reducing waste. (See the Fall 2007 issue of Terp.) —KM

Maryland Experts Lead Torture Hearing

During a hearing at the Stamp Student Union (above), professors Thomas Hilde (top right) and Christian Davenport (bottom right, center with Rep. Alcee Hastings, left, and President Dan Mote, right), testified on the effect of torture.

This winter, the debate over the legality and effectiveness of torture moved to the University of Maryland, site of the first-ever field hearing by the Helsinki Commission—a U.S. government agency that monitors human rights.

Commission co-chair Sen. Benjamin Cardin (D-Md.) and Rep. Alcee Hastings (D-Fl.), the chair, took testimony in December from expert witnesses, half of them Maryland faculty.

“Torture remains widespread,” testified researcher Christian Davenport, professor of government and politics and author of State Repression and the Domestic Democratic Peace. “Roughly 80 percent of the countries in the world tortured at least one person in the government's control in any given year over the period from 1981–1999.”

While less likely to engage in torture, Western democracies were not immune. “When at least one group commits at least one act of violence, countries with institutions that support liberal democracy are effectively just as likely to use torture. … The peace brought by democracy is not bulletproof,” Davenport added.

Maryland research professor Thomas Hilde, editor of the book On Torture, rejected the so-called “ticking time bomb” argument—the hypothetical case of a terrorist who planted a nuclear dirty bomb and must be tortured to reveal its location before it explodes.

Calling torture “notoriously unreliable,” Hilde says it is rarely a single event. The need for coroboration inevitably leads to more torture. “In the end, it is we who have become the moral equivalent of the time bomb,” Hilde testified.

The commission also heard from human rights advocates and international anti-terrorism experts. You can watch video from the hearing and read a transcript at http://tinyurl.com/youamm. —NT

Developing a New Strategic Plan

Last fall, Nariman Farvardin, senior vice president for academic affairs and provost, was tasked with leading the effort to develop a 10-year strategic plan for the University of Maryland—charting a very ambitious path for the university over the next decade. The provost recently sat down to discuss this process with TERP’s Tom Ventsias.

Q: Provost Farvardin, you are chairing a steering committee that, to quote President Mote, “ … will develop a strategic plan that is one of boldness, adventure and high self-expectation.” What requires the university to set its benchmarks so high?

A: There are essentially two drivers: aspirations and obligations. We’ve already been working very hard to become one of the foremost institutions of higher education in the nation, so our faculty, staff, students and alumni have aspirations of greatness, and we need to respond. There is also an obligation to our region, our state and our nation to build a world-class university that addresses the needs of these communities. So when these two drivers come together, we really have no choice but to set our benchmarks very high.

Q: The strategic plan will direct the university to take on new initiatives with great impact. Can you expand upon this?

A: In a bold strategic plan, you propose initiatives that will propel the university forward into the ranks of the very best universities. These are initiatives that will dramatically improve the quality of education offered to our students; initiatives that better prepare our students to become productive global citizens; initiatives that make our university a center of gravity for intellectual, cultural, scientific, technological and artistic activities—not only regionally, but nationally. And initiatives that make our university one of the strongest in defining the frontiers of knowledge. So in every aspect of the university, we are going to identify initiatives that will move the university to the next level.

Q: Key areas identified will include upgrading the national competitiveness of our faculty and demanding the excellence of teaching across the university. Why is this so important?

A: One component that truly defines excellence is a university’s faculty. So I can’t envision a bold strategic plan that doesn’t place a tremendous amount of emphasis on recruiting and retaining some of the best faculty anywhere. And all great universities have a very significant mandate to provide excellence in education, so how can we not emphasize excellence in teaching?

Q: Where do you expect this strategic plan to take the university by 2018?

A: I think it will decidedly take this university to the next tier—a tier where we, as a university, can say we’re distinctly different from where we are today. We want to be better recognized as a leader on issues that are important to higher education: research on climate change; on homeland security, which includes expertise in language, culture and cognition; on environmental issues; on energy; and on food safety. If the university is recognized as a power in all of these areas, as well as a leader in education, then I think we will have achieved our goals.

Q: What type of input are you seeking from Maryland alumni?

A: It would be invaluable to hear from alumni from some years back who are now in various stages of their professional careers. We would like to hear how we might improve upon the education they received here. Also, I would like our alumni and friends who care very deeply about this institution to tell us what it is we can do to achieve our high aspirations. I would like alumni to engage more with their university, and join us in making this university one of the very best. Readers can go to www.sp07.umd.edu for the latest information or to offer feedback.

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