Melinda (Legg) Ylagan:
Melinda Ylagan is a 1991 graduate of AU. She graduated cum lade with Honors in Geology. After graduation, she attended the University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign. She graduated in 1994 with an M.S. in Geology and was then hired by Black and Veatch in Kansas City to be a geologist in their environmental consulting and hazardous waste management division (B & V Waste Science and Technology). She worked as a Staff Hydrogeologist on several projects for both federal and private clients. In 1997, she joined Environmental Resources Management in Houston, Texas. There she continued working as a Project Hydrgeologist focusing on projects for industrial clients in the Gulf Coast. She has gotten a great deal of hands-on experience in environmental consulting, both in the field and in the office. She now resides in Rochester and works as a research and educational director for her son.
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Bruce Kershner:
Bruce Kershner is a well-known naturalist, ecologist and educator, as well as a national authority on old-growth forests, edible wild plants and waterfalls. He earned his B.S. degree in biology from Binghamton University and his M.S. in botany/ecology from the University of Connecticut. In 1987 and 1988 he was named Environmentalist of the Year from the Sierra Club (Niagara Group) and the Adirondack Mountain Council. In 1996, he was awarded Environmentalist of the Year in New York State by Environmental Advocates of New York. Bruce is on the faculty at the University of Buffalo and will be speaking to us about unexpected, majestic old-growth forests discovered in our region.
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Joe Graney:
Joe Graney is an environmental geochemist who has been a member of the Geological Sciences and Environmental Studies Program at Binghamton University since 1998. He specializes in the emission, transport and deposition of trace metals. A native of Wisconsin, Dr. Graney received an M.S. from the University of Nevada-Reno (Mackay School of Mines) and a Ph.D. from the University of Michigan in 1994. He worked as a post-doctoral researcher in the Air Quality Laboratory at the University of Michigan prior to his arrival at Binghamton University.
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Gretchen Szucs:
Gretchen Szucs received her degree in Environmental Science from the College of the Finger Lakes. She has been Allegany County Recyclying Coordinator for 14 years. As part of her job, she runs composting workshops, the household hazardous waste collection program, materials re-use projects and a variety of school education projects.
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Helen Mango:
Helen Mango received her bachelor's degree in geology from Williams College in 1985, her M.S. degree from Dartmouth College in 1988 and her Ph.D. from Dartmouth in 1992. She has been teaching at Castleton State College since the fall of 1991. She teaches a variety of geology courses plus General Chemistry. She will be presenting a summary of what was learned after four years of field and lab work by the Zimapan Research Experiences for Undergraduates (REU) teams. Each year, Dr. Mango and her colleagues took a different team of 12 students (including one from AU) to Zimapan to explore different aspects of the larger research goal, which was to determine the source of arsenic in the groundwater in Zimapan.
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David VanLuven:
David VanLuven is Director of the New York Natural Heritage Program, a partnership between The Nature Conservancy and the NYS Dept. of Environmental Conservation that enables and enhances conservation of New York's biodiversity. Before his arrival in New York in 2001, David worked on biodiversity conservation in New Hampshire for nine years, starting with The Nature Conservancy in 1992 and focusing on the Karner blue butterfly, wild lupine, and the Concord Pine Barrens. He became Coordinator of the NH Natural Heritage Program in 1996, where he emphasized the agency's role as a conservation resource. Prior to New Hampshire, David graduated from Middlebury College in Vermont with a double major in Religion and Arctic & Alpine Ecology (and got to do his undergraduate thesis work 130 miles north of the Arctic Circle). He next worked with the Association for the Preservation of Cape Cod where he compiled an atlas of significant biodiversity areas (and discovered the joy of poison ivy and cat briar), then completed a joint Master's at Tufts University in Biology and Urban & Environmental Policy.
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Jon Kim:
Jon Kim graduated from Colgate University with a degree in geology in 1981. He received his M.S. in geology from the University of South Florida/Tampa and then worked for Western Geophysical Co., of Houston, Texas doing seismic exploration in the Gulf of Mexico, South America, and West Africa. He returned to graduate school and received his Ph.D. from SUNY at Buffalo in Tectonics in 1996. He has been working as a geologist for the Vermont Geological Survey since 1997.
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Diane Cox:
Diane Cox received a B.A. in Environmental Biology from the University of Colorado and an M.F.A. from the School of the Art Institute of Chicago. She worked for 7 years as an environmental biologist producing environmental impact statements in Colorado, Wyoming, Utah and Idaho. She has been teaching art at Alfred University for 10 years. Diane has noted that since the 1960s, an evolving interest of artists working in the environment, using natural or living materials has grown. Her seminar is a survey of this contemporary art movement, with emphasis on the artist's expression as reflection of cultural, social, or environmental concerns/beliefs of that time.
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Diana Sinton:
Diana Sinton teaches computer-based map-making (geographic information systems) and many other courses in the Division of Environmental Studies. She is very interested in the useo f natural resources in the developing world, and this seminar will describe her experience in China during the summer of 2002. Dr. Sinton has a Ph.D. in Geography from Oregon State University and has been teaching at Alfred since 1997.
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Laura Blake:
Laura Blake received her Bachelor's degree with a double major in Environmental Studies and Geology from Alfred in 1999. She then attended Duke University's School of the Environment from which she received a Master's degree in Environmental Management with a focus on water resources in 2001. While attending Duke, she worked as a research associate for the Free Atmosphere Carbon Exchange Project, a study which involved testing ecosystem responsiveness to elevated atmospheric carbon dioxide. Her master's research involved performing a statistical analysis of the Watershed Risk Management Framework Model, assessing its accuracy in simulating hydrologic stream flow. Laura was hired by the New England Interstate Water Pollution Control Commission as an Environmental Analyst in the Division of Water Quality after graduating from Duke. Among her many duties, she currently serves as Program Manager for the Commission's Monitoring Program and Northeast Mercury Workgroup and Project Manager for the Upper Connecticut River Nitrogen TMDL Project.
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