ENS Speakers 2005

Dan Rain:

Dan Siess Rain graduated with honors from Alfred in 1996 with a B.A. in environmental studies and psychology. For the past six years he has served as Outreach Director for Wilderness Awareness School, a non-profit organization based near Seattle, WA. He and his wife Sarah, a 1997 ENS graduate, have 5-year old son Cadao and a 10 month-old daughter, Alyra. The Rains live in the Albany, NY area in the community of Delmar.
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Michael Talbot :

Michael Talbot graduated from AU with a degree in geology in 1986 and completed master's level coursework in business administration at Clarkson University. He worked for 12 years in the private sector for consulting firms as a geologist, project manager for geotechnical and environmental investigations, subsurface explorations, mineral and groundwater prospecting, and construction management projects. Mike managed the subsurface exploration department of his firm in the southeastern US with projects in an 8-state region. Currently, he manages the solid waste collection and disposal departments for the City of Auburn, NY, including the 78,000 ton/year landfill and methane collection system.
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Thomas Peterson:

Thomas Peterson has taught at Alfred University since 1975. He currently teaches courses in world religions and art theory. He has written articles on mythology, ritual activity and postmodern reflection and published a book on racial mythology (Ham and Japheth: The Mythic World of Whites in the Antebellum South) and another on Allegany County's fight against a proposed low level nuclear waste dump (Linked Arms: A Rural Community Resists Nuclear Waste).
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Timothy Cochran:

Alfred State College Professor Timothy Cochran has held a strong interest in energy conservation since his undergraduate years. In 2001 he made the interest into a commitment in his six member family's new home. The residence is powered by a wind turbine and photovoltaic cells, and has a wood frame with strawbale infill and stucco exterior. Cochran holds a Master of Electrical Engineering degree from the University of Wisconsin-Madison.
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Robert Baca:

Robert Baca has a B.A. in biology from Cornell University, an M.S. from Texas Christian University, and a Ph.D. from the University of Mississippi, conducting experimental research on the structure and function of aquatic food webs. After graduate school, he worked in the research arm of the EPA developing a model that predicted the effects of natural and anthropogenic factors on fish communities. Since 2001, he has been with the USDA's Animal and Plant Health Inspection Service near Washington, DC, where he helps to ensure that agricultural pest eradication programs do not negatively affect human health or the environment.
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Robert Newton:

Robert Newton received his B.A. from the University of New Hampshire, an M.S. from Binghamton University, and a Ph.D. from the University of Massachusetts. He is a professor of geology at Smith College in Northampton, Massachusetts. His research interests include surficial geology and hydrogeochemistry.
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John Buckwalter:

John Buckwalter grew up in Wellsville, NY and is a graduate of Houghton College and SUNY Geneseo, with undergraduate and graduate degrees in biology. After teaching high school sciences in Ethiopia and in Andover, NY, he went to Alfred State College in 1982, where he teaches biology and related courses, and is in his seventh year as Chair of the Physical and Life Sciences Department. Since 1999 he has taken four college groups to Costa Rica over spring break to observe firsthand the ecology and environmental challenges of the Central American tropics.
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Tim McCay:

Tim McCay is a terrestrial ecologist with particular interest in conservation biology. He received his B.S. in wildlife biology at the University of Florida, M.S. in wildlife science at the Penn State University, and Ph.D. in ecology at the Institute of Ecology, University of Georgia. Tim has been teaching and conducting research at Colgate since 2000.
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Nathan Pratt:

Nathan Pratt is an AU alumnus from Canastota, NY. He graduated from AU in 1998 with majors in environmental studies and geology. Since that time, he has been working for the Syracuse, NY branch of Groundwater and Environmental Services, a consulting firm headquartered in Wall, NJ.
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Karin Limburg:

Karin Limburg received an M.S. in environmental engineering science from the University of Florida and a Ph.D. from Cornell University in ecology and evolutionary biology. She is presently as Associate Professor in Environmental Biology at SUNY-ESF, president-elect of the US Society of Ecological Economics, and in her third year of a CAREER grant to ling her interest in fisheries and watersheds. Her collaborators include ecologists, fisheries scientists, economists, and particle physicists.
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Jane Kozinski:

Jane Kozinski is a partner at the law firm of Saul Ewing LLP where she is the vice chair of the firm's Environmental Law Department. She graduated from Colgate University with a degree in geology and worked for several years as a groundwater hydrologist for the Water Resources Division of the US Geological Survey before going to law school at the University of Pennsylvania.
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