Faculty Accomplishments

Associate Professor of English Matthew Schneider-Mayerson has coedited a newly released book, Empirical Ecocriticism: Environmental Narratives for Social Change (University of Minnesota Press). The book "combines an environmental humanities perspective with empirical methods derived from the social sciences to study the influence of environmental stories on our affects, attitudes, and actions," according to the publisher's website. Schneider-Mayerson is the  co-director of the English Department's concentration in literature and the environment.

Adam Howard, the Charles A. Dana Professor of Education, has published a new article titled "Gender Justice within Elite All-Boys Schools? Possibilities of a Whole-School Approach" in Teachers College Record. In the article, Howard and his coauthor, Amanda Keddie (Deakin University, Australia), present two stories that draw attention to the disturbing ways in which masculinities are reproduced within elite all-boys schools through practices of homophobia, heterosexism, and misogyny. These stories highlight the challenges of engaging gender justice work within these spaces. They propose three areas of practice for elite all-boys schools that are imperative in working toward gender justice: 1) strong leadership for and commitment to gender justice; 2) multiple avenues for critical learning about gender justice issues; and 3) strong adult mentorship.

Associate Professor of Environmental Studies Stacy-ann Robinson has coauthored an article titled "The role of colonial pasts in shaping climate futures: Adaptive capacity in Georgetown, Guyana." Appearing in the journal Habitat International, the article explores the colonial history of Georgetown, Guyana, in the context of its vulnerability to various climate change impacts, including flooding, and demonstrates the links between the city's colonial governance and its present-day adaptive capacity. It finds the city's adaptive capacity being influenced physically by the Dutch colonial period and socially, politically, and economically by the British colonial period. It recommends reparations to right the wrong. The article was coauthored with Allison Douma '20, Tiffany Poore '20, and Kabir Singh '20.

Amanda Cabral '23 and Assistant Professor for Environmental Studies Gail Carlson have coauthored an article that appeared in Western City magazine. Titled "California’s youth are anxious about climate change and need to see concrete action," the article is based on an online survey Cabral conducted during Jan Plan 2023 with funding from the Buck Lab for Climate and Environment. Her survey explored young Californians' perspectives on climate change, an interest that stemmed from taking Carlson's course Climate Change, Justice, and Health last fall. "Overall, cities need to value the experiences of young people, prioritize their health and well-being, and empower them to participate in decision-making," the article concludes.

Associate Professor of Environmental Studies Stacy-ann Robinson has coauthored an article titled "Tactical Opposition: Obstructing Loss and Damage Finance in the United Nations Climate Negotiations." Appearing in the journal Global Environmental Politics, the article uncovers four periods of obstruction and outlines a typology of 14 tactics countries have used to delay progress. These tactics have limited the issue’s scope, reduced transparency, manipulated language, and advanced non-transformative solutions. The article's findings contribute to the study of obstructionism in climate governance and can help loss and damage advocates better anticipate and respond to these tactics in future climate negotiations.

Professor of Art Véronique Plesch is coeditor of the newly released book Water and Sea in Word and Image / L’Eau et la mer dans les textes et les images (Brill, 2023), a selection of papers drawn from the 2021 International Association of Word and Image Studies conference. Plesch also contributed a paper to the book, “The River of Life: Drawing Lessons from Thomas Cole in Images and Words” (pages 128–143). Summer research assistants Ari Trueba '23 and Lydia Burke '24 helped Plesch with preparation of the book's text, and the design for the book's cover is based on a template created by Rachel Tobie '04.

The Society for Organic Petrology has awarded its Ralph Gray Award for best refereed paper in organic petrology for 2022 to Robert A. Gastaldo, the Whipple-Coddington Professor of Geology, Emeritus, and Ian Glasspool, a research scientist in Colby's Geology Department. The award acknowledges the geologists' paper "Silurian wildfire proxies and atmospheric oxygen,” which was published in the journal Geology and garnered BBC and international attention. The paper discusses the geologists' research that concludes the earliest wildfires began burning about 430 million years ago, or 10 million years earlier than previously known. A formal award presentation will be held Sept. 19, 2023, at the University of Patras, Rio-Patras, Greece, where the society's annual meeting takes place.    

Associate Professor of Environmental Studies Stacy-ann Robinson was invited to speak at a panel event on innovative finance for loss and damage at the International Peace Institute (IPI), a think tank based at the United Nations. Chaired by IPI President and former United Nations High Commissioner for Human Rights H. E. Zeid Ra’ad Al Hussein, panelists discussed the deficiencies and shortfalls in loss and damage finance, and they underscored innovative ways to capitalize on the new fund, including taxes and levies. Robinson, in contextualizing the perspective of small island developing states, emphasized that loss and damage is about people and their livelihoods: “People matter, and we need to center equity and justice.” The event was attended by senior officials from across the United Nations system, including the World Bank and International Monetary Fund.

Associate Professor of Astronomy Dale Kocevski was the lead author in an article recently published in the Astrophysical Journal Letters titled "Hidden Little Monsters: Spectroscopic Identification of Low-Mass, Broad-Line AGN at z>5 with CEERS." Using the James Webb Space Telescope, Kocevski and an international team of researchers identified two low-luminosity black holes using JWST NIRSpec spectroscopy from the Cosmic Evolution Early Release Science (CEERS) Survey. “Our findings show that growing black holes in infant galaxies are very common in the early universe,” said Kocevski. “This was something that we did not expect to detect with our observations. We knew lower-mass black holes had to exist in early galaxies, but we didn’t think we could find them.”

Assistant Professor of Geology Bess Koffman was the lead author of an article published in the April 2023 issue of Paleoceanography and Paleoclimatology. Her paper, which was featured on the cover of the journal and is titled "Abrupt Changes in Atmospheric Circulation During the Medieval Climate Anomaly and Little Ice Age Recorded by Sr-Nd Isotopes in the Siple Dome Ice Core, Antarctica," uses geochemical data from the Siple Dome ice core in Antarctica to explore past changes in wind patterns around Antarctica. The data show that the predominant circulation system of the Southern Hemisphere, the mid-latitude westerly winds, shifted abruptly during a past warm-climate interval, suggesting that they may be capable of similar changes under today's climate conditions.