Faculty Advisors
Dr.
Lowell Adams, Environmental Science and Technology
 Dr. Adams is an Adjunct Associate Professor in the Department of Environmental Science and Technology. His regular courses include ENST 460 – Wildlife Ecology and Management; ENST 461 – Urban Wildlife Management; and ENST 462 – Field Techniques in Wildlife Management. In addition, Dr. Adams teaches ENST 499P – Natural Resources Ecology and Management in Brazil, a Study Abroad course. As a member of the graduate faculty, he advises graduate students in the Marine, Estuarine, and Environmental Sciences Program and undergraduate students in ENSP-Wildlife Ecology and Management.
Dr. Adams's research and writing focuses on wildlife ecology and management and he has authored or coauthored numerous scientific and popular publications. He was senior editor of two books on urban wildlife--Integrating Man and Nature in the Metropolitan Environment (1987) and Wildlife Conservation in Metropolitan Environments (1991); and senior author of Wildlife Reserves and Corridors in the Urban Environment (1989). His book Urban Wildlife Habitats: A Landscape Perspective was published by the University of Minnesota Press in 1994.
Dr. Adams holds a B.Sc. degree in Forestry and Wildlife from Virginia Tech, and M.Sc. and Ph.D. degrees in Zoology from Ohio State University. For 20 years he served as wildlife biologist, research director, and vice president of the National Institute for Urban Wildlife. Additionally, he has received several awards, most recently the 2009 University of Maryland Outstanding Gemstone Mentor Award. You can learn more about Dr. Adams by visiting his departmental homepage. You can reach Dr. Adams by e-mailing: Ladams4@umd.edu or by calling 301.405.1178.
Dr.
Ken Conca, Government and Politics
 Dr. Conca is a professor of Government and Politics and Director of the Harrison Program on the Future Global Agenda. His research and teaching focus on global environmental politics, environmental policy, social movements in world politics, and peace and conflict studies. He teaches both graduate and undergraduate students regularly; and his undergraduate classes include GVPT 273 - Introduction to Environmental Politics and GVPT419B - Advanced Topics in Environmental Policy Analysis. Dr. Conca is a faculty affiliate with the UM School of Public Policy and advises ENSP-Politics and Policy students.
Dr. Conca has written extensively in environmental politics, and is the author/editor of seven books, including The Crisis of Global Environmental Governance (Routledge, 2008);Green Planet Blues (Westview Press, 2004);and Environmental Peacemaking (Johns Hopkins/Woodrow Wilson Center Press, 2002). He is also a recipient of the International Studies Association’s Chadwick Alger Prize for best book on international organization (for Governing Water, MIT Press, 2006) and a two-time recipient of ISA’s Harold & Margaret Sprout Award for best book on international environmental affairs (for Governing Water, MIT Press, 2006; and Confronting Consumption, MIT Press, 2002).
Dr. Conca received his B.S. in geological science from Brown University; his M.S. from the University of Wisconsin’s Institute for Environmental Studies and his Ph.D. from the University of California, Berkeley. He has been at the University of Maryland since 1993. You can learn more about Dr. Conca by visiting his departmental homepage.
Dr.
Kurt Finsterbusch, Sociology
Dr.
Martha Geores, Geography
 Dr. Geores is an associate professor in the Department of Geography and is the adviser for the ENSP-Land Use Concentration. Her area of interest and research is the sustainability of social and cultural systems in the face of local and global economic and environmental change. She is the author of Common Ground: the Struggle for Ownership of the Black Hills National Forest (1996) and chapters on common property and cultural geography. Her teaching focus is the relationship between people and the environment, including the Land Use Capstone, Culture and Natural Resource Management (GEOG431). She also teaches graduate seminars on Human Dimensions of Global Change (GEOG614), Population and the Environment (GEOG635), Society and Sustainability (new offering, Spring ’10) and Qualitative Methods (GEOG636). Dr. Geores is a member of the affiliate faculty of the Department of Women’s Studies. She is the Director of the Department of Geography Honors Program.
Dr. Geores’ first career was as a public interest lawyer in Maine. It was in that capacity that she learned first-hand about common property from the Maine lobstermen and about the importance of landscape in social sustainability.
Dr. Geores received her B.A. in Sociology from Bates College, her JD from New York University School of Law, and her PhD in Geography from the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill. You can contact Dr. Geores by calling 301.405.4064.
Dr.
Scott Glenn, Plant
Sciences and Landscape Architecture
 Dr. D. Scott Glenn came to the University of Maryland as an Assistant Professor in Agronomy in 1980 and currently teaches in the Department of Plant Sciences and Landscape Architecture. The primary focus of his research is perennial weeds and the environmental impact of herbicides. Dr. Glenn regularly teaches several courses, including PLSC 101 – Introduction to Crop Science, PLSC 407 – Advanced Crop Science, PLSC 453 – Weed Science and the new Plant Science Capstone course, PLSC 460 – Application of Knowledge in Plant Sciences; and serves as academic advisor for Plant Sciences and ENSP-Environment and Agriculture students.
Dr. Glenn relishes his diverse roles. During his 28 years at Maryland, 22 graduate students received their Ph.D. or M.S. under his direction; and he has twice received the UM Parents Association award for Outstanding Faculty Advisor (1994 and 2006). In 1983, Glenn received the 3M Outstanding Young Faculty Award and in 1986 the UM Agriculture Alumni Outstanding Researcher Award. Additionally, he has won Excellence in Teaching Awards from the College of Agriculture (1986) and the Northeast Agronomy Society (2000). Most recently, Dr. Glenn served for eight years on the Executive Board for the Northeastern Weed Science Society and was elected its President in 2004.
Dr. Glenn grew up in Ohio and earned his B.S. in 1976 and his Ph.D. in 1979 in Weed Science at the University of Kentucky. Now he lives with his wife and 3 children on a small farm in Howard County, where the family is active in 4-H. You can learn more about Dr. Glenn's reaearch interests by visiting his departmental homepage.
Dr.
Robert Hill, Environmental Science and Technology
Dr. Jeffrey Jensen, Biological Sciences
 Dr. Jensen has been at the University of Maryland since 1999, and currently serves as the Director of Undergraduate Studies in the Department of Biology and advisor to the ENSP-Biodiversity and Conservation Biology students. His training is in vertebrate evolution and ecology, and fishes are his primary focus. Dr. Jensen's regular teaching responsibilities include BSCI106 - Principles of Biology II (Ecology and Evolution), BSCI207 - Organismal Biology, and BSCI394 - Vertebrate Form and Function.
Dr. Jensen spends his summers on the west coast, usually at the Friday Harbor Marine labs on San Juan Island in Washington State, where he investigates resource partitioning in surfperches, a family of nearshore fishes that is courteous enough to be found primarily in areas of great natural beauty. Surfperches, in addition to giving birth to live young that are extraordinarily well developed, are interesting for the variety of feeding strategies they employ despite being a small family (24 species). Most recently, Dr. Jensen has been exploring the ecology and biomechanics of feeding in a species of surfperch that can crush molluscs and can suck limpets off rocks.
Dr. Jensen received his B.S. degrees in Zoology and Fisheries (Biometrics) from the University of Washington in 1984 and his Ph.D. in Organismic and Evolutionary Biology from Harvard University in 1993. He grew up near Seattle, Washington, and counts hiking, flyfishing, sea kayaking, and overindulgence in seafood among his chief recreational pursuits. He has led natural history excursions to Baja California, Southeast Alaska, and the Galapagos Islands. You can learn more about Dr. Jensen by visiting his departmental homepage.
Dr. Eric Kasischke, Geography
 Dr. Kasischke is a professor of biogeography and remote sensing in the Department of Geography. Dr. Kasischke's research interests focus in several areas: (1) understanding factors that regulate variations in the fire regime (burned area, fire frequency, and fire occurrence on different landscape units) in the North American boreal forests; (2) studying how fire and the climate interact to influence ecosystem processes and carbon cycling in this region; and (3) developing geospatial data sets from satellite remote sensing data to study fire and its impacts; (4) and using the knowledge gained from this research to further refine the theoretical models that are used to understand the impacts of climate change in high northern latitude ecosystems. His interdisciplinary research involves both field-based studies as well as the use of advanced computer-based geospatial analytical tools (digital image processing and GIS).
Dr. Kasischke advises ENSP-Global Environmental Change students and teaches a number of courses, including AOSC/GEOG/GEOL 123 Introduction to Global Environmental Change and GEOG372 Introduction to Remote Sensing.
Dr. Kasischke received his B.S. in Natural Resources, M.S. in Remote Sensing, and Ph.D. in Remote Sensing/Forest Ecology at the University of Michigan. You can learn more about Dr. Kasischke by visiting his departmental webpage.
Dr. Michael Kearney, Geography
Ms.
Penny Koines, Biological
Sciences Program
 Penelope Koines is an instructor in the Biological Sciences Program who has been active in creating and teaching courses of environmental interest. She helped to create and teach The Causes and Implications of Global Change (now GEOG 123), created a course on the Chesapeake Bay (BSCI 206) and, from her special interest in western water issues, created a course on the ecology and policy of water use in the desert Southwest (BSCI 338K). She regularly teaches Environmental Science (BSCI 205) and Plant Biology (BSCI 124); and advises ENSP-Biodiversity and Conservation Biology students.
Ms. Koines developed an interest in coastal vegetation while doing research at the Chesapeake Biological Laboratory on Solomons Island, and currently has a research project on Assateague Island monitoring Phragmites australis populations for the National Park Service. She regularly teaches BSCI 362 Ecology of Marsh and Dune Vegetation, and her idea of a good time is mucking around the marshes and beaches of the Eastern Shore, and eating Chesapeake Bay crabs! In her spare time Ms. Koines volunteers at the Jug Bay Wetlands Sanctuary and gives talks for the Chesapeake Bay Foundation.
She received her M.S. in Botany (Plant Physiology) from the University of Maryland in 1980. You can contact Ms. Koines by calling: 301.405.1598.
Dr. Howard Leathers, Agricultural and Resource Economics
 Dr. Leathers is Associate Professor and Undergraduate Coordinator in the department of Agricultural and Resource Economics; and advises students in ENSP - Environmental Economics. He teaches World Hunger, Population, and Food Supplies (AREC 365) and senior level courses in Agricultural Policy (AREC 433) and Commodity Markets (AREC 427), and
His book, The World Food Problem, recognizes that millions of people in the less-developed countries continue to go hungry while there is more than enough food in the world to feed them - and tackles the question of why - and what can be done about it.
Dr. Leathers has also authored numerous scholarly articles and served as senior economist on the President’s Council of Economic Advisers.
Dr. Leathers received his A.B. degree from Princeton University, his M.S. degree from the University of Minnesota, and his Ph.D. from the University of Wisconsin. You can learn more about Dr. Leathers by visiting his departmental webpage.
Dr.
John Merck, Geology
 Dr. Merck advises students in the ENSP-Earth Surface Processes concentration. A vertebrate paleontologist, his primary research addresses the phylogenetic relationships of diapsid reptiles, focusing especially on the enigmatic euryapsids, which include ichthyosaurs, nothosaurs, placodonts, and plesiosaurs. His teaching experience spans geological and biological subjects including physical geology, invertebrate and vertebrate paleontology and evolution, and comparative vertebrate anatomy. At Maryland, he teaches GEOL 100/110 - Introduction to Physical Geology; and GEOL 331 - Principles of Paleontology.
Dr. Merck joined the University of Maryland's faculty in 1999 and has served since then as Associate Director of Science and Global Change in College Park Scholars; and since 2004, as Director of Undergraduate Studies for the Department of Geology. Dr. Merck is a committed "avocational" undergraduate educator, whose philosophy is that curriculum should be structured so that students receive the maximum educational benefit for their efforts and establish early connections with their intended professions. In 2004, he was recognized by the College of Computer, Mathematical, and Physical Sciences as that year's Outstanding Instructor. He has led eleven travel study programs to natural history localities in Arizona and the Galápagos Islands, and has participated in travel studies to other destinations.
Dr. Merck received his B.A. In Judaic and Near Eastern Studies from Oberlin College in 1977 and, after a significant mid-life course-correction, received his Ph.D. From the Department of Geological Sciences of the University of Texas at Austin in 1997. In his copious free time (!!) Dr. Merck enjoys contradancing, pottery, and nature photography. He can best be reached by e-mail: jmerck@umd.edu
Dr.
David Tilley, Environmental
Science and Technology
 Dr. Tilley is an Associate Professor in the Department of Environmental Science & Technology, where he directs the Ecosystem Engineering Design Laboratory and advises students in ENSP-Environmental Restoration and Management. Dr. Tilley’s Lab recently received funding from Green Roofs for Healthy Cities to test the thermal and ecological properties of various designs for vegetated green walls for building exteriors. His lab is also investigating the capability of ultra-lite green roof designs to delay urban runoff from buildings. Additionally, with funding from the Harry Hughes Agro-Ecology Center in Wye, MD, Dr. Tilley's Lab is using energy-based systems ecology accounting to develop the framework for how the multitude of ecosystem services generated by forests can be bundled and marketed by an Ecological Investment Corporation so that land stewards can be paid to produce ecosystem services.
Dr. Tilley teaches ENST 444 Restoration Ecology, ENST 405 Energy & Environment, and ENST 281 Computer-aided Design in Ecology. He also teaches graduate courses on Embodied Energy Analysis and Ecological Decision-making. Dr. Tilley won the University of Maryland Gemstone Outstanding Mentor of the Year Award in 2007, while his team won the Outstanding Thesis Award.
The roots of Dr. Tilley's desire to become an ecological engineer and teach environmental science can be traced to time spent tromping through the forests, streams, swamps and pastures of the rural piedmont landscapes of North Carolina. Dr. Tilley received his B.S. in Industrial Engineering from North Carolina State University; his M.Eng. in ecological engineering and his Ph.D. in systems ecology from the University of Florida.
Look for Dr. Tilley biking into work from the south during all-seasons. Learn more about him at by visiting his departmental website or email him questions at dtilley@umd.edu
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