The boxes on this page highlight the contributions of just some of the LMU faculty to the interdisciplinary study of ecology and the environment. Also see one way LMU students have contributed their time and energy to resolving ecological problems in regards to the Ballona Wetlands, nearly adjacent to the LMU Campus.
All departments have an endowed chair for Ethics in their fields, so it is natural that environmental awareness is a large part of campus life.
LMU incoming freshman read a selected book the summer before entering, and have an encounter with the author during the Fall Semester.. The Freshman Book for Summer, 2012 is Journey of the Universe. The authors, renowned scholars Mary Evelyn Tucker (Yale University Forum on Religion and Ecology) and Brian Swimme (California Institute for Integral Studies) will be visiting LMU on Thursday, September 6, to discuss the book with our students, faculty and staff.
Dr. Treanor is Associate Professor of Philosophy and Director of Environmental Studies at LMU. His academic foci include hermeneutics, continental philosophy and theology, virtue ethics, and environmental philosophy. His was the effort that brought the SCPT Conference to LMU, including planning, hosting, and coordination.
A specialist in the Religions of India, Dr. Chapple has written and edited many works in the areas of ecology and religion. He is the editor of the section on ecology and Jainism for the Oxford Bibliographies Online.
Dr. Burton-Christie has written extensively on desert spirituality in early monasticism, and on the relationships between Nature and spirituality, and the spirituality of place. He is the editor of the journal Spiritus.
Dr. Burton-Christie will be teaching a course entitled "The Wild and the Sacred" this summer, which will include travel to the Ventana Wilderness and to a monastic community in Big Sur.
Dr. Kulek's research interests include distributive bioinformatics education, development of a molecular ecology toolkit, coastal wetlands research: reservoir for antibiotic resistance, and the HHMI SEA Phage program.
Dr. Seymour is Assistant Professor of Urban Studies. Her areas of research include the human dimensions of environmental sustainability, urban greenspace and environmental Justice, and animal geographies. Recent publications include articles on the greening of urban alleys, and an encycylopedia article on urban animal life.
This distinguished LMU Professor of Ecology and Field Biology pioneered many aspects of environmental investigation before his untimely death in 2000. His teaching and commitment have inspired many of his students and colleagues toward awareness and action. He developed Ezstat, then considered ""the best statistical program for beginning biologists" for its ease of use and breadth of coverage.
LMU's Howard Towner Memorial Scholarship funds upperclass students conducting field biology, or doing research or scholarship in this area.
In March of 2007, then President Robert Lawton, S.J., created the Environmental Stewardship and Sustainability Committee (E2SC), with the charge of identifying how we as a university could ideally care for our planet in our actions, while balancing real world complexities such as fiscal constraints and competing values. The committee comprises students, faculty and staff and meets regularly to discuss campus programs, events and initiatives related to sustainability. A number of the faculty on this page are members of ththe E2SC.
In the Summer of 1999, eleven LMU students from across the academic colleges, schools and departments collaborated on a research and writing project on the Ballona Wetlands. The final manuscript report, "Enhancing undergraduate research: the Ballona Wetlands and Playa Vista development project: an interdisciplinary study" is held in the Department of Archives and Special Collections, where it can be consulted. The LINUS record in our catalog lists the individual papers in the notes field.
"Impact of Irrigation Systems on Arthropod Community...
along Ballona Wetlands."
http://www.bioone.org/doi/abs/10.1893/0005-3155-84.2.101.
UG Student Research Project
J. Aquino, M. Catala,
Dr Victor Carmona-Galindo, faculty mentor (not pict.)
This Department is known for its longstanding work with ecological aspects of water, that all-important necessity of life. Most of the faculty have expertise that is directly pertinent to studying and solving problems in urban ecological systems.
Thomas I. White is the Conrad N. Hilton Professor of Business Ethics, as well as a philosopher and humanist. Among his contributions is the book In Defense of Dolphins: The New Moral Frontier, which deals with human exploitation of dolphins, especially in the film industry. (See this Web site.) He is a member of the Scientific Advisory Board and Wild Dolphin Project. He's also a Fellow of the Oxford Centre for Animal Ethics and served as U.S. Ambassador to the United Nations' 2007/8 Year of the Dolphin program.
Originally created by Professor White as the Businss Ethics Fortnight, for more than a decade, an interesting yearly competition between students at LMU, and now between student of a number of colleges and universities has taken place. For the retitled Intercollegiate Business Ethics Case Competition (IBECC), students select a realworld business problem to be solved ethically and with environmental consciousness. Business, financial, legal, environmental and ethical components are presented by students in their solution of the problem to a panel, often including representatives from the actual company involved.
For more on this competition, see http://cba.lmu.edu/academicprogramscenters/centers/centerforethicsandbusiness/
Dr. Strauss is the Presidential Professor for urban ecology. His research interests include the biological and human social dynamics of urban ecosystems, behavioral ecology of animals in urbanizing habitats, and public engagement in the doing and teaching of science.
Among the projects undertaken at the Dahlquist Lab is the identification of soil bacteria and biological pathways in the Ballona Wetlands, moving toward the bioremediation of organic pollutants.
See a fuller description here: http://myweb.lmu.edu/kdahlqui/Research.htm#ballona
Dr. Watts' Lab focuses on environmental cues regarding the integration of behavior, physiology and ecology to investigate the relationships between environmental variation, life history patterns, and the behavior of individuals.
More information: http://myweb.lmu.edu/hwatts/hwatts/Research.html
Dr. Dorsey is Professor of Environmental Science, and teaches courses in environmental and marine sciences. His research focuses on understanding fluctuations of fecal indicator bacteria along coastal beaches and wetlands associated with runoff and tidal flows, and assessing the prevalence of bacteria having multiple resistances to antibiotics in these coastal systems. A member of the Science Advisory Committee for the Ballona Wetlands Restoration project, and of the Technical Advisory Committee for the Santa Monica Bay Restoration Commission, he sits on local and state technical committees dealing with water quality issues and policy. He is on the Board of Directors of both the Southern California Academy of Science, and the Southern California chapter of the Society of Environmental Toxicologists & Chemists. He is an avid surfer, and passionate about water quality.
Dr. D'Evelyn is Assistant Professor of Economics specializing in Environmental Economics and Experimental Economics. His environmental research focuses primarily on the economics of invasive species and his experimental work looks at reciprocity as a means to encourage pro-social behavior.
Dr. Landry has been the Associate Dean for Undergraduate Studies in the Seaver College of Science and Engineering since July 1997. He is also a Professor in the Department of Chemistry and Biochemistry and has served as Chair of that department (1992-1996), as Director and founding Chair of the Natural Science Department (1995-2007), and as Director of the University Honors Program (2000-2003). His current research interests involve the determination of heavy metal levels in the Ballona Wetlands as this degraded wetlands begins the process of restoration. He is also involved in the development of the Ballona Discovery Park, a museum without walls facility, to help K-12 students, college students, and the general public learn about the Ballona Wetlands and the larger Ballona watershed.