Emerging climate change research focus of Hal Borns Symposium
ORONO, Maine — University of Maine graduate students and faculty will make more than 60 presentations about emerging physical, chemical, social and ecological climate change research, on topics ranging from lobsters to deer ticks, at the 25th annual Harold W. Borns Jr. Symposium on April 13–14 in Wells Conference Center.
The symposium’s namesake, Professor Emeritus Harold “Hal” Borns, founded the Climate Change Institute — then called the Institute for Quaternary Studies — at UMaine in 1973.
“For anyone interested in the past and present of climate and its impact on humans and our world, the Borns Symposium is an essential event,” said Dan Sandweiss, professor of anthropology and climate studies.
Gordon Bromley and Stephen Hornsby are the featured speakers at this 44th anniversary celebration of the CCI, one of the nation’s leading centers for exploration and research about the climate of the past, present and future.
Bromley, who graduated from UMaine in 2010 with a doctorate in Earth sciences, will deliver the Invited University of Maine Alumnus Lecture at 6 p.m. April 13, in Room 1. The research assistant professor in the Climate Change Institute and the School of Earth and Climate Sciences will discuss “The Loch Lomond Affair: Exploring the Terrestrial Impact of Abrupt Climate Change in the North Atlantic.”
Hornsby will deliver the David Clayton Smith Lecture titled “Climate, Environment, and the Historical Atlas of Maine” at 11:30 a.m. April 14, also in Room 1. Hornsby directs the Canadian-American Center and the National Resource Center on Canada and is a professor of geography and Canadian studies. David Clayton Smith, who died in 2009 at age 80, was a professor of history at UMaine and was an expert in climate history, Maine and New England history, American agricultural and forest history.
Also at the symposium, graduate students and faculty will make oral and poster presentations from noon to 7 p.m. April 13 and from 8 a.m. to 2 p.m. April 14.
The public is invited to the free symposium. To request an accommodation, contact 207.581.3406, bliqcs@maine.edu. More information, including the schedule, is online.