OSU a partner in the Department of the Interior's South Central Climate Science Center

Friday, October 7, 2011

OSU a partner in the Department of the Interior’s South Central Climate Science Center

Oklahoma State University is a part of the seven-member consortium selected to form the Department of the Interior’s South Central Climate Science Center.  Interior Secretary Ken Salazar announced the South Central CSC today along with two others.  The CSCs serve to provide land managers in federal, state and local agencies access to the best science available regarding climate change and other landscape-scale stressors, according to DOI.    

The other consortium members include: University of Oklahoma, Texas Tech University, The Chickasaw Nation, The Choctaw Nation of Oklahoma, Louisiana State University and NOAA’s Geophysical Fluid Dynamics Laboratory.  OSU’s participation will involve 22 faculty members from seven different departments.

"OSU is a key member of the consortium to host this Climate Science Center and faculty campus-wide will engage with USGS and the other university and tribal members across the region,” said Duncan Wilson, assistant professor of natural resource ecology and management and the primary point of contact for OSU on the project.  “We are very excited at this opportunity to help lead this region in addressing the problems of climate change head-on.”

Other OSU faculty members participating in the CSC include:

From the Department of Entomology and Plant Pathology

• Carla Garzon (Assist. Prof., rhizosphere plant pathology)
• Carmen Greenwood (Assist. Prof., invertebrate community ecology)
• Brad Kard (Prof. and Endowed Professorship—Structural and Urban Entomology)
• Phil Mulder (Prof. and Dept. Head, agricultural/horticultural insect ecology and IPM)
• Michael Reiskind (Assist. Prof., medical entomology & public health)
• Astri Wayadande (Assist. Prof., hemipteran vector ecology)

From the Department of Natural Resource Ecology & Management

• Tim O’Connell (Assoc. Prof., avian ecology)
• Rodney Will (Assoc. Prof., eco-physiology)
• Gail Wilson (Assoc. Prof., grassland ecology)
• Chris Zou (Assist. Prof., eco-hydrology)

From the Department of Botany

• Mark Fishbein (Assist. Prof., systematics and evolution)
• Michael Palmer (Regents Prof., community ecology)
• Janette Steets (Assist. Prof., evolutionary ecology)

From the Department of Geography

• Carlos Cordova (Assoc. Prof., geoarchaeology)

From the Department of Geology

• Jeff Byrnes (Assist. Prof., remote-sensing)
• Todd Halihan (Assoc. Prof., aquifer hydrogeology)

From the Department of Sociology

• Riley E. Dunlap (Regents Prof., environmental sociology)
• Beth Caniglia (Assoc. Prof., environmental policy)

From the Department of Zoology

• Kristen Baum (Assist. Prof., landscape ecology)
• Jennifer Grindstaff (Assist. Prof., avian ecology)
• Monica Papeş (Assist. Prof., conservation biology)