Appalachian Lab Monthly Newsletter
At last week’s Town Hall, Dave shared about a new program at AL called The Appalachian Lab Investors Network (TALIN). It has been designed to provide private funding for early-stage research on environmental issues of importance to the Appalachian region that has potential to be transformative. The inaugural meeting of the TALIN investors happened last week and late Thursday we received word that they plan to fund 3 of the 3 proposals (listed below) that were presented:
Zach: “Harnessing natural genetic adaptations for climate resilience in Appalachian fish”
Emily: “A compact mobile radar system for quantifying the movement of birds, bats, and insects”
Matt and Xin Chen: “A near real-time biodiversity mapping, monitoring, and risk assessment system for the Central Appalachians”
Congratulations to Zach, Emily, and Matt/Xin. More details on these projects will be provided in future AL newsletters.
Thanks again to everyone who played a role in making TALIN happen. This is a huge success of which we should all be proud.
New AL Faces
Zach Zbinden, Assistant Professor
Burch Fisher, Associate Research Scientist
Recent Happenings & Announcements
Air Handler Replacement Update
The air handler unit replacement is scheduled for October 24th through the 28th. For safety reasons, access to all labs will not be permitted during this time period, so please plan accordingly. All heating, ventilation, and air conditioning will be shut off. If you need to work in an office, you will need to dress more warmly than usual.
Tan Zou Honored by the International Fertilizer Association
The members of the Scientific Panel on Responsible Plant Nutrition have selected Tan Zou as one of two winners of the 2024 International Fertilizer Association’s Emerging Scholar Award, recognizing the outstanding contributions she has made to plant nutrition science. The award will be announced and presented during the IFA Strategic Forum in November in Madrid, Spain. Tan works as a postdoc with Xin Zhang and is also a recent graduate from the MEES program.
Another Notable New Paper Authored by AL Researchers
Xin Zhang led a paper published in September in Nature Reviews Earth & Environment along with Eric Davidson, Jun Suk Byun, Yanyu Wang, and AL alumnus, Robert Sabo, that was featured on the UMCES website that examined how the unintended environmental consequences of decarbonization might be reduced. Read the UMCES press release here.
2024 Maryland Sport Fisheries Achievement Award
In the July newsletter, we were pleased to announce that Professor Emeritus, Ray Morgan, had been recognized by Maryland DNR for the 2024 Maryland Sport Fisheries Achievement award. He recently attended a ceremony to accept his award:
Suggestions Welcome for Upcoming Watershed Moments Topics
Rhonda and Dave are planning the spring 2025 Watershed Moments Community Learning Series and are welcoming suggestions for presenters. If you have any ideas for a speaker or topic, please let them know.
Crucial Conversations Workshops with UMCES Ombuds
The UMCES Ombuds will be visiting AL on Friday, November 8th to lead three workshops on having crucial conversations. Everyone is strongly encouraged to attend. The workshops will be held in room 109 at the following times:
- Faculty – 9:00 to 10:30 am
- Students & Post-docs – 10:45 am to 12:15 pm
- Admin staff & FRAs – 1:30 to 3:00 pm
New Professional Development Fund
Dave recently announced the creation of a new fund to support the professional development of AL’s FRAs, post-docs, and students. Stay tuned for more information on this fund, including how to request support and examples of eligible and ineligible activities.
AL Inspiration Award Nominations
We are seeking nominations for the 2025 Appalachian Laboratory Inspiration Award. The award recognizes those who engage in or provide support to science, technology, engineering, or mathematics (STEM) initiatives in the following counties: Garrett, Allegany and Washington Counties in Maryland; Bedford, Fulton, and Somerset counties in Pennsylvania; and Mineral, Morgan, Preston, and Hampshire counties in West Virginia. Both individuals and organizations are eligible. Nominees must be engaged in or supporting STEM programming. Visit www.umces.edu/al/inspiration-award to submit a nomination until November 18th.
Spotlight on Safety - National Fire Prevention Week
Earlier this month was the National Fire Protection Association’s annual Fire Prevention week. This year’s theme was Smoke alarms: Make them work for you! Take a moment today to assess the smoke alarm situation in your home. Make sure that you have smoke alarms installed in every bedroom, outside sleeping areas, and on each level of your home. Be sure to test smoke alarms monthly and replace the batteries on November 3rd when we move our clocks back for daylight saving time. It’s also important to remember that smoke alarms don’t last forever. Keep you and your loved ones safe by replacing them at least every 10 years or once they stop responding when tested.
Administrative Reminders - Submitting Leave Requests in Workday
Workday is almost here – November 15th is the big day! The one thing that most of the AL community will need to do in Workday is submit leave requests and track your leave. This will include all faculty, post-docs, FRA’s, and exempt staff. Until now, you would arrange to take leave with your supervisor either informally or through inside.al.umces.edu. You would then have to enter your leave hours (annual, sick, or personal) onto your timesheet in PHR every pay period. The system under Workday will actually be simpler:
The two step process has been reduced to one for the employee:
- Login to Workday.
- Submit a leave request.
Your supervisor will receive a notification about your leave request and will approve or deny it. This will automatically adjust your leave balance. The good news is that you won’t have to remember to login every pay period to submit your timesheet. There will also be options to adjust your leave request if the circumstances changed or if you have to take leave at the last minute due to illness or something else unexpected.
If you’re a supervisor, don’t forget to login to Workday regularly to address outstanding leave requests. If you have any questions you can reach out to Heather.
New Publications
Tonelli B*, Youngflesh C, Cox T, Neate-Clegg M H.C., Cohen EB, and Tingley MW. 2024. Spatial nonstationarity in phenological responses of North American birds to climate variability. Ecology Letters.
Zhu, Q., E.A. Davidson, J.G. Hagedorn, M.S. Castro, T.R. Fisher, R.J. Fox, S.E. Brown, J.W. Lewis. 2024. Evaluation of impacts of biosolids application and drainage water management on soil N2O and CH4 emissions using the flux gradient method. Agriculture, Ecosystems and Environment.
Zhang, X., R. Sabo, L. Rosa, H. Niazi, P. Kyle, J.S. Byun, Y. Wang, X. Yan, B. Gu, and E.A. Davidson. 2024. Nitrogen management during decarbonization. Nature Reviews Earth & Environment.
Davidson, E.A., D.R. Monteverde, and J.D. Semrau. 2024. Viability of enhancing methanotrophy in terrestrial ecosystems exposed to low concentrations of methane. Communications Earth & Environment.
Cui,X., Y Bo, W. Adalibieke, W. Winiwarter, X. Zhang, E.A. Davidson, Z. Sun, H. Tian, P. Smith, and F. Zhou. 2024. The global potential for mitigating nitrous oxide emissions from croplands. One Earth.
DEI Update
The AL DEI (Diversity, Equity, and Inclusion) group would like to welcome all new faces to AL! We invite you to join us for our monthly meetings. You can find our meeting times on the AL EVENTS calendar, and communications/reminders about AL DEI group meetings are sent via email and on our slack channel. As a reminder, all members of the AL community are welcome at all DEI meetings and we would be more than happy to see new faces. Our next meeting will be on Monday, October 28th at 10AM. Please join us! We will be creating teams to begin working on our priorities for this fall/winter. If you have a second before the meeting, please look over the “autumn 2024 priorities” in our planning document to identify which outcomes and initiatives you are most interested in.
Mark Your Calendars
- Air Handler Unit Replacement – October 24th through 28th
- MEES Colloquium at HPL – October 25-26th
- Western Maryland STEM Festival at FSU – October 26th
- Banner decorating for Halloween Parade – Monday, October 28th @ 4 pm
- Frostburg Halloween Parade – Tuesday, October 29th @ 6 pm
- AL-loween Seminar & Potluck Lunch – Friday, November 1st @ 11 am
- UMCES Ombuds Workshops – Friday, November 8th @ various times
- AL Seminar – Tina Phillips, Cornell Lab of Ornithology – Friday, November 15th @ 11 am
- AL Seminar – Yantao Li, IMET – Friday, November 22nd @ 11 am
- AL Seminar – Judy O’Neil, HPL – Friday, December 13th @ 11 am
- AL Holiday Party – Tuesday, December 17th @ noon
Do you have an announcement or update you’d like to include in a future newsletter?
AL’s monthly newsletter is issued following the monthly town hall meeting. Please submit any announcements and updates to Katie Kline or Heather Johnson before the close of business on the first Friday of each month to ensure that your content can be included in that month’s newsletter.
