UMaine Prof. Robert Steneck to Give Geddes W. Simpson Distinguished Lecture
Contact: Joe Carr, (207) 581-3571
ORONO, Maine — Robert S. Steneck, University of Maine professor of oceanography, marine biology and marine policy, will give the 2008 Geddes W. Simpson Distinguished Lecture. The lecture is set for UMaine’s Maine Day, Wednesday, April 30 at 3 p.m. in Buchanan Alumni House’s McIntire Room. Steneck will give a talk entitled “Considering the Future of our Seas Through the Lens of History.”
Steneck is a marine ecologist whose laboratories are kelp beds of North America and coral reefs in the Caribbean and Indo-Pacific. In those locations, he studies lobsters, sea urchins, fish, corals, historical ecology, global climate change and the science of managing marine resources. His work has attracted attention from national and international media including The New York Times, The Economist, Atlantic Monthly, National Geographic, The Christian Science Monitor, Newsweek, National Public Radio and The New Yorker. Steneck’s research has resulted in more than 100 peer-reviewed scientific publications.
Steneck played an important role in establishing UMaine’s Semester by the Sea program at the university’s Darling Marine Center in Walpole. Semester by the Sea enables undergraduate students to experience Maine’s marine environment first- hand.
The family of Geddes Wilson Simpson established the Geddes W. Simpson Lecture Series Fund at the University of Maine Foundation in 2001. Simpson was a well-respected University of Maine faculty member for 55 years, chair of the Entomology Department and the editor at the Maine Agricultural and Forest Experiment Station. He retired from UMaine in 1974.
The public is invited; light refreshments will follow the lecture.