Orin Foster Environmental Lecture Series
EVS Seminar Series guest Doug Tallamy presenting: "Nature’s Best Hope"
Join us for the Orin Foster Environmental Lecture Series and Environment and Sustainability Seminar Series, where leading experts dive into the most pressing environmental challenges of our time.
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Monthly Events:
Below is the exciting lineup of speakers, please save the dates! We’ll continue to update the titles and talk summaries as more details become available. We look forward to sharing these great talks with you!
Brendan Hoffman
Through the Lens of Ecocide: War and Environmental Destruction in Ukraine
NOTE CHANGE OF ROOM
Date: September 4, 2026
Time: 2 p.m
Location: 330 Student Union, North Campus
Can't make it in person? Watch on ZOOM
Since its full-scale invasion of Ukraine in 2022, Russia has been widely accused of intentionally and disproportionately damaging Ukraine's environment through acts of war. While Ukrainian law and certain elements of the Geneva Conventions make such actions prosecutable in theory, the reality of doing so has involved significant new approaches to documentation along with a push for new legal avenues to hold the Russian state and individual commanders responsible. In 2025, photojournalist Brendan Hoffman published a major front-page feature article in The New York Times on the topic of ecocide in Ukraine, which he pitched, reported, wrote, and photographed. In this talk, Brendan will discuss the idea of ecocide and share his pictures and reporting on the intersection of war and the environment in Ukraine and beyond.
Brendan Hoffman is an American documentary photographer based in Kyiv, where he has covered Ukraine’s revolutions and war with Russia since 2013. His work explores identity, history, politics, conflict, and the environment, and has appeared in major publications including The New York Times and National Geographic. His photography has been exhibited internationally.
He was a 2018–19 Fulbright Scholar in Ukraine and won the 2018 Philip Jones Griffiths Award for his coverage of the war in the Donbas. He has also received grants from several prominent journalism and documentary organizations.
Brendan Hoffman, Documentary Photographer and Writer, based in Kyiv, Ukraine
This talk is part of the conference "Global Systemic Risk: War Ecocide and Rising Authoritarianism" organized by "Baldy Center for Law and Public Policy"
PLEASE REGISTER FOR THE CONFERECNE OR THE TALK: Meeting Registration
Nataliia Yaroshenko
How can plants tell us about war?
Date: September 11, 2026
Time: 2 p.m
Location: 240 Capen Hall, North Campus
Can't make it in person? Watch on ZOOM
When we think about war, we think about what humans leave behind: destroyed buildings, burned vehicles, craters, debris. But what if the landscape itself could testify?
Nataliia’s work had began with a simple idea: if we learn how to read plants, we can learn how to read what happened to a landscape. Through field research in war-affected areas of Ukraine and environmental restoration projects, she uses the tools of plant population ecology based on ontogenetic, gender and vitality parametres of the populations. She asks how populations survive, regenerate, change their structure, and respond to damaged soils, altered water regimes, and other forms of disturbance.
Nataliia will take us into Ukraine’s war-affected landscapes to explore plants as living witnesses of war— organisms that can reveal damage we cannot always see. But the story does not end with destruction. Some of these same plants may also become part of the solution, helping scientists and communities understand where recovery is possible and how damaged landscapes might be restored.
Dr. Yaroshenko is a Ukrainian ecologist, she holds a PhD in Ecology and studies plant ecology, military-affected landscapes, and ecosystem recovery in Europe and the USA. Her current work explores how plants and ecological change can help us understand, document, and communicate the environmental consequences of war. She is also the creator of enWAR_mental, an environmental communication initiative that uses storytelling and a comic to explain how war affects Ukrainian landscapes and ecosystems, bringing complex environmental science closer to young and non-specialist audiences.
Nataliia Yaroshenko, PhD. Fulbright Researcher, Department of Environment and Sustainability, University at Buffalo
Adam Rome
Sustainability on the Cheap: Walmart’s Effort to Sell Greener Products
Date: September 18, 2026
Time: 2 p.m
Location: 240 Capen Hall, North Campus
Can't make it in person? Watch on ZOOM
In 2005, Walmart CEO Lee Scott promised that the Always Low Prices behemoth would sell greener products. Walmart was the world’s biggest company – the biggest grocer as well as the biggest retailer – so Scott’s promise was stunning. And it was even more stunning because Walmart was both the most admired and the most hated U.S. corporation. The company’s fledgling sustainability team soon took unprecedented steps to make Scott’s promise real. Yet Walmart never aspired to be as green as could be. Sustainability was a strategy – a way to seek competitive advantage – not a new corporate identity. The effort to sell greener products had to make business sense. As a result, executives could justify some initiatives, but not others. What drove the sustainability effort, and what limited how far Walmart would go?
Adam Rome, PhD. Professor, Department of Environment and Sustainability, University at Buffalo.
Chie Togami
Equity as an afterthought? Environmental Justice and Lead Service Line Replacement
Date: September 25, 2026
Time: 6 p.m
Location: 210 NSC (Natural Science Complex), North Campus
Can't make it in person? Watch on ZOOM
Years after the water crisis in Flint, Michigan, made national headlines, lead contamination of drinking water remains a persistent and deeply inequitable public health challenge across the United States. With billions of federal and state dollars now being invested in lead service line replacement (LSLR), important questions remain: Who benefits from these investments? To what extent are communities most affected by lead exposure being prioritized? And where does the lead waste generated through replacement efforts ultimately end up? Drawing on lessons from municipal replacement programs, including recent work in Pittsburgh, PA, this talk explores how decisions about prioritization, implementation, community engagement, and waste management shape both the effectiveness of remediation efforts and their environmental justice implications.
Chie Togami, PhD. Assistant Professor from the Environmental Studies State University of New York College of Environmental Science and Forestry (SUNY-ESF)
Mark Moffett
The evolution of strangers and foreigners
Date: October 23, 2026
Time: 6 p.m
Location: 210 NSC (Natural Science Complex), North Campus
Can't make it in person? Watch on ZOOM
As an entomologist at the Smithsonian Institution and visiting scholar in anthropology at Harvard, Dr. Mark W. Moffett has been building a synthesis on how societies stay together and fall apart, across species and in humans right up to the present day. His most recent book The Human Swarm: How Our Societies Arise, Thrive and Fall has been called “a magisterial work of monumental importance” by Scientific American columnist Michael Shermer, while Kevin Kelly, founder of Wired magazine, tells us to “read this manifesto if you like to have your mind changed.” Moffett is a modern-day explorer with more than a little luck on his side, having accidentally sat on the world’s deadliest snake, battled drug lords with dart guns, and scrambled up a tree to escape bull elephants. He's often been called “Doctor Bugs,” but has also been given the monikers “the Indiana Jones of Entomology,” “the Martha Stewart of dirt,” and “the Jane Goodall of ants” (the last given by Jane herself).
Mark Moffett, PhD. Research Associate, Entomology. Smithsonian National Museum of Natural History.
Amanda Pike
Exploring careers in Corporate Sustainability
Date: November 6, 2026
Time: 2 p.m
Location: 240 Capen Hall, North Campus
Can't make it in person? Watch on ZOOM
Join us to learn about careers in corporate sustainability. We'll explore what sustainability jobs look like at businesses large and small and share advice for starting a professional journey in this field.
Working at the intersection of business operations and sustainability, Amanda helps small companies scale resiliently, creating a future where businesses function within planetary boundaries and offer opportunity for team members to have a fulfilling professional experience.
Amanda began her career journey as a sustainability consultant, spending over a decade equipping major organizations like Kimberly-Clark, Tillamook, and The Walt Disney Company with analysis and strategic insights to address their environmental impacts. During this time, she simultaneously laid operational foundations for an international consultancy, steering its growth from an early-stage startup of 20 people to a resilient firm of over 250 change agents.
Transitioning into leadership as COO at a certified B Corp, Amanda ensured that the company’s practices, team development, and financial health were aligned to propel the organization toward its long-term vision while maintaining a thriving workplace culture and doubling the size of the team.
Today, Amanda serves as a strategic partner to visionaries through her own company, Rhythms to Run. She works with small businesses to build operating rhythms that are people-positive and environmentally responsible.
Amanda holds a B.S. in Environmental Engineering and an M.S. in Environmental Engineering with a focus in Water Resources. She serves as the President of the Board of Directors for the Western New York Sustainable Business Roundtable and the Vice-President of the Bioregenerative Agriculture Institute.
Amanda Pike, Board President, Chief Operating Officer, Western New York Sustainable Business Roundtable
Michael Wong
Developing Science-based Engineering Solutions to Improve Our Environment: The Case of PFAS
Date: November 13, 2026
Time: 6 p.m
Location: 210 NSC (Natural Science Complex), North Campus
Can't make it in person? Watch on ZOOM
Michael S. Wong, Ph.D, is the Tina and Sunit Patel Chair in Molecular Nanotechnology and professor in the Department of Chemical and Biomolecular Engineering at Rice University. He is also professor in the Departments of Chemistry, of Civil and Environmental Engineering, and of Materials Science and Nano Engineering. He received his education and training at Caltech, MIT, and UCSB. He is Research Thrust Leader in the Rice WaTER Institute and Director of the Rice PFAS Abatement and Replacement Center (Rice PAR). His research program tackles water, sustainability, and energy issues through chemical engineering, materials chemistry, and heterogeneous catalysis approaches. He develops thermal/photo/electro-catalysis technologies to de-construct molecules, i.e., treat water of undesirable contaminants like drycleaning and industrial solvents, fertilizer runoff, and PFAS. His Catalysis and Nanomaterials Laboratory has generated over 220 publications, cited cumulatively over 20,000 times. He received the 2023 AIChE Lawrence K. Cecil Award, the highest environmental honor in chemical engineering, the International Precious Metals Institute's 2025 Henry J. Albert Award for pioneering precious metal catalysis for clean water applications, and the 2025 AIChE NSEF Award, the highest nanotechnology honor in chemical engineering. He is a Fellow of the American Institute of Chemical Engineers (AIChE), the American Chemical Society (ACS), and the Royal Society of Chemistry (RSC). He serves on the ACS Society Committee on Publications, and as an executive editor for the ACS journal Environmental Science and Technology.
Michael Wong, PhD. Tina and Sunit Patel Professor in Molecular Nanotechnology
Professor, Chemical and Biomolecular Engineering, Chemistry, Materials Science and Nanotechnology, Civil Environmental Engineering
Ken Zidell
Hemlock Range-Shift Modeling in the Lower Peninsula of Michigan
Date: December 4, 2026
Time: 2 p.m
Location: 240 Capen Hall, North Campus
Can't make it in person? Watch on ZOOM
Eastern hemlock (Tsuga canadensis) is a foundational forest species of the Great Lakes and in Northeast regions of North America. After experiencing a near-extinction event during the Middle Holocene, circa 5500 cal. yr BP (=calendar years Before Present), hemlock recovered to occupy its present-day geographic range. As the species is currently threatened by a number of stressors such as hemlock woolly adelgid (HWA) and the effects of rising temperatures due to anthropogenic climate change, a species distribution modeling (SDM) was used to (1) determine the most important environmental variables associated with historic hemlock distribution in the Lower Peninsula of Michigan (LP), (2) compare these to variable importance estimates for projected late-21st century anthropogenic climate-change scenarios in the LP, and (3) evaluate the effects of spatial scale on model results. Model results indicated spatial scale influences variable importance estimations, with modest changes in hemlock’s range under worst-case climate-change scenarios. The habitat suitability maps created through SDM-based range-shift analysis can be effectively used by land managers and foresters to better assess and allocate resources to specific forest stands containing hemlock.
Ken Zidell, New York State Department of Environmental Conservation
Digitizing Whale, Ichthyosaur, and Sea Cow Graveyards: How 3D Data Changed the Way I think About Research, Collections, and Diplomacy.
Nicholas Pyenson, Paleontologist and the Curator of fossil marine mammals, Smithsonian Institution’s National Museum of Natural History
Micro to Macro: Microbial Insights to Macro solutions
Ronell Bridgemohan, Adjunct Professor, University at Buffalo
City of Buffalo Climate Action
Kelley St. John, Climate Action Manager, City of Buffalo, New York
Religious environmental "Hugging Trees movement
Jagriti Upadhya, guest faculty at the Department of English, Jai Narain Vyas University, Jodhpur.
Tree Story: What we can learn about human, climate, and forest history from the rings in trees
Valerie Trouet, Professor of Dendrochronology, Laboratory of Tree-ring Research, University of Arizona
The Value-Added of Applied Anthropology in International Development: How Social Analysis Strengthens Investment Initiatives.
Pamela Pozarny, Senior Rural Sociologist, Food and Agriculture Organization (FAO) of the United Nations (retired)
There’s No Place Like Home—Unless It’s Loud: Whales and Bats and Anthropogenic Noise, Oh My!
Christina Perazio, Assistant Professor, Canisius University
Science as a Self-Correcting Mechanism… Examples from Avian Cognition
Irene Pepperberg, Research Professor, Boston University, founder & president, Alex Foundation
Building University-Community Research Networks: Soil and Water Lessons from Pittsburgh.
Jonathan Burgess, Director Water Collaboratory in Pittsburgh
Prescriptive Decarbonization Solutions for Mid-Transition
Madalsa Singh, Assistant Professor, Golisano Institute of Sustainability, Rochester Institute of Technology
Nature's Best Hope
Doug Tallamy, Baker Professor of Agriculture, Department of Entomology and Wildlife Ecology, University of Delaware
Turning Gray to Green: Post-Industrial Restoration and Urban Ecological Connectivity in Buffalo, NY
Nicholas Henshue, Associate Teaching Professor, Department of Environment and Sustainability, University at Buffalo
Understanding Community Preferences for Improved Energy Resilience
Susan Clark, Associate Professor, Department of Environment and Sustainability, University at Buffalo
Erie County Climate Action & Sustainability Initiatives
Tracy Skalski, Sustainability Coordinator, Erie County Department of Environment & Planning
The increasing value of biodiversity in a rapidly changing world
Healy Hamilton, Chief Scientist, Sustainable Forestry Initiative
The Liars of Nature and the Nature of Liars: The Evolution of Cheating
Lixing Sun, Distinguished Research Professor, Central Washington University
Cultivating UB’s Premier Community Garden: An On Campus Application of the Miyawaki Forest Method
Omar Suri, UB Sustainability, University at Buffalo
Snowy Owls and Lemmings: 35 Years of Predator-Prey Dynamics in the Arctic
Denver Holt, Owl Research Institute
Seed Saving and Climate Resilience in Western New York
Josh Randall, Natural Resources Educator, Cornell Cooperative Extension, Niagara County
Lessons from 65 years of Observing Wolves and Moose on a Wilderness Island
John Vucetich, Distinguished Professor, Michigan Technical University
The Academic Life and Times of Jordan Fox
Jordan Fox, Associate Professor, Department of Sociology and Criminology, Department of Environment And Sustainability, University at Buffalo
Evaluating how prairie restorations influence native bee communities
Dan Cariveau, Associate Professor, Department of Entomology, University of Minnesota
Nature-Based Solutions for Climate Adaptation in Cities
Nancy Grimm, Regents Professor, Virginia M. Ullman Professor of Ecology, School of Life Sciences, Arizona State University
Plants, Places, People, and Social Structures: Exploring Sites, Archives, and Familial Memory
Alissa Ujie Diamond, Assistant Professor, Department of Urban and Regional Planning, University at Buffalo
The Bird Ring: how colonial empire haunts contemporary bird research in the Tropics
Lydia Gibson, Assistant Professor, Geogetown University
Ma ka hana ka ʻike: reflections on doing ocean conservation and how to do it better Steven Mana'oakamai Johnson, Assistant professor Cornell, Department of Natural Resources
Wallace Craig, the Wood Pewee, and Disability Gain in Environmental Science
Kristoffer Whitney, Associate Professor, Department of Science, Technology, and Society, Rochester Institute of Technology
Managing Spotted Lanternfly in New Jersey: Experiences from the field
Tony Cullen, Ecologist; Animal and Plant Health Inspection Service, US Department of Agriculture
The Age of Loneliness: Human-Wildlife Conflicts and Community Science
Laura Marris, author of The Age of Loneliness
Ecological Offsets as a Mechanism for Meaningful Restoration
Brad Mudrzynski, Ecologist, Land Ethic Planning & Restoration.
Urban Trees are a Matter of Life and Death
Geoffrey Donovan, Research Forester. Pacific Northwest Research Station, Forest Service, USDA.
Mesophication of Oak Ecosystems: The Consequences of Altered Fire Regimes
Gregory Nowacki, Regional Ecologist, US Forest Service- Eastern Region.
What do plants need? The Extractive Politics Hehind Water and Pollination Requirements.
Emily Reisman, Assistant Professor, Department of Environment and Sustainability; University at Buffalo, NY
Chasing Shadows: Exploring the Mysteries of Nighttime Ecology and a Nocturnal Primate
Stephanie Poindexter, Assistant Professor, Anthropology Department & Department of Environment and Sustainability; University at Buffalo, NY
Becoming Jonah: Studying Whale Feeding and Its Anthropogenic Interactions
Alexander Werth, Patterson Professor of Biology; Hampden-Sydney College, VA
In Situ Treatment of PFAS using Sonolysis within a Horizontal Treatment Well
Michelle Crimi, Dean of the Graduate School / Acting Associate Vice Provost for Research & Technology Transfer / Interim Vice Provost for Research & Technology / Professor of Environmental Engineering; Clarkson University, NY
Natural Resource Management in the Big Apple
Melissa Cohen, Department of Environmental Conservation
Achieving Urban Multifunctional Environments
Sheryl Hosler, University of Illinois Chicago, IL
Biological Invasions: Resilience Through Reframing
Vasiliy Lakoba
The American Chestnut Foundation
Human Behavior, Urban Design, and Ecosystem Functions: Moving towards a socio-biogeochemical framework
Amanda Suchy
Central Michigan University
North on the Wing
Bruce Beehler
Smithsonian Institute
Reconstructing Long-Term Environmental and Climatic Change in the Great Lakes Region Through Paleoecology
Albert Fulton II
Assistant Professor, Department of Anthropology, University at Buffalo, NY.
An Environmental Justice Approach to Entrepreneurship and Innovation
Monica Miles
Assistant Professor, Engineering Education, University at Buffalo, NY. Mother Earth Literacies, LLC
Building Civic Infrastructures for Just Participation in Energy Industry Projects
Kirk Jalbert
Associate Professor, Department of Environment and Sustainability; EEB Director of Graduate Studies, University at Buffalo, NY
Meet the EVS DVS Fellow: Transdisciplinary Environmental Scholarship and Activism
Claudia Ford
Distinguished Visiting Scholar, Department of Environment and Sustainability, University at Buffalo, NY
Opportunities in Sustainability: A Promising Carreer Path
Swathi Karamcheti
Teaching Assistant Professor, Department of Environment and Sustainability, University at Buffalo, NY
The New York State Hemlock Initiative and Classical Biological Control of the invasive Hemlock Woolly Adelgid
Mark Whitmore
Senior Extension Associate and Forest Entomologist, Department of Natural Resources and the Environment, Cornell University, Ithaca, NY
"Is Brown the New Green? The fusion ecology of urban wildlands"
Dr. Claus Holzapfel
Department of Earth and Environmental Science, Rutgers Newark
Urban ecology: towards a multidisciplinary, multi-species, multi-city approach
Javier delBarco-Trillo, PhD
Communities united to protect snow leopards: Land of Snow Leopard
Almagul Osmonova, MSc
Director of Taalim-Forum NGO
Conserving wildlife and ecosystems in mixed-use landscapes
Christie Sampson, PhD
University of Calgary
Zooming In and Out: Coastal Ecogeomorphology across Scales
Kendall Valentine, PhD
Virginia Institute of Marine Science, College of William & Mary
People power and its potential for understanding urban biodiversity
Corey Callaghan, PhD
German Centre for Integrative Biodiversity Research, Leipzig Germany
Understanding the effects of urbanization to the ecology and evolution of stream biota to support sustainable cities
Piata Marques, PhD
Center for Environmental Research in the Anthropocene, University of Toronto
Promoting community-informed research and social equity in urban green space management
Mayra Rodiguez Gonzalez, PhD
Gund Institute for Environment and the Spatial Analysis Laboratory, University of Vermont
Analyses of structure and dynamics of tropical and temperate forests
Jenny Zambrano, PhD
School of Biological Sciences, Washington State University
Life on the reef: competition and predation of newly settled octocorals
Chris Wells, PhD
Department of Geology, University at Buffalo
Partner or Predator? Engaging China in Sustainable Rubber Initiatives
Juliet Lu, PhD
Atkinson Center for Sustainability, Department of Global Development, Cornell University
Food systems and life cycle assessment
Andrew Berardy, PhD
Center for Nutrition, Lifestyle, and Disease Prevention, School of Public Health, Loma Linda University
Sustainable Development
Pat Keys, PhD
Colorado State University
Sponsored by the Department of Geography
Title To Be Announced
Michelle Fournet, PhD
The Cornell Lab of Ornithology, K. Lisa Yang Center for Conservation Bioacoustics, Cornell University
Title To Be Announced
Do Hyoung Kim, PhD
Department of Geography, University at Buffalo
Greenhouse Gas Emissions Associated with Waste Management Options
John Atkinson
Department of Civil, Structural, and Environmental Engineering, University at Buffalo
Streamflow and the environment: from deserts to Great Lakes
Corey Krabbenhoft
Department of Fisheries, Wildlife and Conservation Biology, University of Minnesota
Telling Stories about the Environment: Filmmaking as a Means of Disseminating and Discovering Knowledge about Our Ecological Predicament
John Fiege
Department of Media Study, University at Buffalo
Navigating the night: slow loris movement and conservation
Stephanie Poindexter
Department of Anthropology, University at Buffalo
Democracy and Environment
Barbara Wejnert
Department of Global Gender and Sexuality Studies, University at Buffalo
Department of Environment and Sustainability, University at Buffalo
Sustainability and Transdisciplinary Thinking
Craig Thomas
Department of Environment and Sustainability, University at Buffalo
Life in a changing world: Understanding community resilience and vulnerability to anthropogenic stresses
Ranjan Muthukrishnan
Indiana University, Environmental Resilience Institute
Hidden Ecologies: Exploring the social-ecological dynamics of urban waterfronts
Anne Toomey
Environmental Studies and Science, Pace University
Bridging organizations as innovative governance tools for socioecological governance in small-scale forest communities in the post-industrial world
John Boakye-Danquah
University of Saskatchewan
When it smells it pays': Sustainability science and policy on Peru's contaminated coast
Apollonya Porcelli
Brown University
Putting Efficiency in its place: situating paradigms of agricultural sustainability
Emily Reisman
University of California, Santa Cruz
Collective, collaborative, and conflicting: insights on environmental governance in an era of environmental change
Abigail Sullivan
Indiana University
Carbon removal technologies: How can they be developed in the public interest?
Holly Buck
University of California, Los Angeles
Taking control to do more: how local governments and communities can enact effective climate mitigation policies
John Armstrong
University of California, Santa Cruz
The Impact of Intrinsic & Extrinsic Factors on Primate Social Structure & Disease Risk: Insights from the Genus Macaca
Krishna Balasubramaniam
Department of Population Health and Reproduction, School of Veterinary Medicine, UC Davis
Social Status and Reproductive Behavior in Naked Mole Rats
Melissa Holmes
Department of Psychology, University of Toronto, Mississauga
Envisioning a Sustainable Society: Reconsidering a Pioneering Call-to-Action by UB's Lester Milbrath
Adam Rome
Department of Environment and Sustainability, University at Buffalo
Social Inequality, Environmental Change and Urbanization in Greater Houston
Kevin Smiley
Department of Sociology, University at Buffalo
The evolution of life and landforms: Modeling the link between biological and geological processes
Katherine Kravitz
Department of Geosystems, GeoForschungsZentrum Potsdam
Q&A Session
Andrew Hoffman
The University of Michigan, Ross School of Business
How Culture Shapes the Climate Change Debate
Andrew Hoffman
University of Michigan, Ross School of Business
Video Recordings:
Video recordings of past seminars from the Department of Environment and Sustainability are available upon request. To access these recordings, please contact Isabel Porto-Hannes at isabelha@buffalo.edu.