Faculty Update

First Annual Mayor's Green Award Recipient: Sajed Kamal

SID Professor Sajed Kamal received one of the Boston Mayor Menino's "First Annual Mayor's Green Awards" for "Community Leadership in Energy and Climate Protection."
He was one of 17 residents or businesses who are leading Boston to become more sustainable. Almost ten years ago, Kamal helped to found Solar Boston, a partnership of renewable energy experts, community organizations and businesses committed to promoting solar technologies throughout Greater Boston. In addition to sponsoring many energy related lectures, seminars and workshops, Solar Boston has helped install over fifty grid-connected photovoltaic solar electric systems in the region. His forthcoming books include Renewable Solutions: How We Can Fight Global Warming, Prevent Energy Wars and Transition to a Sustainable Future.


Marion Howard's Work Highlighted in Nature

As advisor to The Corporation for the Sustainable Development of the Archipelago of San Andres, Old Providence, and Santa Catalina (CORALINA), SID Professor Marion Howard led a team that planned and coordinated the designation of a 65,000 sq. kilometer marine protected area northwest of the Columbian coast in the Caribbean Sea. The work of CORALINA in environmental research, planning, and management and the success of Columbia's marine protected area was recently highlighted in the January 10, 2008 issue of Nature.

Jose Suaya, MD PhD

In addition to teaching, I have been doing research on dengue and cardiovascular diseases. Professor Shepard and I have led a multi-country study on the epidemiological and socio-economic impact of dengue in eight-countries in the Americas and Asia. Since much of the work has been collaborative, I spent six weeks in summer 2007 in Seoul to write up the findings with colleagues from the International Vaccine Institute. In the recent months, we have received visits from distinguished researchers from Panama (Dr. Blas Armien), Brazil (Drs. Siqueira and Martelli) and Thailand (Drs. Kongsin and Jiampton) to work on country papers. In November 2007, I presented at the annual conference of the American Society of Tropical Medicine and Hygiene in Philadelphia. This link leads to a press release about the research.

Our research on cardiovascular diseases has been very active as well. With colleagues from Brandeis, Vermont School of Medicine and Harvard University, I have co-authored a study on the national use of cardiac rehabilitation following a heart attack or coronary surgery. The main findings--a very low national use of a life-prolonging intervention along with dramatic variations by age, gender, race, and state--have attracted widespread media attention. There was a news release from the American Heart Association and news articles from a variety of national and international sources such as Reuters.

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Belize Program Work with the Ya'axché Conservation Trust

Recent SID graduate Carlos Montero now serves as the Executive Director of the Ya'axché Conservation Trust, in southern Belize. I have visited the Trust twice in the past year, and have been working as an advisor for the Trust on the launch of a non-timber forest product program that calls on my experience in tropical insect ecology. Specifically, the Ya'axché Station manager and I are attempting to bring into "cultivation" several species of showy moths and butterflies. There is a growing market in spectacular insect specimens, sold in high end gift shops in the US, and in hotels, airports, "tourist" shops, and so on in Costa Rica. I have seen no similar trade in spectacular insects in Belize, and therefore Ya'axché staff agreed that this would be a worthwhile market to explore. The project stuck me as especially suitable for the Ya'axché Station, once I saw that the station included a modern wood working shop on its grounds, staffed by several skilled craftsmen from the local Mayan communities. The specialty of the shop is picture frames, a product easily modified to accommodate mounted insect specimens.

My visits to the Ya'axché Conservation Trust also serve the purpose of better understanding the opportunities at that site for SID interns. Presently there are three interns working with this NGO, and I serve as the main advisor for each of them. Their projects include 1) carbon sequestration policies of the Belize government and the resulting opportunities for CS projects in the Mayan farm and forest lands; 2) planning and monitoring of biodiversity protection, that YCT facilitates with the Mayan communities, and 3) examining how an increase in active community participation in development interventions results in improved environmental conservation behavior, at least according to the participants themselves.

Ricardo Godoy, PhD

Once again Professor Godoy ran the NSF-summer field training camp in the Bolivian Amazon for 7 weeks (June-July). Forthcoming publications include article on the effects of rainfall variability on nutritional status (American Journal of Human Biology), effects of climate change on child health (Annals of Human Biology, under final review), and the economics of assortative mating (Evolution and Human Behavior, under final review). He has been invited to deliver a series of lectures in May 2008, on ecological economics at the University of Barcelona, Spain.