NWRC Weekly Highlights 8/4/2008

Weekly Highlights

From: Gaye Farris
Subject: Weekly Highlights, USGS National Wetlands Research Center, August 4, 2008

Climate Change: USGS Scientist Virginia Burkett, with the USGS Climate Change program, will give a keynote presentation about climate change and impacts on fish and wildlife habitats at the Florida Fish and Wildlife Commission meeting August 20. The conference’s goal is to get information from experts with global, national, and statewide perspectives in order to guide the Commission in developing guidelines for its Climate Change Strategy Document. (Virginia Burkett, Many, La., 318-256-5628)
Shoemaker Award for Speech: Gaye S. Farris, acting assistant director at the USGS National Wetlands Research Center (NWRC), was named a 2008 Shoemaker Award winner in the internal communications category for a speech she gave at the USGS Communications Meeting in June 2007. It was entitled “Communicating During a Disaster: the Professional and Personal.” She will accept the award in Denver on Sept. 22.
The Eugene M. Shoemaker Communications Awards were established in 1997, the year NWRC received a Shoemaker Award for its booklet, “The Fragile Fringe: Coastal Wetlands of the Continental United States.” Award categories are lifetime achievement, external communications, and internal communications. Shoemaker was a USGS astrogeologist and considered the founder of the lunar and planetary geology. He was also noted as an effective and prolific communicator as well as an innovative scientist researcher. (Gaye Farris, Lafayette, La., 337-266-8550)

National Wetlands Research Geographer John Barras was contacted by Thomas Van Biersel, associate professor of research, Louisiana State University, asking to give the Associated Press the base map of the 911 calls (with no data as to numbers, names, etc) The base maps are published maps and so they were given to the requestor. (John Barras, Baton Rouge, La., 225-578-7486)
Climate Change Scientist Virginia Burkett was interviewed by Kevin Spear at the Orlando Sentinel about an upcoming keynote presentation that she will be presenting at the Florida Fish and Wildlife Commission conference in Florida on August 20. (Virginia Burkett, Many, La., 318-256-5628)