For nearly a quarter-century, wetlands and northern ecosystems have been the focus of Clare Boothe Luce Assistant Professor of Environmental Studies Jill Bubier's interest. Her current work is a joint U.S.-Canadian study of northern forest processes and interactions with the atmosphere.
In her new position, Bubier is the first full-time faculty appointment to the College's environmental studies program. "This is not a joint appointment, but one designed to strengthen the College's environmental science program," she explains. Bubier is currently developing a new intermediate-level, interdisciplinary science course that she says will "have lots of field and laboratory opportunities. It's designed to give students hands-on experience doing science in real-world settings," she says. Bubier will also be setting up a research program in her new lab in Cleveland Hall. "I feel I bring a very broad background to the College. As someone with interdisciplinary training, I feel I can talk to everybody involved in the environmental studies program."
Bubier, who attended Smith College for two years, has a JD degree from the University of Maine School of Law, an MS in botany from the University of Vermont's Field Naturalist Program, and a Ph.D. in physical geography from McGill University. Her research background in ecology is extensive, and includes field work in Northern New England, Alaska, and Canada. She has taught at the University of Southern Maine, McGill University, and at several field schools, including an eleven-year association with several Outward Bound programs.
Since 1995 Bubier has been involved with a large-scale field and laboratory research project, the Boreal Ecosystem-Atmosphere Study (BOREAS). BOREAS is a joint U.S.-Canadian study of northern forest processes and interactions with the atmosphere. "We're trying to understand carbon cycling in the boreal region, in particular how ecosystems may respond to global climate change," she says. "In addition to my own field work measuring carbon dioxide and methane gas exchanges in a diverse peatland ecosystem, one of the project sites in Northern Manitoba, I supervised graduate and undergraduate student research and field learning."
"I've been doing outdoor things all my life," says Bubier, who grew up in the Boston area and enjoys canoeing in northern waters. "When I was first looking at careers, it was a pioneering time in environmental law. Then big-picture natural science, multidisciplinary ecosystem science, began emerging. Eventually science became more interesting than law. Science, the hands-on component, is a better fit."
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