Thursday, January 22, 2009

“Global Change and the Future of African Wildlife" with Wayne Getz


with Professor Wayne Getz of UC-Berkeley
(January 21, 2009) in the TL Performance Theater

Professor Getz discussed the impact of global change on the ecology of wildlife in Africa. He showed a short film on zebra collaring in Africa. Graduate student Andy Lyons spoke about field work in Zambia and the inter-relation between human and animal populations in that African nation.

Professor Getz received his BS in Applied Mathematics and his Ph.D. in Modeling and Control of Birth and Death Processes from the University of the Witwatersrand, Johannesburg, South Africa. His specialty is Quantitative Population Biology and his research interests include a broad range of theoretical and applied questions in population and biology with application to epidemiology and conservation biology. He is currently a Professor in the Department of Environmental Science, Policy & Management at UC-Berkeley's College of Natural Resources. At this time projects in his laboratory include: (i) Ecology of anthrax and parasitic co-infections in the plain’s herbivores of Etosha National Park, Namibia., (ii) Bovine TB in wild animals, livestock, and humans in southern Africa., (iii) Movement Ecology: exploring the causes, patterns, mechanisms and consequences of organism movements with particular application to buffalo and elephants., and (iv) Merging dynamical systems modeling and analysis at different levels of biological organization.

Five Health Challenges that Were Deadly Before Antibiotics

Nola Palestrant, Tamalpais High School      In 1928, Sir Alexander Fleming accidentally discovered humanity’s first antibiotic, Penicillin, ...

About Us

Marin Science Seminar is a one-hour science lecture/presentation with a question and answer period open to all interested local teenagers, educators and community. Seminar sessions are held 12 Wednesday evenings during the school year, from 7:30 to 8:30 pm in the Innovation Hub at Terra Linda High School, 320 Nova Albion Way, San Rafael. Seminar speakers are scientists, mathematicians, engineers, physicians, technologists and computer programmers. The topics presented are in a specific area of the speaker’s expertise, geared to interested high school students.