2018 Libby Lecture in Natural Resource Policy to be held April 10

An expert on connecting cutting-edge environmental science with public policy will speak at the University of Maine’s second annual Libby Lecture in Natural Resource Policy on Tuesday, April 10.

Noelle Eckley Selin, an associate professor at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology’s Institute for Data, Systems and Society and the Department of Earth, Atmospheric and Planetary Sciences, will present the 4 p.m. lecture, “Air Pollution in a Changing World: Designing Research for Impact,” in the McIntire Room of the Buchanan Alumni House. A 3:30 p.m. reception with refreshments will precede the lecture.

Selin’s research uses atmospheric chemistry modeling and interdisciplinary methods to inform decision-making on air pollution, climate change and hazardous substances such as mercury.

During her lecture, Selin will describe multiple partnership and engagement models for conducting research that informs people making decisions about environmental policy, and will provide the audience with tangible examples and engagement strategies.

Prior to Selin’s current appointment, she was a research scientist with the MIT Joint Program on the Science and Policy of Global Change; a research associate with the Initiative on Science and Technology for Sustainability at Harvard’s Kennedy School; a visiting researcher at the European Environment Agency in Copenhagen, Denmark; and worked on chemicals issues at the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency. Selin holds a Ph.D. from Harvard University in Earth and planetary sciences where she was part of the Atmospheric Chemistry Modeling Group.

The annual Libby Lecture in Natural Resource Policy was established at the University of Maine Foundation in 2016 with a gift from Lawrence W. Libby and Lois Murdock Libby. The lecture is a collaborative event coordinated by the College of Liberal Arts and Sciences and the College of Natural Sciences, Forestry, and Agriculture. It is free and open to the public.

Lawrence and Lois Libby are both UMaine alumni. They have dedicated their careers to resource economics, public policy, and in improving civil rights and economic conditions for minorities, women and the disabled.

More information about the lecture is online. To request a disability accommodation, call 581.1145 or email libby-lecture-group@maine.edu.

Contact: Erin Miller, 581.3204