Mary Kate Donais
Ph.D., University of Massachusetts
Associate Professor, Chemistry

Expertise:  analytical chemistry, with a specialty in metal speciation in the environment (especially mercury) and environmental measurement technologies.
Can also discuss: how environmental measurements are performed, including those for methylmercury, PCBs, PAHs, pesticides, and trace metals.

Brian Penney
Ph.D., University of Alberta
Assistant Professor, Biology

Research interest: the nudibranch, a "snail that lost its shell" that is found along the seashore in tidal pools and rocks and can steal the toxins and stinging cells of their prey.
Can discuss:  marine ecology, especially invertebrate biology; marine biodiversity; ocean and shore health, including diseases that affect the lobster and clam populations.

Web Site

Jay Pitocchelli
Ph.D., City University of New York
Professor, Biology
Research interests: behavior, evolution and evolutionary ecology of birds; geographic variation in bird song and the ecology of seabirds in the Aleutian Islands of Alaska. Studies variation in Mourning Warbler songs throughout breeding range, and whether "cultural evolution" has occurred in this species. Sees birds and changes in song as good models to study similar phenomena in evolution of human language.

Web Site

David Guerra
Ph.D., American University
Chair, Associate Professor, Physics
Research interest: laser induced phenomena and electro-optics engineering
Other: developed laser systems, in the photonics group at NASA-Goddard Space Flight Center (GSFC), for atmospheric sensing projects; works with a group from NASA-GSFC's Laboratory for Atmospheres on the development of algorithms for extracting atmospheric buoyancy waves from scanning lidar (laser radar) data.