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biology

Biology Research

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experiential learning

Smithsonian-Mason team keeps watch, so elephants can doze off

Colleen Rich — Fri, 17 Dec 2021 16:22:41 +0000

Smithsonian-Mason team keeps watch, so elephants can doze off Colleen Rich Fri, 12/17/2021 - 11:22

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Because elephants only sleep three to four hours a night, and frequently wake during that time, their sleep is a precious commodity.

Smithsonian-Mason School of Conservation student Eva Noroski (left) works with Mason Alumna and Elephant Trails Keeper Ashley Fortner to research elephant sleep patterns at the National Zoo. Photo by: Shelby Burgess/Strategic Communications/��AV

That’s why ��AV senior Eva Noroski has spent a month this semester assisting 2017 Mason alumna and Elephant Trails keeper Ashley Fortner at the National Zoo, researching how these massive mammals can get optimal sleep.

“Sleep is super important for the elephants because they don’t actually do a lot of it,” said Fortner, who studied for a year at the Smithsonian-Mason School of Conservation (SMSC).

“Eva’s work is actually directly, every day, impacting how we take care of the elephants.”

Noroski has been accessing footage from the Smithsonian’s camera system to monitor the elephants from 5 p.m. until 5 a.m., and logging what she observes. In particular, she’s tracking Kamala, a female elephant who has arthritis, which causes her difficulty in laying down and getting up.

“I’m trying to determine which elephants she sleeps best with, if she sleeps best by herself, if there are any social dynamics that appear during the night that I can let the keepers know about,” said Noroski, an environmental science major and conservation studies minor. “That’s all really significant information because their sleep is important to their health, and if any mammal is losing sleep, they could become more susceptible to illness.”

Noroski’s findings will help management create pairings that offer the best sleep for each of their five elephants, said Fortner, who graduated from Mason with a integrative studies degree and a concentration on applied global conservation.

When Noroski isn’t behind the computer, she can be found performing zookeeping tasks, and shadowing Fortner as she interacts with, trains, and completes wellness checks with the elephants.

“I have made great connections, not only with people here at the zoo, but also with my [SMSC] teachers who are active conservationists,” Noroski said. “They’re super willing to help students find opportunities as well as connect us with other people—that’s a really unique thing you can’t just get in any conservation program.”

That’s exactly why Fortner said she also “fell in love” with the SMSC program.

“It means so much,” Fortner said of being able to mentor students in the same way she was mentored. “Once I found my path, I found that having those practicums and hands-on learning experiences helped me make that decision.”

“For the mentor side of it, it’s giving back to the conservation community,” she said. “It was really important for me to not only take care of elephants and give back to conservation in that way, but to help people that also want to do this see that this is possible.”

Noroski, who grew up in Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania, said she chose Mason after researching schools with the best conservation programs.

Being at SMSC with a small cohort of students and teachers is one of the most rewarding parts, she and Fortner agreed.

“It’s a great program where you get really personal attention, as well as amazing practical experience that you will not just be able to find anywhere else,” Noroski said. “You are put in a position where you are pretty much handed useful, practical experience in the real working world.

“That’s invaluable when you’re an undergrad and trying to get your foot in the door,” she said.

Topics

Smithsonian-Mason School of Conservation

Smithsonian

Smithsonian's National Zoo and Conservation Biology Institute

Conservation

Conservation Biology

conservation-learning environment

Undergraduate

undergraduate research opportunities

School of Integrative Studies

environmental science

Department of Environmental Science and Policy (ESP)

Sustainability

Sustainability Research

Reconstructing their narratives: $300,000 DOJ grant elevates Mason’s lynching research

Mariam Aburdeineh — Fri, 11 Dec 2020 17:43:08 +0000

Reconstructing their narratives: $300,000 DOJ grant elevates Mason’s lynching research Mariam Aburdeineh Fri, 12/11/2020 - 12:43

Topics

Carter School for Peace and Conflict Resolution

Jimmy and Rosalynn Carter School for Peace and Conflict Resolution

John Mitchell Jr Program for History Justice and Race

Justice and Race

Conflict Resolution

Narrative

Black African Heritage

Black Lives Matter

undergraduate research opportunities

Carter School for Peace and Conflict Resolution

In This Story

Charles Chavis

Of the more than 4,000 lynchings of Black Americans that took place in the United States between 1865 and 1950, at least 43 cases occurred in Maryland.

��AV’s John Mitchell Jr. Program (JMJP), housed within the Carter School for Peace and Conflict Resolution, has been helping research several of these cases since 2019 to support the Maryland Lynching Truth and Reconciliation Commission. In October, they received news that they will be taking their research to the next level, thanks to a $300,000 Department of Justice grant they helped secure for the commission.

Charles Chavis speaks at a dialogue on memorialization in December 2019. Photo provided.

“States, in terms of their narratives, don’t shed light on these historic traumas,” said Carter School professor Charles Chavis, who is on the board of directors for the Maryland Lynching Memorial Project. “We wanted to give life to the relatives of victims whose loved ones had been forgotten.”

The grant, which is part of the Emmett Till Cold Case Investigations Program, will allow the commission and JMJP to supercharge their research.

“We work directly with the relatives in the sentence that we identify because we believe there is a direct line that can be drawn from the racial terror and lynchings of old to the existing racial terror and anti-blackness that we continue to see manifest in 2020,” Chavis said. “[With the grant] we’re now able to hire expert genealogists to help us track down the relatives [of lynching victims] so that they can be a part of the process.”

$100,000 is set aside for the communities and families of the victims for restorative justice reform, said Chavis, who founded JMJP to address narrative change and social transformation. The rest of the funds will go toward live reconciliation-style hearings.

“We work through each individual case in the various communities with key expert witnesses, relatives, descendants bearing witness to this history,” Chavis said.

Before that happens, Chavis said the Mason team helps with forensic reconstruction, which involves leaning on existing research and records to put together a mosaic of the case.

The Maryland State Archives have been key to their efforts.

“Students have been able to work directly with the research, documenting cases, doing census data, pulling death certificates, verifying biographical data and pulling together narratives of individuals,” Chavis said.

In the process, undergraduate and graduate students are gaining hands-on activist and research experience.

“What has been most important for me is being able to put some of what I learned about narrative approaches to racial and social justice into practice,” said master’s in conflict analysis and resolution student Audrey Williams, who is one of five students supporting the commission.

She said the project has also helped her better understand her role in creating change.

“You have to recommit to confronting anti-Black racism every day,” Williams said. “What that means for people who already benefit from the system is committing, with humility, to listening to and platforming the voices of colleagues, friends, and community members who have been harmed, and to becoming comfortable with being uncomfortable. The best place for this entire process to start is in our own hallways, classrooms and relationships.”

Jimmy and Rosalynn Carter School for Peace and Conflict Resolution

John Mitchell Jr Program for History Justice and Race

Justice and Race

Conflict Resolution

Narrative

Black African Heritage

Black Lives Matter

undergraduate research opportunities

environmental and sustainability studies

Graduation Profile: Environmental justice leader is force for positive change

Mariam Aburdeineh — Wed, 20 May 2020 00:05:00 +0000

Graduation Profile: Environmental justice leader is force for positive change Mariam Aburdeineh Tue, 05/19/2020 - 20:05

Topics

Graduation

Leadership

Environmental Research

Smithsonian-Mason School of Conservation

study abroad

Honors College

Office of Sustainability

Fellowships Office transitions to Undergraduate Education

Colleen Rich — Mon, 18 May 2020 15:33:36 +0000

Fellowships Office transitions to Undergraduate Education Colleen Rich Mon, 05/18/2020 - 11:33

Topics

Office of Fellowships

Office of the Provost

Honors College

Costello College of Business

Malerie Gamblin is Mason’s 2020 Academic Advisor of the Year

Mariam Aburdeineh — Tue, 07 Apr 2020 04:07:04 +0000

Malerie Gamblin is Mason’s 2020 Academic Advisor of the Year Mariam Aburdeineh Tue, 04/07/2020 - 00:07

Topics

Academic Advising

Department of Communication

Mason senior who interned with CNN strives to make a difference in political journalism

Mariam Aburdeineh — Tue, 25 Feb 2020 05:00:00 +0000

Mason senior who interned with CNN strives to make a difference in political journalism Mariam Aburdeineh Tue, 02/25/2020 - 00:00

Topics

communications

Washington Journalism and Media Conference

Honors College

Leadership

Student Success

Student Spotlight

Fighting for Bolivian democracy, Mason senior rises as a leader

Mariam Aburdeineh — Mon, 16 Dec 2019 05:00:00 +0000

Fighting for Bolivian democracy, Mason senior rises as a leader Mariam Aburdeineh Mon, 12/16/2019 - 00:00

For 21 straight nights, graduating senior Yasser Aburdene spent his evenings protesting in front of the Bolivian Embassy in Washington, D.C., fighting for democracy in the midst of a controversial election victory by Evo Morales. He had no idea his advocacy would land him in the spotlight at one of the most historic sites for human rights.

The nightly protests earlier this fall made the Bolivian native familiar to organizers who staged a November rally. Representing the youth of his country, Aburdene was selected to speak on the steps of the Lincoln Memorial before a chanting crowd of 10,000 people, facing a bank of cameras, with a large Bolivian flag behind him.

Graduating senior Yasser Aburdene spent his evenings protesting in front of the Bolivian Embassy and delivered a speech to 10,000 people at the Lincoln Memorial. Photo by Lathan Goumas/Office of Communications and Marketing

“A lot of people my age forget where we come from,” said Aburdene, whose speech focused on unifying Bolivia’s disparate races and reminded the audience that political change would come. “My goal right now is to remind people that our parents fought for our democracy, our grandparents did this.”

The politically minded 24-year-old government and international politics major aspires to one day run for elected office in Virginia and to eventually represent Bolivia as an ambassador. While he’s adopted the commonwealth as his new home—he’s lived in Virginia since emigrating with his father and brother at age 17—he remains passionate about Bolivian freedoms.

Morales resigned on Nov. 10, but there is still work to be done, Aburdene said. He will continue to protest for peace, stability and democracy, and he recently co-founded the organization New Generation of Bolivians, a bilingual news outlet focusing on Bolivian politics.

“The greater impact [of my advocacy] is showing people that there’s always something they can do,” Aburdene said. “We all have a purpose, so always engage with what you’re doing, always fight for what’s right.”

“Yasser’s work with the protest movement is a wonderful example of how Mason students are able to bridge the divide between classroom education and real-world political action,” said Edward Rhodes, one of Aburdene’s professors at the Schar School of Policy and Government. “His activities are combining his passion and energy, his commitment to the future of Bolivia, and the skills and insights developed here at Mason.”

Mason was Aburdene’s first-choice college; he wanted to be near the action in Washington, D.C., he said. From influential professors to student organizations dedicated to making a difference, “I love how Mason is always engaged with the community,” Aburdene said.

His time at Mason has been action-packed. A member of the Pi Kappa Phi fraternity, Aburdene is also a member of Mason’s College Republicans and the Young Americans for Liberty organization, and he volunteers with Americans for Prosperity. After his December graduation, the first-generation college student will look for work with local nonprofits as he gears up to study for a master’s degree and eventually a PhD, he said.

“I’m passionate—my purpose was always to make a difference,” Aburdene said, adding that his advocacy work never feels like a burden. “I’m doing something I love, and I’m doing something for the greater future of my country.”

Graduation

Student Success

Schar School of Policy and Government

Schar School

Leadership