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Adieu to 2020 Header

Adieu to 2020

Dr. Patrick Louchouarn

Dr. Patrick Louchouarn
Regents Professor, Dept. of Marine & Coastal Environmental Science & Dept. of Oceanography

Associate Provost (TAMU)

Executive Associate Vice President for Academic Affairs & Chief Academic Officer (TAMUG)


Dear Friends and Colleagues,

The end of any year always offers opportunities for reflecting on the achievements of the past 12 months and setting a vision for the ones to come. I am sure you join me in experiencing the awe and trepidation this year’s reflections bring. A year like no other in generations has left us exhausted yet unified and determined to build a more resilient tomorrow than we ever felt possible. Not only did our entire campus community have to navigate the disruptions of a global pandemic that wreaked havoc on our livelihoods, we had to adjust repeatedly to the interruptions multiple hurricanes brought to our shores. Our faculty and staff have embodied the Aggie Core Values of excellence, respect, integrity, loyalty, leadership and selfless service through the Herculean efforts they displayed to ensure academic continuity and provide the best pedagogical experience possible to our students. I find myself personally inspired and deeply grateful for their commitment and dedication, hence, I want to highlight and champion their continued creativity and achievements.

To recognize our faculty and also emphasize the connectivity of their work with themes central to the Blue Economy, we bring you a selection of short stories that illustrate the different perspectives they each share with respect to a simple daily experience, namely the enjoyment of a hot cup of coffee. These stories are meant to serve as an introduction to the creativity and richness of the scholarship performed on our campus. I invite you to explore in more detail the incredible stories and academic achievements of our faculty.

In addition to recognizing the awarded faculty and staff from Academic Affairs, please join me to applaud the extraordinary efforts all, without exception, gave to this institution to get us through this very difficult year. We would have been lost without their dedication and support.

In closing, and in addition to recognizing the community of scholars that define the Galveston Campus, I want to give a special shout out to the larger island family that has embraced us for more than five decades now. We feel it’s important to invest in the dynamic community that continues to reinvent itself and takes risks to thrive, so this small token recognizes and respects that fact. All over the world, maritime communities are addressing a mix of complex histories and connections to pasts that blend salt water, legitimate and questionable trades, and the people that have forever been attracted by the mysteries of the wide ocean and the opportunities it offered every civilization. Galveston is sister to these city-ports that define their regions and nautical basins. As Galveston reimagines itself with the ebb and flow of new generations, our land-, space-, and sea-grant institution contributes its energy and innovation to helping weave the fabric of our coastal state and nation.

Wishing you all a healthy 2021!

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2020 Coffee Chats

The History of Coffee
Kathryn Falvo, Liberal Studies
Light vs. Dark Roast: Just a Matter of Preference?
Patrick Louchouarn, Marine & Coastal Environmental Science
Coffee & Sleep in the Deep Sea
Randall Davis, Marine Biology

Maritime Logistics: It's All About the Coffee!
Cassia Bömer Galvão, Maritime Business Administration

The Real 'Fuel' of Maritime
Augusta Roth, Maritime Transportation

Good Neighbors Work Together
Anna Armitage, Marine Biology

Caribbean Hydroclimate & Coffee
Pete van Hengstum, Marine & Coastal Environmental Science

What Stimulates the Ocean & the Global Carbon Cycle
Karl Kaiser, Marine & Coastal Environmental Science

About Red Light Coffee Roasters
Carol Bunch Davis, Liberal Studies
2015 - 2020 By The Numbers
Faculty Awards
Faculty Promotions
Institute for a Disaster Resilient Texas
Gulf Center for Sea Turtle Research
Academic Affairs Awards

History of Coffee


THE HISTORY OF COFFEE

Coffee was central to the early Atlantic “triangular trade.” Brought from Europe to America by Christopher Columbus in 1492, coffee quickly took both literal and economic root in the Americas. It was reintroduced to Europe with the other lucrative crop grown in the Americas - sugar. And with this critical additive, the global addiction to coffee was complete. When British colonizers came to the Americas, they imported both coffee and Britain’s cultural attachment to it. America was central to the triangular trade, as goods (and people) shifted between Africa, South America, North America, and Europe. Coffee was in the middle of all of these processes. While a small coffeehouse in Boston may seem quaint, it was in fact a microcosm of international affairs. Coffee consumers in America relied on Dutch shipping, African labor, Brazilian coffee, and Barbadian sugar. Thus, coffee was central to the history of expansion and domination in the early colonial world.

But it was also central to revolution. When Britain sought control over international trade, Americans responded by famously tossing millions of pounds worth of tea into the Boston Harbor. To get their caffeine fix, many patriots turned to the other, less popular caffeinated beverage – coffee. Shipped directly from South America without going through British ports or tax collectors, coffee was considered the true drink of revolutionaries. While many Americans struggled to get rid of their taste for tea entirely, coffee came to symbolize the promise of a global trade network controlled by Americans, not Britons.

So for your morning cup, I leave you this thought: Coffee is the brew of both the conquerors and the revolutionaries. Its sweetness is built on the bitter oppression of enslaved humans. But it has, ironically, filled the cups of revolutionaries that touted “freedom” and resisted oppression. Will your cup fuel dominance, and the expansion of your will? Or will you use it to rebel against tyrants, to think differently, to make change in your world? History shows, I suppose, that it can go either way.



Kathryn Falvo

Kathryn Falvo
Instructional Assistant Professor
Liberal Studies

BIOSKETCH

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2015 - 2020 By The Numbers    

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Light vs. Dark Roast: Just a Matter of Preference

Patrick Louchouarn

Patrick Louchouarn
Regents Professor
Dept. of Marine & Coastal Environmental Science & Dept. of Oceanography

Associate Provost (TAMU)

Executive Associate Vice President for Academic Affairs & Chief Academic Officer (TAMUG)


LIGHT VS. DARK ROAST:
JUST A MATTER OF PREFERENCE


When it comes to a choice of light vs. dark roast for your favorite “cup of joe”, I am sure you have a preference. However, did you ever wonder if the saying that brown roasts yield more caffeine than dark roasts is an urban myth or reality? Well, my students and I set to find out in my Quantitative Analysis chemistry class.

Solvent extraction of the ground light vs dark roasts showed no statistical difference in caffeine content in the coffee itself. However, extraction of the brewed coffee (drip) showed that the light roast yielded ~21% more caffeine per cup than the dark roast, thus confirming that differences in caffeine between the two roasts is not an urban myth. However, how can they yield different amounts of caffeine when they contained the same concentration in the ground roasted beans? The answer lies in an area of my research showing that charred organic matter has a strong binding affinity for aromatic organic compounds (what is also called a strong sorbent). We know caffeine is soluble (as your body thanks you every morning), but its structure also makes it susceptible to retention in strong sorbents, thus explaining the lower yields of caffeine from more charred coffee roasts.

This simple work also opens a door to understand the function of activated carbon in water filters. Less well known is the role of wildfires on water quality. Although charred organic matter acts as a sorbent, it is also composed of a number of toxic chemicals (e.g. polycyclic aromatic hydrocarbons), and their large-scale release in the aquatic environment following massive wildfires that are contributing to spikes of organic matter, not all benign, to the environment. Something to mull over your morning joe…



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Recognizing Faculty Awards    

Anna Armitage Headshot

Anna Armitage
Professor
Marine Biology

The Association of Former Students Distinguished Achievement College-Level Teaching Award (2020)

 

 

Cassia Bomer Galvao Headshot

Cassia Bömer Galvão
Assistant Professor
Maritime Business Administration

Montague-Center for Teaching Excellence Scholar (2020)

Wesley Highfield Headshot

Wesley Highfield
Associate Professor with Tenure
Marine & Coastal Environmental Science

William Paul Ricker Faculty Award (2020)

Kristin Josvoll Headshot

Kristin Josvoll
Instructional Assistant Professor
Liberal Studies

Vice President Meritorious Service Award for Outstanding Classroom Teaching (2020)

 

 

David Wells Headshot

David Wells
Associate Professor
Marine Biology

Chancellor’s Enhancing the Design of Gateway Experiences Fellow (2020)

 

 

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Coffee & Sleep in the Deep Sea


COFFEE & SLEEP IN THE DEEP SEA


Coffee has a stimulating effect on the brain that reduces fatigue and prevents drowsiness. The active ingredient is caffeine, which occurs in a variety of seeds, nuts or leaves from plants native to Asia, Africa and South America. Most coffee beans come from Coffea arabica, a shrub originally from Ethiopia.

Caffeine is a psychoactive drug that is legal in most parts of the world, but not acceptable among some religious groups. Many people drink coffee to enhance wakefulness and concentration, even when they feel the need for sleep. Wakefulness and sleep are mutually exclusive mental states. Although the function of sleep remains poorly understood, it is an essential biological process that occurs in reptiles, birds and mammals and may have evolved with the emergence of terrestrial vertebrates 320 million years ago. However, behavior similar to sleep even occur in cnidaria (e.g., jellyfish), which are the most ancient animals to possess a nervous system.

Whatever its function, sleep has profoundly widespread effects on physiology and behavior. Behavioral sleep in terrestrial mammals is usually associated with closed eyes and varying degrees of body relaxation, immobility and a reduced level of vigilance, but a return to wakefulness with sufficient stimuli. Although coffee can postpone sleep, it cannot alleviate the physiological need for it. Some mammals can postpone or reduce sleep for months. Each year, southern elephant seals make a two-month migration in the southern Atlantic Ocean and exhibit sleep-like behavior only seven percent of the time, equivalent to four days of sleep out of 60. When they do sleep at sea, they dive to 100-meters and then slowly drift down to a depth of 350-meters for seven minutes, otherwise motionless and sleeping in the chilly darkness of the deep sea before returning to the surface to breathe. When elephant seals finally return to shore after their migration, they sleep for weeks, but it is uncertain whether they make up the lost sleep at sea.

Perhaps the best adaptation for sleeping at sea occurs in dolphins, which exhibit unihemispheric sleep. Only one hemisphere of their brain sleeps at a time, while the other hemisphere appears fully awake and functional. This allows them to swim and sleep at the same time with one eye closed and the other open. So, if you had the brain of a dolphin, you would never be fully asleep and would never need coffee for your early morning or late-evening tasks. Of course, you could still drink espresso for pleasure, something dolphins will never be able to experience.



Randall Davis

Randall Davis
Regents Professor
Marine Biology

BIOSKETCH

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Recognizing Faculty Promotions    

Chaouki Boulahouache Headshot

Chaouki Boulahouache
Instructional Associate Professor
Foundational Sciences

 

 

Jhenny Galan Headshot

Jhenny Galan
Instructional Associate Professor
Foundational Sciences

 

 

Maria Pia Miglietta Headshot

Maria Pia Miglietta
Associate Professor with Tenure
Marine Biology

 

Nikolaos Mykoniatis Headshot

Nikolaos Mykoniatis
Instructional Associate Professor
Maritime Business Administration

Grace Townsend Headshot

Grace Townsend
Instructional Associate Professor
Foundational Sciences

 

 

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Maritime Logistics: It's All About the Coffee!

Cassia Galvao

Cassia Bömer Galvão
Assistant Professor
Maritime Business Administration

BIOSKETCH


MARITIME LOGISTICS:
IT'S ALL ABOUT THE COFFEE!


Americans consume 400 million cups of coffee per day, making the United States the leading consumer of coffee in the world. However, Hawaii is the only U.S. state that grows coffee and clearly cannot supply the increasing demand from American coffee lovers. In 2019/2020, the top U.S. suppliers were Brazil (24%), Colombia (22%), Vietnam (16%), and Honduras (6%).

In tonnage, Brazil is the largest coffee-producing country in the world. But Germany, without having a single plant of coffee on its territory, is listed as the largest coffee exporter, due to its traditional coffee-roasting industry. In value (USD), Brazilian exports correspond to 15% of world coffee trade, followed by Colombia with 8.9%. The coffee plant Coffea arabica is a large, delicate bush that grows at elevations between 600 -2,000 meters above sea level and thrives only between the Tropics of Cancer and Capricorn. That means that a whole lot of logistics is involved before that fresh, delicious cup of coffee can reach the American consumers every day.

Coffee beans are typically exported in sacks weighing 60 kilos (approximately 132 lbs). One 60-kilo sack of beans usually results in 48 kilos of roasted coffee, which is equivalent to about 4800 cups of coffee. Doing the math means that to supply the daily American need for coffee, 83,000 sacks of coffee are needed. And guess what? All of that needs to be transported by ocean freight, given the weight and dimensions of the logistics. Because a 20-feet-long container vessel can take up to 320 sacks, approximately 19 tons, in any given year, close to 100,000 coffee containers reach our shores at one of our ports in the continental U.S.



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The Real "Fuel" of Maritime


THE REAL "FUEL" OF MARITIME


Mariners tend to burn the candle at both ends, often working a 24/7 week. Coffee is our fuel! Oftentimes you can even see the daily grind in the coffee grounds. As the leader of the Texas A&M University at Galveston Maritime Transportation Department (MART), I have been busy developing a new leg of our voyage. MART is engaging with maritime industry, federal and international regulatory bodies, and developing educational opportunities. Some days it’s smooth, and some days you just lose the filter.

Recently, I have been reaching for a “cuppa joe” to perk me up for interactions with United States Coast Guard Maritime Deck License program development and participating in International Maritime Organization, Merchant Marine Personnel Advisory Committee, and Maritime Academy Advisory Committee meetings. Additionally, I’m also involved with the Maritime Certificate Programs as we work to build a lifetime of learning for mariners.

Drink some coffee, it makes the maritime industry go!



Augusta Roth

Augusta Roth
Department Head & Professor of the Practice
Maritime Transportation

BIOSKETCH

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Institute for a Disaster Resilient Texas    

Samuel Brody

Samuel Brody
Director
Center for Texas Beaches & Shores

Regents Professor
Marine & Coastal Environmental Science

Presidential Impact Fellow

The occurrence of regular billion-dollar disaster events have placed Texas at the center of a national debate on the need to more effectively reduce risk and foster the development of healthier and more disaster-resilient communities. There is a tremendous opportunity for the state, and the Texas A&M University System (TAMUS) in particular, to become the leader in research, innovation, training, and policy for how to successfully live in a disaster-prone landscape. This opportunity became more solidified after the 86th Texas State Legislature enacted the Institute for a Disaster Resilient Texas (H.B. 2345) as a component of the Texas A&M System, led by our Center for Texas Beaches and Shores center director Dr. Samuel Brody. The formation of this entity fills a critical need for an A&M System-led collaborative initiative that collects, stores and disseminates data, develops analytical tools, and promotes the use of web-based technologies to inform decision makers, residents, and other interested parties on reducing the adverse impacts of disasters.

One of the main objectives for the Institute will be to develop a Texas Disaster Information System that collects, stores, analyzes, and predicts disaster impacts to inform stakeholders at multiple scales. This system would create a multi-level, multi-sourced repository for disaster-related data that can be utilized to address queries from state agencies, regional entities, local governments, and individual residents. The Institute will provide a virtual and physical hub for data analytics and applied research that will engage and benefit local communities across Texas. This entity will act as a living laboratory that brings together and leverages the research activities and partnerships already taking place across multiple campuses within the TAMUS, including TAMU Galveston, College Station, Prairie View, and Corpus Christi, and Tarleton State.

Dr. Samuel Brody Bio
Partners
Projects

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Good Neighbors Work Together

Anna Armitage

Anna Armitage
Professor
Marine Biology

BIOSKETCH


GOOD NEIGHBORS WORK TOGETHER


Many of the finest coffees are shade grown. Like all plants, coffee plants need some light for photosynthesis, but they have adapted ways to thrive in the shadows of neighboring trees. In the shade, coffee plants share nutrients produced by their neighbors, and are able to grow larger leaves and heavier fruits. At the same time, shade-grown coffee needs less water and pesticides to control disease, yielding a more productive, sustainable, and environmentally-friendly crop. These cooperative relationships between coffee plants and their taller neighbors have gradually grown closer and more beneficial over time.

Facultative relationships among plant neighbors can be found closer to home as well. In our coastal wetlands, some types of plants can ease heat stress and reduce desiccation for their neighbors. These “nurse” plants boost survival and growth of many seedling species, increasing wetland diversity and productivity. But on the Texas coast, a new neighbor has begun to move in, a salt tolerant tropical shrub called a mangrove.

In the past, mangroves have been relatively rare on the Texas coast – the occasional winter freeze has kept them in check. But in recent decades, freeze events have become rarer, and mangroves have become more common, displacing marsh plants in many places along the coast. This change is happening fast, too fast for cooperative relationships to develop between marsh and mangrove plants.

What does this rapid change and lack of neighborly relationships mean for wetland plants and animals, and the surrounding wetland ecosystem? This question, and its implications for wetland ecosystem function, forms the core of my research program. In some ways, mangrove encroachment is a benefit – reducing coastal erosion and providing nesting and roosting habitat for coastal birds. In other ways, mangroves can be detrimental, providing less desirable food for herbivores and altering fishery habitat. The question remains: are mangroves good neighbors? I’ll need a few more cups of coffee to get to the bottom of that challenging question.



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Gulf Center for Sea Turtle Research    

Christopher Marshall

Christopher Marshall
Director
Gulf Center for Sea Turtle Research

Professor
Marine Biology

BIOSKETCH

Texas A&M University at Galveston’s Gulf Center for Sea Turtle Research (GCSTR) is currently working to open a short-term sea turtle hospital on campus later this fall. Headed by Dr. Christopher Marshall, the GCSTR will take the lead for responding to stranded sea turtles on the Upper Texas Coast and utilize the hospital to provide rehabilitation services to stranded, ill or injured sea turtles.

Marshall has worked with sea turtle species and supported conservation efforts on the Upper Texas Coast for decades. As a keystone species, sea turtles play an important role in the marine ecosystem at large. They help to maintain healthy seagrass beds and coral reefs, provide crucial habitat for marine life and balance other marine animal populations like sponges and jellyfish. Of the seven species of sea turtles, six can be found in Texas, including the critically-endangered Kemp’s ridley. All sea turtle species are listed as endangered or threatened and are therefore federally protected.

Our Vision
Texas and the western Gulf of Mexico currently lacks the research, monitoring and conservation capacity that is being conducted in other regions of the Gulf of Mexico. The vision of the Gulf Center for Sea Turtle Research is to expand the current research capacity in the western Gulf of Mexico to match other regions of the Gulf of Mexico and to provide a focal point of expertise in the state and across the Gulf of Mexico.

Mission, Scope & Activities
Research
Partners
News & Press
How Can You Help?
Sea Turtle Hospital Fund

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Caribbean Hydroclimate & Coffee


CARIBBEAN HYDROCLIMATE & COFFEE


The limited land area available on Caribbean islands means that annual coffee production in the Caribbean will never rival Central America and Africa. However, available agricultural land, soil, and climate can support both the arabica (prefers high altitudes, with shade) and robusta beans (higher caffeine content, but harsher and bitter flavor), and their value to the fine coffee industry is growing.

The main islands supporting coffee production are Jamaica and Cuba, Hispaniola (Dominican Republic, Haiti), and Puerto Rico, and while only separated by a radius of ~310 miles, these islands span a sharp gradient in mean annual rainfall from 51 inches per year, 55 inches per year, to around 35 inches per year, respectively.

Moist and humid air rises in the equatorial regions of the tropical North Atlantic Ocean, and its moisture load drops as rain when airmasses make their journey to higher altitudes and latitudes. The air finally descends at subtropical latitudes in an area called the North Atlantic Subtropical High, and this dry air increases regional aridity. In response to anthropogenic CO2 loading of the atmosphere, the North Atlantic Subtropical High is forecast to expand westward and increase Caribbean aridity this century. For example, the United Nations has estimated that Caribbean losses related to climate change will be $11.2 billion by 2080, with drought alone causing $3.8 billion in losses.

Fragile economies on small island nations like Haiti are just learning to leverage their unique coffee industry, yet are now faced with potentially trying to mitigate these losses in the coming decades. To better understand the behavior of the North Atlantic Subtropical High in the past and future, my team at Texas A&M University at Galveston is investigating how rainfall has changed over thousands of years in the northern Caribbean using geological approaches.

While you may know how Caribbean coffee tastes today, changes in Caribbean rainfall in the coming decades may alter the taste of your favorite Caribbean flavors. Even more reason to take pause, and enjoy a sip of Caribbean coffee today that may taste different in just a few decades.



Pete van Hengstum

Pete van Hengstum
Associate Professor
Marine & Coastal Environmental Science

BIOSKETCH

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What Stimulates the Ocean & the Global Carbon Cycle

Karl Kaiser

Karl Kaiser
Associate Professor
Marine & Coastal Environmental Science

Chancellor's EDGES Fellow

Presidential Impact Fellow

BIOSKETCH


WHAT STIMULATES THE OCEAN & THE GLOBAL CARBON CYCLE


The psychoactive substance caffeine makes the world and science go round.

I remember being on an ice breaker in the Arctic Ocean for eight weeks with limited daylight, and the coffee maker broke down in week two. Believe me, during the few days it took to repair the coffee maker, collecting samples and performing sophisticated measurements was a challenge, and scientific discussions were much more heated than usual.

My work as a marine chemist depends on distinct signature molecules to decipher fundamental processes in the ocean. I love that everyone who drinks coffee unwillingly returns caffeine back to the environment, and so we can use it to track effluent flows in estuaries and coastal waters. A recent focus of my research has been to describe a new class of marine compounds, which we call carboxyl-rich alicyclic molecules (CRAM). Similar to caffeine, these compounds are cyclic, and as it turns out, play a dominant role for carbon sequestration and iron cycling in the ocean. We are still only beginning to learn about the importance of CRAM, but it is clear they help with the ocean’s CO2 hangover and keep the global carbon cycle caffeinated.



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Recognizing Academic Affairs Awards    

Cherie Coffman Headshot

Cherie Coffman
Administrative Coordinator
Center for Texas Beaches & Shores

William Paul Ricker Award (2020)

 

 

Krista McBrien Headshot

Krista McBrien
Program Coordinator
Center for Academic Learning Support

Vice President Meritorious Staff Service Award (2020)

 

 

Amy Caton Headshot

Amy Caton
Associate Director of the Center for Academic Learning Support
Instructional Assistant Professor
Jack K. Williams Library

40 Under 40 Galveston County's Young Professionals (2020)

 

 

Photo of Seibel Learning Center

Seibel Learning Center

Outstanding Innovative Advising Technology Award (2020)
Texas Academic Advising Network

 

 

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About Red Light Coffee Roasters


ABOUT RED LIGHT COFFEE ROASTERS

Operating as a small batch coffee roaster and shop, Red Light Coffee Roasters offers ethically sourced ingredients and works with businesses that support agricultural sustainability. As such, not only are its customers more likely to get a fresher and more flavorful cup of coffee, they can enjoy it with some relief knowing that it leaves a lower-impact environmental footprint than a different choice might pose.

Yet even as Red Light Coffee Roasters champions agricultural sustainability, it also points to thorny questions about Galveston’s complex cultural and spatial histories and their citation in the current moment. Constructed in 1862, its current building housed a bordello until the early 20th century and it is located in what was a red light district known locally as “the Line.” Its name, and the names of the coffee blends it serves, similarly reference its earlier incarnation.

Though we may be inclined to view these nods as celebrating a problematic history or as a cynical marketing ploy, consider an alternate perspective. Red Light’s engagement with the city’s histories and its sustainability practices offers an iteration of relational placemaking that brings together people, objects, ideas and experiences to mobilize a specific vision of place. This vision includes preserving significant historical and cultural qualities, utilizing strategies that prevent runaway gentrification, and building community consensus on specific courses of action; each is reflected in the city’s development plans for the West Market Street District where Red Light is located.

As we close out an unprecedented year, join us in celebrating these iterations of placemaking that seek to build community and connection. Informed by a spirit of renewal and possibilities enabled by recognizing and honoring our complex histories and diverse perspectives, we proudly support this local small business and offer you a delicious cup of cheer and warmth this holiday season.



Carol Bunch Davis

Carol Bunch Davis
Associate Professor
Liberal Studies

Assistant Vice President for Academic Affairs

ADVANCE Administrative Fellow

Chair
Civic Literacy, Inclusion, Diversity and Equity Committee

BIOSKETCH

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Biosketches    

Dr. Kathryn Falvo
Dr. Kathryn Falvo

Dr. Kathryn Falvo is an Instructional Assistant Professor of History in the Liberal Studies department at Texas A&M University at Galveston. She comes out of a dual-degree Ph.D. program at Penn State University, focusing both on history and on gender studies. Her research is in the history of food, foodways, and dietary movements. Throughout her time at Texas A&M-Galveston, she has enjoyed teaching U.S. History surveys and upper-level independent studies in gender history. As a member of Civic Literacy, Inclusion, Diversity & Equity Committee (CLIDE) and an advocate of Texas A&M-Galveston’s LGBTQIA+ population, Falvo is also an active proponent of diversity initiatives across campus.

Dr. Randall Davis
Dr. Randall Davis

Dr. Randall Davis is an educator and researcher at Texas A&M University at Galveston who studies the physiology and behavioral ecology of marine mammals and other aquatic vertebrates. His physiological research focuses on adaptations of marine mammals for deep, prolonged diving. Davis has continually emphasized the importance of studying aquatic animals in their natural environment and has spent many years developing animal-borne instruments that record video and monitor three-dimensional movements, swimming performance, and environmental variables to better understand their behavior and ecology. His academic endeavors and 100 research expeditions have taken him to 64 countries and territories on seven continents and all of the world's oceans.

Dr. Cassia B. Galvao
Dr. Cassia B. Galvao

Dr. Cassia B. Galvao is an economist by training and in 2016 she completed her Ph.D. in social sciences at the Catholic University of Sao Paulo. Her dissertation was about port policies and development in the context of economic development. While developing her academic career, she has worked in the private sector and has 10-plus years of experience in marketing and sales divisions of multiple international container liners and freight forwarders.

During her doctoral studies, she was selected to participate at Fulbright Foundation Scholarship Program in partnership with Brazil’s Coordination for the Improvement of Higher Education Personnel (CAPES) program and so she carried out her research in the Department of Maritime Administration of Texas A&M University at Galveston. Dr. Galvao also has over a decade of experience in teaching international economics; global entrepreneurship; maritime shipping and logistics; port economics & governance; marketing transportation services. She was recently nominated member of the Ports and Channels Committee of the Marine Group at Transportation Board (TRB) and serves at the International Association of Maritime Economists (IAME) Secretariat as webmaster. More recently, Dr. Galvao’s passion and success in teaching were recognized with the Montague - Center for Teaching Excellence Award of the year 2020-2021 for her ability and interest in the teaching undergraduates and to foster research and develop innovative teaching.

Dr. Galvao’s research is founded mainly in qualitative data, applying various techniques of content analysis and multi-method analysis. Her publications cover applied research in niche topics in international maritime shipping (such as refrigerated cargo and the cruise market) and issues in port governance, port law, and reform policies. Currently Galvao has a total of 17 published papers in various maritime academic journals and a dozen of conference presentations done just in the last three years.

Presently Galvao is working as a leading author and in collaboration with other researchers in projects in maritime shipping logistics and port development-related topics such as corporate social responsibility; stakeholder management; port-city relationship; cybersecurity; automation; digitization. Galvao is senior personnel at the National Science Foundation Research Experiences for Ocean and Coastal Research Experiences for Undergraduates working as a teacher and mentor to the students in the 2018-2019 program (renewed in 2021).

Galvao is also a peer reviewer in specialized maritime journals such as Maritime Policy & Management; Research on Transportation Business Management; Case Studies on Transport Policy; Tourism Management Perspectives; Research in Transportation Economics; and International Journal on Transport Economics; and conferences, such as International Association of Maritime Universities and World of Shipping Portugal.

Captain Augusta D. Roth, DBA
Captain Augusta D. Roth, DBA

Captain and Dr. Augusta D. Roth graduated in 1996 with a bachelor’s degree in maritime transportation at the Texas A&M Maritime Academy, earned a master’s of business administration from Phoenix University in 2008, and a doctorate of business administration focusing in leadership from Walden University in 2018. She joined Texas A&M University at Galveston in 2000 as a lecturer and became the first female head of Texas A&M-Galveston’s Department of Maritime Transportation in 2012.

Roth teaches any course pertaining to maritime operations, navigation, ship handling, seamanship, communications and sea terms. She oversees the deck creation and implementation of the International Maritime Organization's Standards of Training, Certification and Watchkeeping (STCW), United States Coast Guard (USCG), and Maritime Administration (MARAD) regulatory requirements and training of merchant marine officers along with managing the maritime transportation bachelor of science degree for 350-400 students. She is the primary designer of the Maritime Simulation Facilities at Texas A&M-Galveston. She heavily engages in maritime industry to create internships at sea and endowments, including her own fuel fund endowment to provide scholarships for her students in license-option programs going on sea terms.

In addition to her academic services, she is the faculty mentor to the Council of American Master Mariner and Ship Operations Cooperative Program Future Leaders cadet organizations. Roth also participates as a member for Maritime Academy Council to USCG and MARAD and the U.S. delegate to the STCW-HTW.

As a maritime professional, she holds a USCG Master Unlimited license and STCW 2010 certification. She has worked as lightering mooring master, mate/captain on offshore supply vessels, and mate/captain on harbor tugs.

Dr. Samuel Brody
Dr. Samuel Brody

Samuel D. Brody is a Regents Professor and holder of the George P. Mitchell ’40 Chair in Sustainable Coasts in the Department of Marine and Coastal Environmental Science at Texas A&M University, Galveston Campus. He is the Director of Center for Texas Beaches and Shores (CTBS) and the newly-formed Institute for a Disaster Resilient Texas. Dr. Brody is also an adjunct professor in the Department of Civil and Environmental Engineering at Rice University. During the aftermath of Hurricane Harvey, Dr. Brody was designated as the Lead Technical Expert by the Governor’s Commission to Rebuild Texas that was led by Chancellor Sharp.

On May 14, 2020, the 86th Legislature and Texas A&M University System Board of Regents formally created the Institute for a Disaster Resilient Texas (IDRT). The work and support provided by Dr. Brody and the CTBS team for the Commission to Rebuild Texas resulted in Dr. Brody’s appointment as founding Director of the new institute. The Institute’s mission is to facilitate the integration of analytical tools and state-level decisions related to disaster resiliency. The cornerstone project for the Institute is the Texas Disaster Information System (TDIS), an interactive, analytical, and visual web-based spatial data system designed to support more resilient decision making at the state level.

Initially, IDRT will focus their efforts on coastal and inland flooding with the intent of expanding its research to additional natural hazards. Through collaborative efforts, IDRT aims to deliver critical research on disaster risk reduction, support state agencies with data analytics and decision-making tools, and generate evidence-based solutions that help Texas communities become more resilient over the long term.

Dr. Anna Armitage
Dr. Anna Armitage

Dr. Anna Armitage is a Professor of Marine Biology at Texas A&M University at Galveston. She completed her Ph.D. in Biology in 2003 at the University of California Los Angeles, followed by a postdoc at Florida International University in Miami. Dr. Armitage is a community ecologist with research interests in food web interactions and ecological restoration in coastal habitats. Her current research seeks to identify the causes and ecological consequences of the expansion of native black mangrove populations into northern Gulf of Mexico salt marshes in response to climate change and sea level rise, and to use this information to improve coastal wetland restoration success.

Dr. Christopher Marshall
Dr. Christopher Marshall

Christopher D. Marshall is a Professor in the Department of Marine Biology and the Director for the Gulf Center for Sea Turtle Research at Texas A&M University, Galveston Campus. He also has an appointment in the Department of Ecology and Conservation Biology at Texas A&M University, College Station and is a Research Associate at the Smithsonian Institute’s National Museum of Natural History. Dr. Marshall has a long record of sea turtle, sirenian and pinniped research and conservation. He is a recent recipient of a U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service and National Park Service Award for Leadership in Sea Turtle Stranding, Rescue and Rehabilitation and the Regional Chair for South-East USA International Union for the Conservation of Nature (IUCN) Sirenian Specialist Group. His work at the National Museum of Natural History has resulted in the discovery of a new fossil whale species and two new pinniped species.

Dr. Marshall stewarded the Gulf Center for Sea Turtle Research to address the data gaps and research needs to conserve sea turtles in Texas, the western Gulf and throughout the Gulf of Mexico. The Center was approved in April 2019 and seeks to organize sea turtle biologists in the region and to attract attention, and funding, for sea turtle research activities and conservation priorities that will protect sea turtle populations and their vital habitats.

The Gulf Center for Sea Turtle Research is the lead for sea turtle nesting, stranding and rehabilitation on the Upper Texas Coast. The recently opened sea turtle hospital rehabilitates sea turtles that strand due to commercial and recreational fishery gear entanglements, cold-stunning events or any injured or ill sea turtle. The combined stranding and rehabilitation programs provide a much needed conservation service to the region and nationally. The GCSTR sea turtle hospital is currently part of a national effort to rehabilitate Kemp’s ridley sea turtles from a massive cold-stunning event in Massachusetts this year.

Dr. Peter J. van Hengstum
Dr. Peter J. van Hengstum

Dr. Peter J. van Hengstum is an Associate Professor in the Department of Marine and Coastal Environmental Sciences at Texas A&M University at Galveston. His classroom teaching is focused on teaching earth and ocean science to freshman science students on the Texas A&M-Galveston campus, and he was the 2017-2018 recipient of the Montague Scholar from the Texas A&M University Center for Teaching Excellence.

As a researcher, van Hengstum is a coastal geoscientist who became a National Geographic Explorer in 2018. He leverages the sediment records that have accumulated in underwater caves, sinkholes, and blue holes in global tropical regions to reconstruct long-term hurricane and rainfall variability, terrestrial ecosystem dynamics, and coastal environmental change. His current National Science Foundation-funded research is focused on reconstructing the drivers of hurricane activity and rainfall in the tropical North Atlantic Ocean, with a specific focus on the role of the North Atlantic Subtropical High.

During his career, he has received over $2.6 million in research funding, authored or co-authored 40 peer-reviewed articles, spent over 150 days since joining Texas A&M-Galveston doing international fieldwork, and his work has been featured on documentary series Nova and Years of Living Dangerously.

Dr. Karl Kaiser
Dr. Karl Kaiser

KARL KAISER
Department of Marine and Coastal Environmental Sciences
Texas A&M Galveston Campus, TX
Room: OCSB 347

Phone: 409-740-4879
E-mail: kaiserk@tamug.edu

Karl Kaiser is a chemical oceanographer interested in the global climate system.  His research applies and refines quantitative molecular-level analyses of major biochemicals and various biomarkers with the ultimate goal to resolve fundamental mechanisms that control the global cycle of bioactive elements. His professional interests are also multidisciplinary ranging from behavioral ecology of fishes to engineering solutions for water quality improvements and risk assessment of contaminants in coastal ecosystems. In projects that extend from pole to pole he has delivered transformative ideas that describe fundamental mechanisms controlling organic carbon export from high-latitude watersheds, transformations of organic matter in coastal seas and the oceans, and pathways involved in the preservation of organic carbon in the natural environment. Kaiser also generated a lot of good will and recognition within the local community through his efforts to measure chemical pollutants after Hurricane Harvey. His work was featured on the front page of the Houston Chronicle and generated a very positive public image of TAMUG and its engagement with communities and society.

Graduate Education
University of South Carolina
Columbia, SC
Marine Science, Ph.D., 2009


Appointments

Sept. 1, 2012
Assistant Professor
Texas A&M University at Galveston and College Station

Sept 1, 2018
Associate Professor
Texas A&M University at Galveston and College Station

Dr. Carol Bunch Davis
Dr. Carol Bunch Davis

Carol Bunch Davis is Assistant Vice President for Academic Affairs in the Office of the Chief Academic Officer and Associate Professor of English in the Department of Liberal Studies.  Dr. Davis’ essay “Always on Duty: Galveston’s African American Beaches and Lifeguards” was published in the deGruyter collection Narrating and Constructing the Beach: An Interdisciplinary Approach in November 2020. Her current book project reads black Galvestonians’ self-representation in memoirs, journalism, commemorative spaces, leisure spaces and cultural institutions as producing and preserving a black sense of place in Galveston.  Her first book Prefiguring Postblackness: Cultural Memory, Drama and the African American Freedom Struggle of the 1960s was a finalist for the Benjamin Hooks Institute National Book Award in 2015.


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