The Monmouth University School of Science Summer Research Program Symposium returned to its traditional home at Erlanger Gardens on Aug. 12 with in-person poster presentations by over 40 students. The annual event is the culmination of 10 weeks of collaborative research in biology, chemistry, mathematics, computer software and engineering topics by students and faculty mentors.

Each year the Urban Coast Institute provides Heidi Lynn Sculthorpe Scholars grants for several summer research projects that support its mission. Scroll below to watch some of the student researchers discuss their work. A book of abstracts from the symposium can be found here.

eDNA As a Tool for Monitoring Turtle Species In Coastal Lakes

Delaney Mestey-Jones

Exploring Salt Tolerances of Lichens in New Jersey Coastal Ecosystems

Emily Vasquez

Evaluation of Coastal Lakes as Turtle Habitat in Monmouth County, New Jersey

Megan Malaty

 

Female Labor Force Participation Rates vs. Childcare Availability in New Jersey

James Allan

 

Geospatial Representation of Lower Hudson-Raritan Estuary Water Quality

Nicholas Box

The UCI has created a new web page for Monmouth University students listing paid and unpaid internship and research opportunities in marine and environmental fields. The page contains recent openings shared with the UCI and Marine and Environmental Biology and Policy (MEBP) program faculty, links to job/internship pages and websites maintained by our partner organizations, and a list of staff mentors who may be contacted for additional help and information.

The page can be found in the “Offices & Services” dropdown menu in the MyMU Portal (Monmouth University sign-in credentials required). For questions about the page or inquiries about listing a position, please email uci@monmouth.edu.

To a tourist visiting the Asbury Park beachfront, it really could seem like a paradise. The boutique hotels and luxury high-rises blended among century-old Beaux Arts buildings and legendary music halls. The energy of diverse crowds splashing in the waves and mingling along the restaurant-lined boardwalk.

And therein lies the paradox. With the passing of each day and ribbon-cutting for every redevelopment project, Asbury Park’s history with racial discrimination and civil unrest fades further from collective memory and becomes harder to believe for the unacquainted.

A team of Monmouth University researchers is working to preserve that history through the “Paradoxical Paradise” project, led by Associate Professor of African American History Hettie V. Williams of the Department of History and Anthropology. The group has assembled a growing online library of archival documents and photos, newly compiled GIS maps, oral histories, podcasts and other multimedia, all of which are publicly accessible at paradoxicalparadise.com.

Williams said New Jersey is “the Georgia of the North” in terms of the depth of its history with civil rights issues and observed that Asbury Park offers a unique case study within the state due to past segregation at its beaches and tourist businesses. Although some attention has been given to racial issues through the lens of Asbury Park’s music culture, Williams said little research has sought a broader understanding of the community.

“It hasn’t been studied by a lot of scholars,” Williams said. “The riots haven’t even been studied a great deal, and they were one of the largest in the state, if not the country.”

The website contains several news articles and photos from the time of the city’s 1970 riots, but some of the most unique insights come from the personal records of Joseph F. Mattice, the mayor of that era. With the support of a UCI grant, Williams was able to access archival documents, letters, photos and other resources related to the riots from Mattice’s collection and has been working with students to add excerpts online. The original materials are housed at Duke University.

“They bought them on eBay for about $450,” Williams recalled. “When I learned that I said to myself, those archives should be at Monmouth.”

Williams encourages any community members with historic documents that can add to the project to contact the team. Materials can be stored on campus or scanned and returned to their owners.

COVID-19 Impacts

The chief focus of the work funded by the UCI grant was the pandemic’s impacts on the city’s African American community. Elements of that work include:

• Specialist Professor of Public History Melissa Ziobro led students Gillian Demetriou, Kelly Dender, and Vincent Sauchelli in conducting nine interviews with residents, business owners, nonprofit representatives and others to record their perspectives on the pandemic. Transcripts of these oral histories will be added to the website in the fall.
• GIS Program Director Geoffrey Fouad and student Lissette Peña produced interactive maps depicting percentages of Black and white residents by Census tract in Monmouth County who are uninsured and below the poverty level. Both factors could contribute to disparities in infection rates or treatments.
• Williams conducted three episodes of the Black and African Diaspora Forum United (BADFU) “This Week in Black History, Society and Culture” podcast series with guests who shared their stories on COVID-19’s impacts in the Black community. The podcasts were produced by student Max Adolph.

Among the standout moments from the podcasts, Williams said, was a discussion with longtime resident and community activist Felicia Simmons on the gaps the pandemic created in educational quality for low-income families who struggled to adjust to virtual schooling.

“The school’s first response was to create ditto packets to give to parents. When they finally got tablets for them, there were no instructions for how to work the technology,” Williams said. “We assume everyone has a cellphone, everyone has a tablet, but that’s not the case if you can’t afford it.”

The team plans to seek additional grants to continue building the website. Among the content currently planned or underway are interactive story maps that show stops in Asbury Park that appeared in “The Green Book” and journal articles based on the information gathered through the project.

The UCI grant also funded the work of Michelle Lippman and Justin Montana, both students in the graduate program in history at Monmouth. Montana worked with Williams to sort through the more than 200 files from the Duke collection add excerpts to the website and authored a blog post on the Asbury Park riots. Lippman assisted with research and authored a blog post on the history of Asbury Park.

For more information on Paradoxical Paradise, email hwilliam@monmouth.edu. Twitter users can also follow @ParadoxicalPar2 for project updates.

Monmouth University student Johanna Vonderhorst recently completed a paper titled “Areas Beyond National Jurisdiction: A Need to Improve Governing Frameworks and Enhance a Global Commitment to Conservation” as part of her work as a spring intern at the Global Ocean Forum (GOF). In it, Vonderhorst contends that the high seas “are home to a wealth of ocean resources that are taken for granted” and deserve greater legal protections.

The internship gave Vonderhorst, a NOAA Hollings Scholar and former UCI research assistant, the opportunity to earn university credits while conducting external research on ocean policy. The senior majoring in chemistry and political science plans to continue her internship with the GOF in the fall. Read below to learn more about the issues explored in her paper.

Q: Your paper focuses on the need for greater protections for Areas Beyond National Jurisdiction (ABNJ) – typically deep-sea zones that fall outside of the governance of any national entities. Why are these areas so important and what are some of the threats they face?

ABNJ are extremely important not only because they house major fisheries that feed millions worldwide, but also because they provide shipping and transportation routes, seabed for laying telephone cables, and resources used in medicine and scientific research. They also provide vital ecosystem services, acting as carbon sinks to regulate climate change impacts and generating over half of the world’s oxygen. Some of the biggest threats to ABNJ are overfishing, resource overexploitation, plastic and oil pollution, and climate change, which exacerbates all other threats to the health of ABNJ.

Q: You highlight some of the international frameworks that have been initiated to guide human activities in ABNJ, notably the United Nations Convention on the Law of the Sea (UNCLOS), which calls for nations to cooperate on issues such as the exploitation of marine resources and the management of fisheries. Why do you believe UNCLOS and other existing initiatives are inadequate?

UNCLOS and other regulatory frameworks are inadequate primarily because they provide no mechanism for global enforcement and create no international entity to punish violators of their terms. UNCLOS is also anthropocentric, advocating for preservation of marine resources in ABNJ only to the extent that it benefits humans and not for the sake of the environment in its own right. Additionally, under UNCLOS, each member state is responsible for gathering its own scientific information regarding the condition of fisheries and other ABNJ resources and for creating and implementing policies in line with its findings and the terms of UNCLOS, resulting in fragmented governance.

Q: What steps do you think should be taken for the international community to better address the challenges for ABNJ?

A new framework under UNCLOS is currently being negotiated to improve cross-sectoral and transnational communication and build equivalent scientific capacity and information-sharing networks among party states, and this is a great place to start. The creation of an international enforcement body under this new framework would also be an important step forward. Increased support and funding for initiatives like the Deep Seas Project and the Common Oceans ABNJ Project, as well as regional projects such as the Global Ocean Forum’s efforts to enhance capacity-building and cross-sectoral communication, would also be beneficial.

UCI Communications Director Karl Vilacoba provided an introductory tutorial on the Mid-Atlantic Ocean Data Portal’s interactive maps and tools on June 29. To learn more about the Portal, visit portal.midatlanticocean.org or email kvilacob@monmouth.edu.

The Urban Coast Institute (UCI) has formed a Faculty Advisory Council to provide it with guidance and new perspectives for enhancing academic and student engagement at Monmouth University. The inaugural council includes 13 members representing a broad spectrum of academic disciplines and departments across campus.

Among its roles and responsibilities, the council will assist in integrating the UCI more fully into Monmouth’s academic programs to initiate high-impact opportunities for teaching, scholarship, research and service, and to aid in student recruitment. The council will also serve as a liaison with Monmouth schools, departments, faculty and programs to increase understanding and support of the UCI mission.

It is anticipated that council members will help the UCI identify opportunities to contribute to program and course development, support in the delivery of academic programming and assist in identifying support for student research, internship/externships, service learning, community service and employment opportunities. The council will work with UCI to create, host and promote symposia and events on campus.

The faculty members below will join the council along with the UCI’s three current affiliated faculty members: Randall Abate, Rechnitz Family/UCI endowed chair in marine and environmental law and policy, Department of Political Science and Sociology; Jason Adolf, endowed associate professor of marine science, Department of Biology; and Eric Fesselmeyer, associate professor of economics, Department of Economics, Finance, and Real Estate.

• Kimberly Callas, assistant professor, Department of Art and Design
• John Comiskey, assistant professor, Department of Criminal Justice
• Michael Cronin, associate professor, School of Social Work
• Geoffrey Fouad, assistant professor, Department of History and Anthropology
• Jeanne Koller, assistant professor, School of Social Work
• Golam Mathbor, professor, School of Social Work
• Tiffany Medley, lecturer, Department of Biology
• Lindsay Mehrkam, assistant professor, Department of Psychology
• Claude Taylor, director for academic transition and inclusion, Center for Student Success
• Laura Turner, assistant professor, Department of Mathematics

The council was formed through an open process that encouraged all interested faculty to submit letters of interest in the spring of 2021. For more information about the Faculty Advisory Council, contact UCI Associate Director Thomas Herrington at therring@monmouth.edu.

Monmouth University Endowed Associate Professor of Marine Science Jason Adolf contributed the article “What is a harmful algal bloom (HAB) and why do they form?” to the summer issue of ANJEC Report, published by the Association of New Jersey Environmental Commissions. The piece offers a scientific explanation of the types of phytoplankton that cause HABs and how these organisms can harm wildlife and humans who come in contact with them. Click here to read the article or here to view the full issue.

Adolf’s piece leads off a series of articles exploring the growing problem of HABs in New Jersey’s freshwater lakes, which has received increased attention statewide in recent years. The section includes a spread of photos provided by the New Jersey Department of Environmental Protection that shows what HABs look like.

It’s hard enough to reach base when pitchers like Aroldis Chapman and Jacob deGrom throw the high heat. But what about when Mother Nature does?

A study by Monmouth University Associate Professor of Economics Eric Fesselmeyer finds that Major League Baseball (MLB) umpires call pitches less accurately in uncomfortable temperatures, with performance at its worst in extreme heat conditions. The analysis shows that the pitch-calling error rate is about 1 percentage point worse when temperatures are above 95 degrees, while accuracy is highest in games played in 80 to 90 degree weather. The results raise the prospect that America’s pastime could be impacted by climate change, as warming temperatures and more frequent heat waves threaten to cause a further decline in officiating.

“The drop in accuracy may seem small, but it is nontrivial for this high-revenue, high-stakes industry,” said Fesselmeyer, an affiliated faculty member of Monmouth’s Urban Coast Institute. “Moreover, high temperatures cause an even greater decrease in accuracy on close call pitches along the edges of the strike zone.”

The research was possible because MLB uses pitch-tracking technology that measures whether non-batted pitches are strikes or balls as they cross home plate.

When Fesselmeyer examined the accuracy of calls for 18,907 MLB games played between 2007 and 2017, he discovered a clear inverted U-pattern. Umpire accuracy was 86.3% when the temperature was below 50 degrees; 86.4% for temperatures between 50 and 60 degrees; 86.6% for temperatures between 70 and 80 degrees; peaked at 86.9% accuracy for temperatures between 80 and 90 degrees; and fell to 86.5% for temperatures between 90 and 95 degrees. Accuracy was lowest, 85.9%, when the temperature was higher than 95 degrees.

Could umpires have an unconscious bias toward calling strikes when it could end the game faster in uncomfortable weather? Fesselmeyer studied critical late inning situations when incorrect calls could shorten the duration of the game but found no significant difference. He also analyzed the data to see whether factors such the experience level, workloads and age of umpires, game attendance and duration, and other meteorological conditions could have been responsible, but found that they did not affect how umpires respond to heat.

Give that umpires err on over 15% of non-batted pitches, some might wonder why baseball hasn’t automated its pitch calling. According to Fesselmeyer, “MLB is indeed considering robo-umps, which would have the added benefit of eliminating the effect of high temperatures on pitch calling. But it is not clear whether the technology will be adopted because baseball purists prefer to preserve the human element in the game.”

Fesselmeyer’s research has implications beyond baseball. If workers as experienced and well-versed in their craft as MLB umpires are susceptible to the heat’s influence, the results are especially worrisome for industries that rely on less-experienced and lower-skilled workers such as agriculture, construction and manufacturing, which are likely less capable of mitigating the impact of rising temperatures.

A paper summarizing Fesselmeyer’s work will be published in a forthcoming edition of the Southern Economic Journal.