he Edwin Way Teale Lecture Series on Nature and the Environment, now beginning its third year, brings world-renowned scientists and scholars to the University to present public lectures in the Thomas J. Dodd Research Center and interact with faculty and graduate and undergraduate students.

Among the speakers this year are a MacArthur Fellow, an expert on climate change, a forest ecologist, a social scientist/futurist whose book sold 9 million copies in 29 languages, environmental preservationists, a greenhouse gas expert, two biogeochemists, a natural resource economist, and a naturalist-explorer and author.

"The Edwin Way Teale Lecture Series on Nature and the Environment promotes interdisciplinary, multidisciplinary and transdisciplinary thinking and action," says Gregory Anderson, professor and head of the ecology and evolutionary biology department.

"Environmental issues in general, and environmental problems specifically, are complex and multifaceted. This series brings together leading scientists and scholars from a wide range of fields relevant to the environment, to stimulate interactions and increase public awareness of major issues facing the planet."

The series culminates with a celebration of Earth Day in April, when the Teale Series and the Department of Environmental Engineering's Gieb Distinguished Lecture in Environmental Engineering bring speakers who have achieved both widespread public recognition and high standing among their peers. This year's Gieb lecture will be presented by Peter Matthiessen, a naturalist-explorer who has participated in expeditions to all five continents, and has been described as "our greatest modern nature writer in the lyrical tradition" by The New York Times Book Review. The New York State Author from 1995 to 1997, Matthiessen is author of 24 fiction and nonfiction books, including three nominated for the National Book Award: The Tree Where Man Was Born, At Play in the Fields of the Lord and The Snow Leopard, which won the award. Also reflecting his concern for ecology and natural history are such books as Blue Meridian, based on an expedition to search for the Great White Shark that also became the film Blue Water, White Death; the encyclopedic Shorebirds of North America, later revised as The Wind Birds; and Far Tortuga.

"The Dodd Center is very pleased to participate as one of the sponsors of the Teale Lecture Series," says Thomas Wilsted, director of the Thomas J. Dodd Research Center, which houses the papers of the Pulitzer-prize winning nature writer, Edwin Way Teale. "The center continually seeks a wide range of partnerships with academic programs at UConn, and this program successfully meets that goal.

"The Teale Lecture Series supports one of the center's collecting areas, natural history," adds Wilsted.

The Teale Series is sponsored by the Offices of the President and Chancellor, the College of Liberal Arts and Sciences, the Thomas J. Dodd Research Center, the Graduate School, the College of Agriculture and Natural Resources, the Environmental Engineering Program, the Center for Conservation and Biodiversity, the Connecticut State Museum of Natural History at UConn, the Departments of Agriculture and Resource Economics, Ecology and Evolutionary Biology, English, Economics, Geology and Geophysics, Natural Resources Management and Engineering, Philosophy, and Political Science.

Carol Davidge