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ESF Celebrates December Convocation
The SUNY College of Environmental Science and Forestry (ESF) will award 157 degrees, including 47 master's degrees and 15 Doctors of Philosophy, during the 2011 December Convocation1 p.m. Dec. 9 at Hendricks Chapel.
Two alumni will be honored during convocation.
Dr. Donald E. Moore III '76 will receive the Graduate of Distinction award. Dr. Ellis B. Cowling '54 will receive the Lifetime Achievement award.
As a zoo-based wildlife biologist, animal behaviorist, and educator, Moore has dedicated his professional life to improving the care and management of animals in both captivity and the wild. He has helped renovate and manage several zoos across the United States and created conservation management plans for wild animals in nature for more than 30 years.
Moore is currently the associate director for animal care at the Smithsonian Institution's National Zoo in Washington, D.C. He has worked for the Wildlife Conservation Society as a curator, zoo director and co-chair of their Animal Enrichment Program and was a curator at the Rosamond Gifford Zoo at Burnet Park.
A volunteer for the American Zoo Association, he served as an accreditation commissioner, vice chair of the animal welfare committee, and chair of the animal care manuals working group.
Cowling is a professor and respected researcher in biological, environmental, and natural resource sciences. A 1954 graduate of ESF, he received a Bachelor of Science degree in wood technology and earned a Master of Science degree in forest pathology in 1956.
An expert in the field of acid rain, he was a leader in the development of the National Acid Precipitation Assessment Program (NAPAP). This program provides reliable continental scale maps of precipitation chemistry in the United States. Cowling helped develop the original draft plan for NAPAP which provided the scientific foundation for the Clean Air Act Amendments of 1990.
He worked with the U. S. Public Health Service in Sweden and served as an associate professor at Yale University. He also worked as a professor/researcher in the fields of plant pathology and forestry at North Carolina State University.
Cowling was elected to the National Academy of Sciences in 1973 and served on its Council from 1994 to 1997. He received numerous international awards and was elected a Fellow in the International Academy of Wood Science in Vienna, Austria. In 1981, the University of North Carolina presented him an award for "contributions to the welfare of the human race."