Distinguished International Service

DAVID INOUYE and JAMES M. DIETZ , Professor and Associate Professor in the Department of Biology, together designed the multidisciplinary graduate program in Sustainable Development and Conservation Biology (CONS) in 1998. The program, which has an outstanding reputation and strong international perspective, has graduated over 150 students since its inception. Enrolled students have come from 27 different countries, and many have gone on to leadership positions in national and international organizations. As director and associate director (respectively) of this unique graduate program, Dr. Inouye and Dr. Dietz bring several decades of experience in conservation research, practice, and policy-making.

JUDITH TORNEY-PURTA, Professor of Human Development in the College of Education, has contributed greatly to the field of behavior research over the last 35 years. She has led cross-national empirical studies on the political socialization of young people: their civic knowledge, political attitudes, and engagement in democracy. Data from her survey of 140,000 young people in 29 countries has contributed to a growing policy debate about the contribution of education to building and sustaining democracy.

DAVID W. INOUYE is Professor in the Department of Biology, an Affiliate faculty member in the School of Public Policy, and a member of the Marine Estuarine Environmental Sciences (MEES) and the Behavior, Ecology, Evolution, and Systematics (BEES) graduate faculties. He advises several Ph.D. graduate students and the 40 masterô students in the CONS program. Building on the success of the CONS program, Dr. Inouye is currently collaborating with colleagues in South Africa who are developing a new graduate program in conservation biology.

Dr. Inouye is Secretary of the Governing Board of the Ecological Society of America, a Steering Committee member of the North American Pollinator Protection Campaign and the National Phenology Network, as well as a member of the National Research Committee's panel studying the status of pollinators in North America.

His research takes him each summer to the Rocky Mountain Biological Laboratory in Colorado where the National Science Foundation funds his long-term work on the phenology (the study of regularly recurring biological phenomena such as animal migrations or plant budding, especially as influenced by climatic conditions), pollination, and demography of wildflowers. The data he has collected there since 1973 are providing insight into the effects of global and regional climate change. In addition to his long-term, US-based work, he has also conducted field research in Austria, the Snowy Mountains of Australia, Costa Rica, Panama, and South Africa and has mentored graduate students who have worked in Bhutan, Jamaica, and Costa Rica.

JAMES M. DIETZ, an Associate Professor in the Department of Biology, has focused his research and conservation activities in the Atlantic Forest of Brazil. He has lived in Brazil for over 10 years and is fluent in Portuguese and well acquainted with Brazilian culture. As a Peace Corps Volunteer in Brazil in 1973, Dietz created Brazil’s first undergraduate program in Wildlife Management, which is still in existence. Today Dr. Dietz works closely with Brazilian federal agencies such as IBAMA (the Brazilian Institute for the Environment and Natural Resources). He and colleagues have been instrumental in proposing and funding the creation and enlargement of several national parks and reserves in Brazil.

Dr. Dietz is a member of the International Committee for the Conservation and Management of Lion Tamarins and conducts research on and works to conserve two species of endangered lion tamarin monkeys in Brazil’s Atlantic Forest: golden lion tamarins in Poço das Antas Biological Reserve in Rio de Janeiro State, and golden-headed lion tamarins in Una Biological Reserve in Bahia State. Thanks to the successful efforts of Associação Mico Leão Dourado, a Brazilian nongovernmental organization he and colleagues founded in 1991, the conservation status of golden lion tamarins was recently changed from “critically endangered” to “endangered.” Fittingly, Dr. Dietz sits on the IUCN (The World Conservation Union) Species Survival Commission, an international organization of experts in endangered species.

For the last 35 years, JUDITH TORNEY-PURTA, Professor of Human Development in the College of Education, University of Maryland, has led cross-national empirical studies in the political socialization of young people: their civic knowledge, political attitudes, and engagement in democracy. Recently Dr. Torney-Purta received the Decade of Behavior Research Award recognizing her leadership of the International Steering Committee for the IEA Civic Education Study. Data from her survey of 140,000 young people in 29 countries has contributed to a growing policy debate about the contribution of education to building and sustaining democracy. Her involvement in advisory groups at the Organization of American States and the Council of Europe has helped position the University of Maryland at the forefront of cross-national activities and research.

After twelve years as Professor of Psychology at the University of Illinois, Chicago, Dr. Torney-Purta came to the University of Maryland in 1981. An interdisciplinary approach has been a trademark of her research since she began graduate training at the University of Chicago. Psychologists and political scientists alike value her contributions to the understanding of political socialization. She has collaborated with faculty in the University of Maryland’s College of Behavioral and Social Sciences (including the ICONS Project in the Department of Government and Politics), the School of Public Affairs (including the Center for Information and Research on Civic Learning and Engagement), and in several departments in the College of Education.

Dr. Torney-Purta has led international collaborations throughout her career, and has been instrumental in linking U.S. scholars with counterparts in Eastern and Western Europe interested in the path of social and political development for high school and college students. From the process of this collaborative research, several young scholars have emerged who will go on shape the field in the future.