Bay State Scientist Brings Urban Ecology to LMU

Loyola Marymount University will launch a new program in urban ecology this summer with the appointment of Eric Strauss, the new President’s Professor in the Biology Department at the Frank R. Seaver College of Science and Engineering, and director of the Ballona Discovery Center.

Strauss, who began work on collaborative projects at LMU this spring, will relocate in August from the East Coast, where he was director of environmental studies at Boston College and a faculty member in the Biology Department. With research specialties in animal behavior, urban ecosystem dynamics and science education, Strauss helped create the Urban Ecology Institute in Boston, which provides educational, research and restoration programs to underserved neighborhoods and their residents.

The study of urban ecology focuses the tools of environmental science on the urban setting rather than the wild,  examining things such as parks, wetlands, beaches, air and water pollution, plant and animal species, surface water runoff, rivers, and a host of other issues that define the interface between people and where they live. He expects to replicate the institute at LMU, developing a course of study leading to graduate and undergraduate degrees.

“We welcome Eric to Seaver and look forward to the impact his special dynamism will have in our labs and classrooms,” said Richard G. Plumb, dean of the college. “Eric is especially adept at getting people excited about the study of urban ecology and using that passion to improve lives and expand interest in science and research.”

Strauss has already begun work on the planning of the Ballona Discovery Center, which will be built off Lincoln Boulevard as a collaboration of Playa Vista, LMU and the Friends of Ballona Wetlands. The center will bring new funds and fresh research to the study of the Ballona watershed, which drains much of urban Los Angeles. The center will serve as a hub for undergraduate, graduate and community education programs that are part of a broader plan for LMU to take a regional leadership role in urban ecology scholarship.

Strauss is leading a team of collaborators, including the Smithsonian Institution and the National Geographic Society, which will compete for a variety of grants to develop research tools to collect data from the wetlands. The goal is to further popularize the Ballona Wetlands in part by creating direct access via the web to raw data, as well as the instruments that collect the data, so that school children and researchers nationwide can do their own analysis of trends at the wetlands.

“The Discovery Center will provide a resource to engage students and local residents in the study of urban ecology and the history of the Ballona Wetlands,” Strauss said.

Strauss will also head up an exchange program between LMU and a research field station on Cape Cod. Strauss is the Founding Editor of a web-based peer-reviewed journal, Cities and the Environment, which is funded in part by the USDA Forest Service. The journal will relocate to LMU.