Darryn Waugh, a professor of the Earth and Planetary Sciences Department, has been at Hopkins for 10 years. He is the chair of the newly proposed sustainability major.
News-Letter (N-L): When and how did you get interested in earth and planetary sciences?
Darryn Waugh (DW): It was a slow process. I did my undergraduate and went right through to my PhD in applied math. But I was doing applied math of fluid dynamics, so I got interested in the movement of air in the atmosphere. I wasn't doing earth science or meteorology as an undergraduate.
N-L: Is that rare [for an academic to move from applied math to earth and planetary sciences]?
DW: No, it's not rare. I think you will find that a lot of the faculty in this department got at least undergraduate degrees in math or physics. I was doing my PhD in an applied math department that had a group that was doing research on atmosphere and oceans. So it's not rare, but I wouldn't call it common.
N-L: What's the most interesting and valuable project you've ever worked on in your career?
DW: Interesting and valuable are two different things. The most interesting project I've been working on is related to ozone. I've been doing experiments applied to the atmosphere and ozone depletion. This the most interesting project, and I suspect that in terms of society, it's my most valuable project.
N-L: How has interest in your field changed since you began working in it in 1991?
DW: The field has definitely changed. I also noticed a change when I was doing my PhD, I was doing mathematics, and so when I would meet someone and they would ask "What do you study?", I would say "math" and that would stop the conversation. You can imagine: They'd say "Ah, ok" and comment on how they stopped doing math as soon as they could.
Now, if I say that I'm doing ozone analysis and climate studies, everyone knows about it, everyone has questions.
So it's changed for me by changing fields, but also the interest level in my chosen field has certainly gone up.
At the moment, funding is in a kind of difficult stage. I wouldn't say it's easier to get funding now, but there's definitely a lot more interest. And the field is moving a lot towards interdisciplinary studies now.
Most people know that there's a problem, so the issue goes to "What are we going to do about it?" What exactly is going to happen? What are the types of things we can do to slow it down and stop climate change? So that's made a difference as well.
N-L: In the 10 years you've been at Hopkins, has the type of student who takes your classes changed?
DW: Well, there's also been a change in the class I teach. I've noticed in the last three or four years there's certainly been an increase in the number of students who are interested in environmental science, and a lot of them aren't necessarily scientists - they're in the humanities, social sciences, pre-medicine - the whole spectrum has an interest in environmental science.
I think this is in part because of global warming, and I think also because it's taught more in high school now. When I first got here I was teaching courses in atmospheric science and fluid dynamics, now I teach courses like "science and policy of climate change."
That's the course I'm teaching this term, and it attracts a lot of students who are non-scientists. There seems to be a big demand.
N-L: What happened with the idea of a sustainability major?
DW: There's going to be a Global Environmental Change and sustainability major and minor that's going to be offered in the fall.
So it's passed through all the Hopkins approval and it has to go through some Maryland state review.
It's a big change. Someone else in the department is teaching a course in "Introduction to Sustainability" this term, and it has 110 students. It would have more but that's all the classroom will hold.
N-L: If you could change just one thing about national policy towards the environment right now, what would it be?
DW: At the moment, it's not [clear] what national policy is, and it's not clear what the new administration is going to do.
I think this would be hard to do, but introducing some sort of carbon regulation, like a carbon tax or cap and trade is probably what's needed. It's a difficult problem.
N-L: Is there one invention that's a missing link right now in sustainability?
DW: Well, if someone could come up with some totally green way to get energy, that would be it.
I think we could be more efficient in harnessing solar energy, and there are lots of people working on it.
So if someone could make a breakthrough in terms of creating a more cost effective and efficient way to harnessing solar energy, [that would be the link].
The largest energy source out there is the sun, so if we could harness that much more efficiently than we can at the moment, that would be a breakthrough. I think in reality we're going to need technology in lots of different areas, but I think solar is the area with the most promise.
N-L: If you could begin any project right now with unlimited funding, what would it be and why?
DW: That's a good question, but I don't have a very good answer for it. If I had $10 million, what would I do with it? I don't know.
I think what would be nice would be to get more involved with projects that start to join together the science with the policy. It would be difficult to bring all these people together, but if you had money it's something you could do.
Now the issue is that we know the climate's going to change, but there's a lot of uncertainty around this, and we need to get a better idea of how it's going to change and what we're going to do about it.
