Bill Thomas
Professor of The Erickson School at UMBC
Phone: 410-455-1896
Email: wthomas@umbc.edu
http://erickson.umbc.edu/people/details.aspx?id=66
Thomas is an international authority on geriatric medicine and eldercare. Calling himself a “nursing home abolitionist,” Thomas is the founder of the Green House, a radically new approach to long term care that is being replicated in all 50 states with support from a $10 million grant from the Robert Wood Johnson Foundation. In the 1990s, Thomas founded the Eden Alternative, an innovative approach that brings plants, animals and children into nursing homes to improve the well-being of residents. His book What Are Old People For? How Elders Will Save the World was named 2005 Book of the Year by the American Medical Writers Association.

Erle Ellis
Associate Professor of Geography & Environmental Systems
Phone: 410-455-3078
Email: ece@umbc.edu
http://www.ecotope.org/people/ellis
http://www.umbc.edu/ges/people/ellis

Ellis is an expert on the ecology of human-managed landscapes and their changes at local, regional and global scales. He has been investigating long-term environmental changes in rural China since 1992 and in urban and suburban Baltimore since 2000. His recent work characterizes global patterns of human-altered ecosystems (anthropogenic biomes).

Virginia McConnell
Professor of Economics

Phone: 410-455-2068
Email: mcconnel@umbc.edu

An environmental economist who focuses on transportation issues, McConnell is an authority on
the impact of policies to reduce air pollution through vehicle emissions regulations, inspection and
maintenance programs, fuel regulations, emission taxes and land use changes.

Don Norris
Director, Maryland Institute for Policy Analysis & Research (MIPAR)
Professor and Chair of Public Policy
Phone: 410-455-1080
Email: norris@umbc.edu
http://www.umbc.edu/mipar/dir.htm
Norris is a specialist in public management, urban politics and the application, uses and impacts of information technology in public organizations. As MIPAR director, he oversees the work of a research institute with annual external funding exceeding $6 million.

George LaNoue
Professor of Political Science
Phone: 410-455-2180
Email: glanoue@umbc.edu
http://www.umbc.edu/posi/Bios/GeorgeLaNoue.html
LaNoue is one of the nation's foremost experts on racial disparity studies. His research has focused on education law, civil rights law and public policy. He has published four books and numerous articles. A frequent witness in Congressional testimony, LaNoue is also a well-seasoned trial expert on civil rights cases in federal courts.

Fred Pincus
Associate Professor of Sociology
Phone: 410-455-2079
Email: pincus@umbc.edu
Pincus has studied the politics of race, gender and class. He has studied violence on college campuses and the dynamics of sexual harassment.

Tom Schaller
Associate Professor of Political Science
Phone: 410-455-2845
Cellphone: 202-299-4778
Email: schaller67@gmail.com
http://www.whistlingpastdixie.com/
Schaller teaches courses in the American presidency, Congress and interest group behavior. He has published articles in American Review of Politics, Public Choice, Constitutional Political Economy and Publius. His book Whistling Past Dixie: How Democrats Can Win Without the South suggests new, national strategies for the Democrats. He is a political columnist for the Baltimore Sun.