Dr. Jon C. Cawley

Associate Professor - Environmental Studies
Department: Environmental Studies
Office: 307A Life Science
Phone: 375-2445

jcawley@roanoke.edu

Degrees:

B.S., Pennsylvania State University; M.S., Ph.D., Virginia Polytechnic Institute & State University. 2000

Course List

Research & Teaching Interests:

Riparian Zones, Diatoms, Ecosystems Dynamics, Ecosystems Restoration

Scholarly Activities:

At Roanoke College, I am the coordinator of the Environment Program, and that program’s liaison to the Environmental Task Force on campus.

Research Interests:

My research interests are centered around the geologic and ecosystem history and human historic land use within the Appalachians.

Locally, my focus lies with the Southern Appalachian Critical Ecosystem Region (the “Biodiversity-bump”)—I continue to work with the paleolimnology of Mountain Lake, Virginia, and its human land use and also with similar issues relative to the salt ponds at Saltville, Virginia, and their history. This work has included sediment coring, water chemistry and analysis, and diatom analysis. I am interested in biodiversity and sustainability issues, particularly as related to human development, human-impacted riparian and stream systems, planning issues, and wetland restoration.

In the northern Appalachians (primarily Pennsylvania), my interests have included regional history of technology: of the oil basins, charcoal iron, and various glassmaking industries. I have ecosystem research interests with the glacial margin swamps and drainages of northwestern Pennsylvania.

I tend to favor ecosystem dynamics and systems analysis approaches in my research. These approaches to ecosystem analysis and problem-solving are related to my professional experience and background in environmental consulting and geology. I retain my registered professional status in Pennsylvania. I am currently serving as a member of the advisory board of the Wilderness Conservancy at Mountain Lake.