Santa Clara University

Environmental Studies - Michelle Marvier

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MMarvier

Michelle Marvier

Associate Professor
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Office: Montgomery House, 874 Lafayette Street
Phone: (408) 551-7189
Email: mmarvier@scu.edu

bullet-leaf2 PhD 1990, University of California, Santa Cruz
bullet-leaf2 Curriculum Vitae

Teaching and Research Vision

One of the most profound changes in ecology over the last fifteen years has been a realization that academic science must do a better job of serving the public and helping inform critical societal decisions. Science that illuminates public decisions, but does not prescribe those decisions, is the vision that shapes my research, my classroom teaching, my one-on-one mentoring, and my professional service.

My research program has coalesced around the theme of informing environmental policy and strategy. This entails endangered species management, conservation investment, and environmental risk assessment. Much of my research entails analyzing data collected by others, building databases from a variety of public sources and analyzing these data, or critically evaluating alternative recommendations for environmental action. I also maintain a set of field studies concerning the endangered parasitic plant, Cordylanthus rigidus ssp. littoralis.

In my teaching, I try to include in every course, regardless of level, special exercises that bring science to bear on major societal policy debates. These projects typically involve pulling together data from various web-based databases and analyzing the data in novel ways. Helping students to apply scientific thinking and quantitative skills to issues of societal relevance has become a major theme of my teaching.


Courses Taught


BIOL 22: Introduction to Evolution and Ecology
BIOL 23: Investigations in Evolution and Ecology

BIOL 150: Conservation Biology
BIOL 156: General Ecology
BIOL 160: Biostatistics
ENVS 110: Statistics for Environmental Science

Representative Publications

bullet-leaf2 Kareiva, P., M. Marvier, and M. McClure. 2000. Recovery and management options for spring/summer chinook salmon in the Columbia River basin. Science 290:977-979.
bullet-leaf2 Marvier, M. 2001. Ecology of transgenic crops. American Scientist 89:160-167.
bullet-leaf2 Parrish, J. K. , M. Marvier, and R. T. Paine. 2001. Direct and indirect effects: interactions between bald eagles and common murres. Ecological Applications 11:1858-1869.
bullet-leaf2 Marvier, M. 2002. Improving risk assessment for nontarget safety of transgenic crops. Ecological Applications 12:1119-1124.
bullet-leaf2 Kareiva, P. and M. Marvier. 2003. Conserving biodiversity coldspots. American Scientist 91:344-351.
bullet-leaf2 Marvier, M., P. Kareiva, and M. Neubert. 2004. Habitat destruction, fragmentation, and disturbance promote invasion by habitat generalists in a multispecies metapopulation. Risk Analysis 24:869-878.
bullet-leaf2 Marvier, M. 2004. Risk assessment of GM crops warrants higher rigor and reduced risk tolerance than traditional agrichemicals. Naturschutz und Biologische Vielfalt 1:119-129.
 bullet-leaf2 Marvier, M. and R. VanAcker. 2005. Can crop transgenes be kept on a leash? Frontiers in Ecology and the Environment 3:99-106.
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Marvier, M. 2007. Pharmaceutical crops have a mixed outlook in California. California Agriculture 61:59-66.
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Marvier, M., C. McCreedy, J. Regetz, and P. Kareiva. 2007. A meta-analysis of effects of Bt cotton and maize on non-target invertebrates. Science 316:1475-1477. Abstract. Full text.



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Kareiva, P. and M. Marvier. 2007. Conservation for the people. Scientific American 297:50-57.

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Marvier, M., Y. Carrière, N. Ellstrand, P. Gepts, P. Kareiva, E. Rosi-Marshal, B. Tabashnik, L.L. Wolfenbarger. 2008. Harvesting data from genetically engineered crops. Science 320:452-453. Abstract. Full text.


Publications with ESI Students

bullet-leaf2 Kareiva, P., M. Marvier, S. West, and J. Hornisher. 2002. Slow-moving journals hinder conservation efforts. Nature 420:15.
bullet-leaf2 O’Connor, C., M. Marvier, and P. Kareiva. 2003. Biological versus social, economic, and political priority-setting in conservation. Ecology Letters 6:706-711.
bullet-leaf2 Yuan-Farrell, C., M. Marvier, D. Press, and P. Kareiva. 2005. Conservation easements as a conservation strategy: is there a sense to the spatial distribution of easements? Natural Areas Journal 25:282-289.
bullet-leaf2 Marvier, M. and S. West. Ecological risk assessment of Ge crops: Getting the science fundamental right. In Taylor, I.E.P. ed. Genetically Engineered Plants: Decision-Making under Uncertainty, Haworth Press, Binghamton, New York.