Facult yand Specialists

NEW FACULTY:DARA O’ROURKE AND MARY WILDERMUTH

Dara O’Rourke joins the Division of Societyand Environment as an assistant professor after teaching and conducting research for several years at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology. O’Rourke received a joint undergraduate degree in mechanical engineering and political science from MIT, and his M.S. and Ph.D. degrees in Energyand Resources at Cal.

O’Rourke’s research analyzes global production networks of major consumer products. These supplychains can lead from U.S. designers and marketers, to massive factorycomplexes in the developing world, to individual women workers who sew parts of garments or solder subcomponents of electronics in their homes. O’Rourke is exploring the environmental and social impact of these far-flung supplychains, as well as how governments and nongovernmental organizations attempt to regulate such operations.

The trend of outsourcing production to foreign countries, O’Rourke said, means that supplychains are “verylong, very complex, and verymobile. It’s difficult to find these factories, let alone regulate them.”

O’Rourke’s work has taken him to China, Vietnam, Mexico, Indonesia, and parts of the U.S. as he examines the workings of international corporations and the paths that products travel before theyend up on store shelves. He focuses on the global forest products, oil, footwear, garment, electronics, and coffee industries.

Part of his research looks at the role of nongovernmental organizations that have tried to police international companies when governments cannot or will not. He also is working with affected workers and communities on ways that theycan help monitor their own working conditions and local environment, such as learning to use high-tech monitoring equipment to independentlytest air quality.

Mary C. Wildermuth is an assistant professor in the Departmentof Plant and Microbial Biology. Wildermuth received her B.S. in chemical engineering from Cornell Universityand her Ph.D. in biochemistryfrom the Universityof Colorado at Boulder.

Wildermuth’s research focuses on the molecular and biochemical systems plants use to defend themselves when exposed to pathogens such as the powderymildewfungus. These systems mayinclude chemical defenses and physiological responses, such as dropping a diseased leaf.

Her work specificallyexamines the roles of small molecules, such as salicylic acid, in plant-pathogen interactions. The research builds on her work as a postdoctoral fellowat Massachusetts General Hospital’s Department of Molecular Biology(Department of Genetics, Harvard Medical School).

Wildermuth is a member of the American Association for the Advancement of Science, the American Societyof Plant Biologists, and the International Societyfor Computational Biology. Her doctoral work examined the biochemistryof isoprene (a small gaseous hydrocarbon) emission from trees. Wildermuth’s research as a visiting scientist at the National Center for Atmospheric Research in Boulder measuring and modeling non-methane hydrocarbon emissions from forest species led to her fascination with plant isoprene emissions.

Wildermuth also spent two years teaching eighth- and ninth-grade-level science to children in Botswana, Africa, through the World Teach program, operated from Harvard. She taught not onlyclassical eighth- and ninth-grade biologyand chemistrybut also Botswana-specific topics such as howto prevent cholera and howto maximize insulation and cooling when designing traditional huts.

Wildermuth called the experience “fantastic.”

—KellyHill