Farmington Faculty


Drew Barton, Ph.D.

Associate Professor - Biology

Ph.D., University of Michigan
M.S., University of Florida
A.B., Brown University

In the Classroom: Engaging Students — Setting High Academic Expectations
Drew Barton teaches his students how to turn what they learn into action and tells them that they can make a difference, not just after they graduate, but while they're students at Farmington.

In his "Climate Change and the End of Fossil Fuel" class, Drew and 16 of his first-year students hosted a community forum that focused on practical ways to reduce energy use, save money, and lighten the environmental impact. Their Home Energy Forum featured presentations from area energy experts and included such topics as modern insulation techniques, solar photovoltaics, passive solar design, energy-saving architecture, living off the grid, biodiesel cars, and tax incentives for some of these approaches.

Drew and his students viewed the project as a significant way to make their own contributions to reducing energy use and decreasing greenhouse gas emissions from fossil fuels. He believes the planning of the Home Energy Forum event helped his students better connect to the big issues about energy that are discussed in class with the practicality of what happens in one's own home.


Outside the Classroom: Innovation and Excitement — Putting Theory into Practice
Drew Barton is a coordinator of the University's Sustainable Campus Coalition, a faculty-staff-student group established in 2001. In collaboration with other campus groups and the University's Facilities Management staff and Aramark Dining Services, the Sustainable Campus Coalition promotes a wide range of activities that increase the environmental sustainability of the campus and community.

As part of this work, Drew regularly collaborates with students on a variety of projects including: improving recycling and salvaging on campus, establishing an organic garden, renovating the campus arboretum, promoting food waste composting program in the dining halls, promoting green buildings on campus, and completing the University's first-ever greenhouse gas audit.


A True Academic — Areas of Special Interest
Drew's scholarly interests include the study of the ecology of forest communities. His research focuses on the dynamics of these communities and the role of both natural disturbance and human-caused disturbance. His goal is to reach conclusions that will aid in the conservation or restoration of native species and ecosystems.

For many years, Drew has worked on fire ecology in the Chiricahua Mountains in southeastern Arizona and the dynamics of Jack Pine on Great Wass Island, Maine. He also has two new grant-funded projects: the ecology of rare pitch pine ridgetops on Phippsburg Peninsula, Maine and the ecological impacts of forest certification in Maine using Forest Service inventory plots and remote sensing (with Professor Correia in Geography). All of these projects involve Farmington students, who work as research assistants and collaborators.


Respected in the Field — Noteworthy Accomplishments
Drew Barton has published a number of scholarly articles, most recently: "Invading Your Space," in Northern Woodlands; "Madrean Pine-Oak Forest in Arizona: Altered Fire Regimes, Altered Communities," in U.S.D.A. Forest Service Proceedings; "Response of Arbutus Arizonica (Arizona Madrone) to Fire in Southeastern Arizona," in The Southwestern Naturalist; and "Nonindigenous invasive woody plants in a rural New England town" in Biological Invasions, included two UMF students as authors.


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