SMEA’s longtime Director, Tom Leschine, is stepping down from his post effective September 1, 2014 and will spend the following year on a well-earned sabbatical focusing on energy development in the Arctic. Director Leschine, a Ben Rabinowitz Professor of the Human Dimensions of the Environment, has helmed the School since 2003. He is an expert in marine policy, risk management and policy, and coastal environmental restoration, and had taught hundreds of students in his nearly 30 years on the faculty at SMEA.