Is global warming melting one of
Africa’s best-kept secrets?
Biologist Nate Dappen calls attention
to the ‘Snows of the Nile’ in
a new documentary.

BY Tim Collie
PHOTOS BY Nate Dappen, ph.d. ’12, and Neil Losin

From top left, In April 1906 the Duke of Abruzzi, an Italian mountaineer, embarked on the first successful summit of the famous tropical glaciers of Rwenzori. Vittorio Sella’s photographs of the expedition created a sensation. In 2013, Nate Dappen, Ph.D. ’12, and Neil Losin re-created many of Sella’s shots, including this one of Mount Baker, to document a century of environmental change.

Nate Dappen, Ph.D. ’12, grew up among explorers.

His father was an “adventure doc”—a young physician who signed on as the medic on mountain-climbing expeditions around the world. An uncle was an outdoor journalist who would carry the family along on remote hiking, rafting, and rock-climbing assignments. And Nate Dappen’s mother, according to family lore, is one of the few women to ever canoe the entire Northwest Passage.

So when this University of Miami graduate decided to climb one of the world’s most remote mountain ranges to make a documentary about climate change, he was treading a well-worn family path. His father, in fact, had climbed these same mountains when the family lived in Kenya during Nate’s childhood.

The result of the younger Dappen’s 12-day expedition with filmmaking partner Neil Losin is Snows of the Nile, a 20-minute documentary that details their January 2013 odyssey to bring back a visual record of how global warming is thawing out one of the world’s least understood regions: the glacial Rwenzori mountains of equatorial Africa.

Snows is the work of a start-up filmmaking venture that has so far produced projects for the World Wildlife Fund, the National Science Foundation, and other organizations. “We really wanted to tell a climate change story that hadn’t been told before,” explains Dappen, who arrived in Miami in 2007 to begin a Ph.D. program in evolutionary biology. “We came up with this idea of visiting these tropical glaciers and using the historic photos taken of them a century ago to show the change due to global warming.”

Yes, there are glaciers in Africa. Known as the “Mountains of the Moon” or the “African Alps,” the Rwenzoris sit on the border between Uganda and the Democratic Republic of the Congo. Soaring to more than 16,000 feet at their highest point, the perpetually fog-shrouded mountains comprise a remarkable number of microclimates that extend from pristine rain forests and massive bogs to alpine wetlands, lakes, and streams that form the headwaters of the Nile.

“It’s an extremely unknown place,” says Dappen. “As a biologist, being in that place was just incredible, a privilege. If you kill a mosquito that’s biting you there, it’s probably a mosquito that’s never been studied before. It’s one of the only places in the world where black leopards exist. It’s one of the few places in the world that has the one-horned unicorn chameleon and three-horned chameleon.”

Dappen and Losin formed their company, Day’s Edge Productions, after meeting in Costa Rica in 2008 on a graduate biology field course. Both were avid still photographers who quickly realized they shared a passion for filmmaking and storytelling. Though each had planned to pursue traditional academic careers, they were growing increasingly enamored with the idea of using their scientific backgrounds to make documentary films.

“Neither of us had made films before, but a few years after meeting we made our first short science film,” says Losin, who has a Ph.D. in biology from UCLA. “They weren’t good at first. But we’re both very competitive. Any time Nate did something, I wanted to do it better. Any time I did something, he wanted to do it better. And that helped us improve our craft.”

After a number of smaller efforts won awards, the pair began scoring contracts with organizations like the World Wildlife Fund to make films ranging from “trip documentaries to research profiles to hard-core research films,” notes Dappen.

Losin initially had the idea of shooting tropical glaciers to document climate change. Funding proved difficult until he and Dappen submitted their idea for the Rwenzori film to the “Stay Thirsty Grant” contest sponsored by the beer company Dos Equis. Much to their surprise, their project won the inaugural $25,000 Stay Thirsty Grant, presented by “The Most Interesting Man in the World,” the company’s popular pitchman.

In 2013 Dappen and Losin embarked on a tightly scheduled 12-day expedition to the remote African mountain range. It was Greek astronomer and geographer Ptolemy who first wrote about the Rwenzoris, theorizing how their snows were the source of the Nile. It wasn’t until the 19th century, though, that the range was explored. First described by Sir Henry Morton Stanley (of Stanley and Livingstone fame) in 1889, they were later photographed for the first time in 1906, during an expedition led by the Duke of Abruzzi, an Italian prince who was a mountaineer and explorer, and the photographer Vittorio Sella.

That journey, with its detailed logs and stunning photographic archive of the then-massive Rwenzori glaciers, would form the basis of Dappen and Losin’s narrative. The two wanted to retrace the duke’s trek, and photograph the range from the exact perspectives and angles of the glaciers Sella had captured more than a century ago.

Once on site, their strategy proved particularly difficult to enact, but not in the way they expected. After several days, they saw that the perspectives from which Sella had shot no longer existed. The glaciers and snowpack had melted so much in the intervening century that Dappen and Losin were now standing on rock hundreds of feet below where Sella had stood to make his shots and looking at peaks with much smaller snowcaps.

“It’s unbelievable how much ice has melted off there,” Dappen says. “The places where we were standing would literally have been under hundreds of feet of ice in 1906. Standing 300 or 400 feet lower, you’re just not going to recapture the same perspective ever again.”

Combining scientific context like this with original storytelling is what Dappen and Losin hope will set them apart in this new generation of documentary filmmaking. Like all filmmakers, they are contending with both the promise and demands of working in different platforms: the Web, TV, even interactive apps. Snows of the Nile, called “beautiful yet troubling” by National Geographic, has screened at numerous film festivals and can be seen online at www.snowsofthenile.com.

For Islands of Creation, their latest movie, which was funded by a National Science Foundation grant, Dappen and Losin turned to a familiar subject, J. Albert C. Uy, associate professor of biology in UM’s College of Arts and Sciences. Uy, a speciation expert who holds the Pat and Jeff Aresty Chair in Tropical Ecology, looks at how new species emerge in isolated environments like the Solomon Islands. Both men served as postdoctoral researchers in his lab. Uy granted the pair access to film his work because he felt that, as science Ph.D.s, they’d bring understanding and discipline to telling the story of his research.

“From the moment they approached me it was easy to agree because we were on the same page. You knew these were guys who would prioritize the science over the entertainment value,” says Uy. “They know exactly what it is to be a field biologist, so they weren’t going to be a hindrance. I was confident that it would be a positive collaboration.”

For his part, Dappen says one of his main goals is simply to make sure every film is better than the last. “I’m not so naïve that I think you can make a single film about a topic like climate change and change a lot of minds,” Dappen says. “But if you tell a good story, have good visuals, show people something they haven’t seen before, then I think you can start to make a difference.”

A look at the UM center’s growing impact
and life-changing approaches to helping families
throughout South Florida affected by autism.

Comes of Age

BY ROBERT C. JONES JR.
PHOTOS BY DONNA VICTOR

First came the prolonged staring. Two-year-old Sebastian would train his gaze on the ceiling fan in his bedroom for what seemed like hours. Then, there was the peculiar way he would play with his toys—arranging them in rows. Ruby Diaz-Martinez knew something was unusual about her youngest son’s behavior, but she didn’t know where to turn for help. Eventually, her family doctor arranged for Sebastian to be evaluated by a psychologist, and Diaz-Martinez got the answer she sought.

ynette Estrada caught on that something was wrong with her son, Lucas, when he was about 1. “He was always in the normal range, but late-normal,” she says. Doctors dismissed the behavior, telling Estrada her son would grow out of it. But when Lucas stopped speaking, she asked psychologists to evaluate him.

Since being diagnosed with autism as toddlers, Sebastian, now 8, and Lucas, 17, have come to find a common source of help for the disorder at the University of Miami-Nova Southeastern University Center for Autism and Related Disabilities (CARD). For the past two decades, CARD has served as a vital support network for children and adults with autism and their families, offering programs that help with everything from social skills development to workforce preparation. “We’re a lifeline to thousands,” says Michael Alessandri, a UM clinical professor of psychology and executive director of CARD, one of seven Florida Department of Education-funded university-based centers of its kind in the state.

The center’s client base, which spans Monroe, Miami-Dade, and Broward counties, has mushroomed since its beginning—from 88 families in 1993 to nearly 8,000 today. It serves a critical need. Autism spectrum disorders—characterized by social deficits and communication difficulties, repetitive
behaviors and interests, and, in some cases, cognitive delays—affect an estimated 1 in 68 children in the United States, according to the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention.

Even when she’s at work, Estrada is reminded of the odds of having autism. She helps adults with the condition find employment and develop other skills as a CARD transition specialist. “We do not call them children, but many people do, and that’s a huge problem,” she says of the clients she helps. “Their personalities or the way they speak may be like a child, but they are adults. And we’re trying to train parents to remember that they are adults. They need responsibilities. They need to do chores. They need to go out.”

It is a regimen she maintains with Lucas, who is enrolled in the Culinary Arts High School Program at Easter Seals South Florida and enjoys playing the piano. “He communicates. He comes to CARD, he has chores he has to complete, he has homework,” Estrada explains. “But like I tell parents, it’s not going to just happen. You have to be on top of them when they’re little. It’s draining, a lot of work.”

Lucas’s autism is just part of the story. He has battled brain cancer since he was 8, compounding the challenges he and his mother face. Estrada runs marathons and competes in triathlons to cope. “I get the parents. I know their stress,” she says. “Some parents will come in, arms folded, and they’re angry, and they tell me, ‘No, you don’t understand.’ And that’s when I tell them, ‘Yes, I do.’ I tell them about Lucas, and then they relax.”

Expanding Employment Options

espite a straight-A college transcript with associate degrees in physics, electrical engineering technology, and mechanical maintenance, Susan Johnson has struggled to hold onto a job, often experiencing interpersonal difficulties with coworkers. But she never really grasped why until 2008, when a friend suggested she exhibited all the classic signs of Asperger’s syndrome, a developmental disorder considered on the milder end of the autism spectrum. Four years later an evaluation by a psychologist confirmed Johnson had the condition. “All my life I’ve had it but didn’t know,” says Johnson, 52.

An employment training session hosted by CARD during the summer of 2013 taught her and other moderate- to high-functioning adults with autism different skills that could eventually help them land—and hold onto—jobs. Writing an effective résumé was at the top of that list. When Johnson signed up for the boot camp, her résumé was more than ten pages. By the time the camp ended, it had been whittled down to two.

People older than 16 comprise 38 percent of CARD’s client registry. That percentage is growing, making it the largest segment of the center’s registry. Finding jobs for this transition group can be a challenge. “Employment opportunities are very limited generally right now, but they have historically been even more limited for those with disabilities, particularly those with autism,” says Alessandri. “Extensive job training is required—skill development, interview skills, grooming—but also job coaching may be needed regularly, sometimes daily.”

That is the primary reason CARD developed Project EAARN (Employment for Adults with Autism Resource Network), an initiative aimed at boosting the job skills of its clients and connecting them with employers willing to hire individuals with autism spectrum disorders. The one-week Project EAARN Employment Boot Camp that Johnson and 17 other adults attended last summer taught them skills that will make them more attractive to potential employers.

Four of the 18 adults obtained employment as a result of the camp, says Deborah Chin, manager of social services in CARD’s Transition and Adult Services division. One of the architects of Project EAARN, whose funding is provided by the Dan Marino Foundation, the Sam Berman Charitable Foundation, Inc., and Bupa Latin America, Chin says people with autism have a lower employment rate than individuals with other disabilities. “But we believe that by being a hub of information and resources for our constituents and addressing the issue from multiple angles, we can increase employment opportunities for individuals with ASD,” she says.

CARD also educates local businesses about the benefits of employing people with autism. In November 2013 it partnered with the nonprofit organization Autism Speaks to host a town hall meeting at UM’s Newman Alumni Center, where companies like Rising Tide Car Wash, Lee & Marie’s Cakery, Extraordinary Ventures, and [words] Bookstore shared their experiences with hiring people with autism.

“It’s important that they get out of the house and stay busy,” says Estrada. “Otherwise, most of them would sit at home in front of the TV or computer for seven to ten hours a day, if not longer. They need to have responsibilities.”

Summer of Learning for CARD’s Young Clients

t a summer camp for high-functioning 6 to 9 year olds with autism, today’s lesson is about compromise and flexibility, characteristics children with autism have difficulty demonstrating. Standing before a classroom of 6 year olds at Beth David Congregation—the camp’s home for the past two years—the instructor tells the children to draw a picture of themselves being adaptable. “What about being able to accept changes? Why is that a good thing?” she asks. Each child then sets about the task, using crayons to create images that illustrate how each can adapt to change. One little boy draws himself sharing his toys. Another depicts himself playing with a red car, even though he wanted to play with a blue one. With each drawing she reviews, the instructor nods her head reassuringly.

Earlier in the day, the group of 12 youngsters had run agility drills around cones as part of the fitness and motor-development component. Their day would be rounded out with other lessons—a social skills module on tattling and telling the truth and a science block concentrating on ocean life. On this particular Tuesday in July, they are studying squids.

During the regular academic year, most of these summer camp children, 36 in all, attend mainstream education classes in the Miami-Dade County public school system. “But they struggle more in that environment than they do here,” says Jennifer Durocher, a clinical assistant professor at UM who runs the camp and serves as CARD’s interim clinical director. “All of the autism supports that we infuse into our camp—adhering to schedules, social skills lessons, using lots of visual aids—aren’t always used in regular classrooms.”

Funded by The Children’s Trust, the camp, says Durocher, is more than a means of building social skills in children with autism. “It’s very hard for kids in the autism spectrum to make friends in other environments,” she explains. “They have different interests and social skill deficits. Other kids may not always be as accepting. Here, they have kids with whom they have a lot in common and share similar interests. Oftentimes this is one of the few environments where they get to forge strong friendships.”

Durocher says the camp is her “baby.” She helped create it seven years ago as a pilot project based at CARD’s UM office in the Flipse Building, starting out with ten kids “causing a ruckus,” she recalls with a laugh. She saw a critical need for the seven-week session after many parents complained they couldn’t find a suitable summer activity for their children. “We see a significant improvement in kids after the camp,” says Durocher. “They become more flexible and better prepared for the school year, more socially motivated and better prepared to deal with problems.”

Apps Help Kids Communicate

iagnosed with Asperger’s syndrome at 3 ½ years old, Eric Daniel always had trouble communicating with others, seldom initiating conversations unless prompted. Then, in late 2013, Eric, now 10, picked up an iPad, using a specific app to write stories. Since then, his communication skills have soared. “He’s now starting conversations on his own,” says Eric’s mother, Anna Ramirez. “Sometimes we still have to nudge him, but it’s gotten better.” During the week, Eric is seldom away from his iPad, using it for his fifth-grade homework assignments and to log FaceTime with relatives. Eric’s iPad, and 43 others given to kids like him, are central to a CARD initiative called Project S.O.C.I.A.L., which uses technology to expand social and communication skills in 2 to 13 year olds who fall in the autism spectrum.

A $40,000 anonymous gift helped supply each family with the iPad and a $50 iTunes card for purchasing apps geared toward developing social skills.

“The possibilities for communication and social learning with the iPad are as limitless for autistic people as they are for the general population,” says Robin Parker, senior director of CARD’s Nova Southeastern University site. “But the technology for those with autism doesn’t just make things better; it makes things possible.”

Summer camps, job training, and iPads are just the tip of CARD’s extensive services. There’s also an annual surfing camp, the mobile autism assessment van, and educational outreach events. Last year, CARD’s 20th anniversary, signaled positive growth. More than 700 new families came to the center for help, its annual fundraising gala raised more than $400,000 (the most in its history), and executive director Alessandri was invited to introduce noted animal behaviorist and autism advocate Temple Grandin before an audience of more than 5,000 at UM’s BankUnited Center.

But like most state-funded programs, the center faces daunting challenges: “funding limitations, for one,” says Alessandri, “and reaching more clients, particularly those who are traditionally underserved and the growing adult segment of our client registry.”

Donations and grants help ensure CARD’s survival, which Alessandri considers crucial. “We typically are Florida’s first choice for autism support,” he says.

Ruby Diaz-Martinez agrees. She says the benefits for Sebastian have been immense. “He’s been seeing a therapist recommended by CARD, and he’s doing better,” she says. “He’s made huge leaps in mathematics; he’s adding and subtracting now. He says he wants to work for Apple as a Genius.”

CARD’s 12th annual Tropical Nights gala took place May 10 at the InterContinental Miami. More than 500 guests helped raise more than $350,000 for CARD. Click here to watch a video shown at the event, which highlights five culturally diverse families who have moved to South Florida (some from as far away as Lebanon and Russia) to receive CARD services for their children with austism spectrum disorders.  

For more information, visit umcard.org.

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