—Rachel Carson, The Sense of Wonder
Associate Professor of Ecology and Environmental Policy
- PhD, Ecology and Evolutionary Biology, University of Tennessee
- BA, Biology/Public Policy Analysis, Pomona College
Sustainability Science and Policy
I have a joint appointment with the Department of Social Sciences and the School of Forest Resources and Environmental Science. My research fits generally within the framework of multidisciplinary sustainability science. I develop and test sustainability indices for their utility to manage dynamic human-environmental systems from local to global scales. I also look at the impact of economic trade on the sustainability of these systems, the so-called "leakage" effect, and its impact on local ecosystems, the "boomerang" effect. Finally, I am interested in using economic incentive policies and landscape-scale management tools to safeguard forest ecosystem services, commonly referred to as "payment for ecosystem services" (PES).
My training and experience is multidisciplinary, split between ecology and policy, with plenty of natural resource economics thrown into the mix. My work is split between computer simulations and GIS, to data collection in a variety of habitats. I have conducted field work in the coastal sage scrub in southern California, the Florida Everglades, urbanized watersheds in Cincinnati, protected natural areas throughout the Midwest, and the boreal forest in Finland and Russia.
Links of Interest
Areas of Expertise
- Environmental and Natural Resources Policy
- Sustainability science
- Landscape ecology
- Biodiversity and Conservation
- International Trade
- Information Theory