Master’s Students

I grew up in Boise, Idaho, surrounded by the curves of foothills, the smell of sage, and the beige flowers of antelope-bitterbrush. I stayed close to home for college, attending The College of Idaho, a private liberal-arts college in Caldwell, a rural farm town that smells like sugarbeets and cow manure after it rains. I graduated in 2011 with my B.S. in environmental studies with a focus in conservation biology and a minor in creative writing.

I spent many a summer working at The Ruth Melichar Wild Bird Rehabilitation Center, a big red barn in Boise that takes in wild injured and orphaned birds. There, I learned how to rehabilitate everything from pine siskins and barn swallows to downy woodpeckers and wood ducks. Last summer I took a break from birds and completed a community development project in Mokhattam, Egypt, that focused on the education of Egyptian rubbish-collector children. Currently, I’m working as an intern for Idaho Rivers United, a local not-for-profit that protects and restores Idaho’s rivers. I’m working primarily on a Boise River Campaign to build community support for non-structural flood risk reduction as well as promoting energy conservation through the efficient use of water resources to curb climate change and enhance water security.

At University of Oregon, I plan to have concentrations in marine science and international policy. Despite growing up in an entirely landlocked state, I am deeply passionate about ocean conservation and protecting the oceans as a transnational common good.

In my free time I love travelling, roadtripping, spending time on the coast, poking around tidepools, river rafting, hiking, yoga, and watching TED.com lectures.

As a youngster growing up in a suburb of Chicago, I cultivated an early interest in fishing through summer trips to Wisconsin, West Virginia, and North Carolina, as well as poaching bass ponds on nearby golf courses after hours via bicycle and spinning rod.

While attending Middlebury College in Vermont I “evolved” into a fly fisherman and at that point there was no turning back. I have since spent most of my adult life planning my next fly fishing adventure. Ultimately, this led me to full-time residence in Maupin, Oregon- a rural Central Oregon town of 450 people on the lower Deschutes River.

In five years as retail and guide service manager, guide, and instructor at the Deschutes Angler Fly Shop in Maupin, I was regularly exposed to a large range of issues surrounding the high profile water resource of the Deschutes River. The river defined the small community in which I lived, and decisions concerning the management of the river had enormous impact on the livelihoods of many in the community, myself included.
Through my almost daily forays to the Deschutes and elsewhere, fly rod in hand, I developed an impassioned concern for the vitality of our rivers. In turn, this led to an inspired interest in the policies managing our region’s water resources with respect to the health of our fisheries.

Subsequently, I began working with Trout Unlimited in Bend, OR to further explore the field of watershed management. I have since worked directly on a range of policy issues concerning water resources in Central Oregon as numerous federal, state, and non-profit organizations attempt to balance the demands of recreation, irrigation, and fisheries in our region.

Through the Environmental Studies program at UO I will pursue an outstanding academic foundation to complement my experience in the field. Ultimately, I aspire to contribute to water policy and watershed management decisions by innovating solutions to the allocation of water resources in the Western US.

My all-time favorite thing to do is to float and camp on rivers, and with some good fishing in the mix I could ask for nothing more. I also enjoy hiking with my two dogs, barbequeing on the back deck, watching Chicago Cubs games, tying steelhead flies, and chasing steelhead throughout the Pacific Northwest.

I graduated from Pacific Lutheran University in 2010 with a B.A. in Chemistry and minors in Environmental Studies and Women’s and Gender Studies. For the next year, I worked in outreach and education as a Lutheran Volunteer Corps volunteer at Citizens for a Healthy Bay, an environmental nonprofit in Tacoma, WA.
I am interested in the intersect of human and environment; thus my proposed concentrations are sustainable development and affecting social change. A Minnesotan by birth, I’ve adapted well to the Pacific Northwest over the last five years: clouds and rain (versus sweltering heat and snow) signify year-round ultimate frisbee and bike commuting opportunities, plus a significant reduction in exposure to harmful UV radiation! I have dreams of becoming the next Bill Nye, trekking in Patagonia, and learning to cook.

I was raised macrobiotically in Madison, Wisconsin. After graduating from Beloit College in 2006 with a degree in studio art and French, I moved on a whim to Oakland, California. I landed a job as a picture framer and began trying to figure out what to do next.

A copy of Heat by George Monbiot jolted me awake to the severity of the climate crisis. I started an environmental blog and turned my workplace into a certified green business. Thanks to my upbringing, I have always connected food with larger issues, and this one was no different. During a yearlong internship with SAGE (Sustainable Agriculture Education) of Berkeley, I collaborated on a curriculum for the Sunol AgPark, and, more recently, I began helping out at City Slicker Farms.

I’m especially interested in how modern food systems and climate change interrelate, and in the ways that visual art and literature equip us to deal conceptually with our own small part in large-scale ecological problems.

Although I loved living in the Bay Area, I never quite got used to the mild weather or to the startling tropical plant life, so I am excited to move to Eugene, where the flora is a little more familiar, and where, I’ve heard, there is a small chance it might even snow.

I grew up in Eugene and then moved away for eight years, attending college in Indiana and Connecticut. For a brief while I was a classical musician. However, the pull of Oregon (truly the best place on Earth), and my growing curiosity about science and the natural world, were too great to resist, and I returned home to study biology. For the last 20+ years I have lived and worked in the Lane County area in various occupations, from hazelnut farmer, to water treatment plant operator, water laboratory analyst, and laboratory quality assurance officer. I am pursuing environmental studies to add a much richer dimension to my life and my future work, hopefully in service to the community and the environment. I was drawn to the University of Oregon for the diversity of faculty and students affiliated with environmental studies, and the unique interdisciplinary program that is not offered at other schools.

My intellectual interests relate to central themes about how we live and work: 1) the qualities of social, organizational and economic systems that either serve to connect us to or alienate us from non-human life and bio-physical processes, and 2) different cultural/intellectual approaches that shape our response as we interact with nature. More specifically, I am interested in the conceptual foundations that shape scientific ecological inquiry, the popular conceptions of ecology and science in general, and their bearing on how we use science in public decision-making processes. I am also interested in philosophical conceptions of self/other and how these conceptions affect our understanding of, and relationship with the non-built environment. Additionally, I would like to find ways to beneficially apply philosophy in public and group decision-making processes as a way to foster deep and lasting change.

In my spare time I enjoy listening to music, reading poetry, natural history, science, and philosophy, playing poker and other games, gardening, hiking, cooking, and spending time with my family and friends (both two- and four-legged).

I could say that it all began with a childhood spent largely in trees; with the stubborn six-year-old who would scramble ungracefully up the ancient mango tree in our yard. I went on to spend much of my days there, in the woods, in the mud and getting bitten by red ants.

But the truth is, it was only much later that I noticed changes in Kerala, the astonishingly beautiful state in India where I was born. Gaping wounds were mined open in the mountains that our house overlooked, the earth growing bald in patches. At 12, I went to the beach we visited every day, and saw it coated in thick sulphurous foam and strewn with fish, after the titanium factory up the coast decided that it was too expensive taking its effluents offshore.

I graduated in Economics, did a diploma in International Relations and Geopolitics, and worked with a few social change research centres; then decided to return to writing, my first love, and completed my post-graduate diploma in Journalism. I spent two years at The Hindu, one of India’s oldest English newspapers, and became part of its 131-year-old history as Reporter and Sub-Editor, and worked on more than a hundred stories on heritage, art, literature and the environment. Elsewhere, I wrote on human rights, tribal issues, the politics of water and agriculture.

I’d like to study how our perspectives on culture and identity tie up with the way we view our environment. I hope to understand why different cultures, genders, races and classes think so differently about the environment, and how our performative and non-performative aspects – like theatre, languages, literature, dance and storytelling- influence our relationship with our communities and their issues. This is because I believe that that besides our ongoing battles to protect the environment, we must also work towards boosting the immunities of our communities, so that over time, we evolve a new way of living, and thinking about living.

As a citizen of the “Third World”, I also have a deliberate interest in social justice movements, in the social irony of living a life of deprivation in areas that are resource-rich. I have come to understand the environment not just as the wetlands and the jungles, but as the land where we do live – specifically, the land consigned to the poorest among us.

All along the way, there have also been martial arts, mountaineering, diving, swimming, writing, trekking, theatre, filmmaking, pottery, reading, and dancing.

Few people have the privilege of having a Spanish dreamer for a father and a nomadic wild-child from Northern Wisconsin for a mother. These two characters brought me into this world on a snowy evening in Lake Tahoe, CA, and have since given me a run for my money.

By the time I was 14, I had lived in California, the province of Quebec, Canada, the Catalan Pyrenees of Spain and the Wisconsin-Michigan border. I speak Catalan with a mountain accent, Spanish with a Catalan accent and English with an Upper-Peninsula-of-Michigan accent. All of this hullabaloo meant a lot of change, but there were also some constants: everywhere we went, my dad always knew the geography, my mom always made us look at the moon, and I made nature my imaginary friend. Now a bit older, I try to have actual friends, but the great outdoors is still a big part of my life. I very much look forward to exploring the natural wonders that the Pacific Northwest has to offer.

Academically, the topics that put a twinkle in my eye include environmental sociology, ethics, education and communications. I received my B.S. in Landscape Architecture from the University of Wisconsin in 2008, and have since been working as an ecological designer at Applied Ecological Services in Brodhead, WI. I enjoy using my written and graphic creativity to communicate in various ways. Ideally, the future will present me with the opportunity to funnel this creativity into the development of multi-media tools and strategies to inform a given audience about pressing environmental issues. The University of Oregon provides me with the perfect setting in which to grow closer to this objective, and I am thrilled to embark on this new chapter of my life!

Which reminds me… I need to go practice how to say Oregon, Eugene and Willamette like a local and not like an idiot. Wish me luck!

Growing up in the Central Valley of California – one of the nation’s agricultural hot spots – I became fascinated with the seemingly oblivious and wasteful motions of our capitalistic culture, (never mind the harmful side effects of pesticides or the gross injustice of dislocating families from their historical land for intensive farming practices). In this context, I wondered how the current corporate system of manufacturing and farming could change in a way that would be more sustainable, while also being practical and socially desirable. This interest and curiosity led me through disparate, yet interwoven avenues, where sustainability played out in my life.

Throughout my undergraduate career at California State University, Fresno, I worked with a non-profit organization – the Sequoia ForestKeeper – to produce forest surveys and to document and research Forest Service logging practices within the boundaries of the Sequoia National Forest. Then, collaborating with the engineering department on my campus, I joined The Green Issue, a school club for sustainable building, and helped launch our very first sustainability film festival in the spring of 2011. I have been composting my family’s food waste for three years, as well as participating in my school’s recycling club. At the University of Oregon’s Environmental Studies program, I hope to take these passions for sustainability, with my undergraduate interdisciplinary background in neuroscience, to use MRI technology to understand the neural circuits and patterns of sustainable decision-making.

Some of my other interests include helping my family, volunteering for various river cleanup events, working on a research project with the San Joaquin River, hiking, backpacking, enjoying the outdoors with friends, kickboxing, and playing badminton.

I’ve lived in rural Oregon 11 years, appreciating the climate for year-round gardening and outdoor living.  I entered the UO ENVS program with a passion for education, plants, and food.  During my first year as a master’s student, I concentrated on Native American studies, forest ecology, and food security, discovering how my interests collide.

Beginning my second year as a graduate student, I will be teaching an interactive ENVS 411 course titled Northwest Ethnobotany.  This course is the first in a series for the 2011-2012 Environmental Leadership Program. After learning about culturally important local plant species in the fall course, students will develop ethnobotanical educational curricula for three community partners and lead field trips and lessons for middle school students.  Learn more at http://envs.uoregon.edu/elp_program/projects/currentprojects/.  I am very excited about these upcoming projects!

The research I am doing for my thesis focuses on how the physical effects of climate change on culturally important, edible native plant species will affect the culture and traditions of Native American tribes in the Pacific Northwest. Working with the Tribal Climate Change Project, I hope that what I learn through interviews and research will build an awareness of the significance of understanding the impacts of climate change on culturally important plants and the people who use them, as well as strategies for their preservation.

I grew up in Bangladesh, which is a small country situated in the south of Asia. I have completed B.S in Environmental Studies from North South University, Bangladesh in August 2009. Currently I am working as a Program Associate in Bangladesh Institute of ICT in Development, a private initiative to promote the use of ICT as a tool for development. I was also associated with Save the Children US as an intern where I conducted an inventory of local NGOs working in the coastal areas that Save the Children might target for future food security programming. Throughout my undergraduate years, I have found my passion in focusing on climate change issues, sustainability and energy efficiency. I will be joining the UO Masters Program in Environmental Studies this fall with the purpose of improving my understanding of suitable adaptation techniques to climate change.

The topic of my undergraduate thesis report was «Impact of Right First Time (RFT) Approach on Textile Industries in Bangladesh: A Case Study.» I focused on one specific textile manufacturing unit and tried to understand the status of energy, chemical and water use by conducting an audit on water and chemical consumption and also by collecting existing data from various sources in the factory. While doing my thesis, I developed considerable interest in the area of environmental economics.

At the University of Oregon, I plan on concentrations in environmental and natural resource economics and climate change. I am hoping to use both to finding practical and positive ways to reduce the environmental impact of poor, rural communities in Bangladesh due to climate change and also to ease the pressure on the already limited natural resources.

Besides studying I enjoy listening to music, reading and traveling.

I graduated from Elmira College with a B.A. in both English Literature and an individualized study in Environment, Culture and Society. These spheres of study, combined with four years living in upstate NY, made for a colorful Venn diagram of “Things that I care about very much!” One of the subjects in the middle of that diagram is hydraulic fracturing for natural gas, as well as the environmental justice issues surrounding the practice. If you’re not sure what hydraulic fracturing is, well, I have exciting news! For my terminal project, I am writing a book about it: literary nonfiction, written for a popular audience. I’ll be visiting and interviewing several Native American groups to learn how this drilling process will impact them — or, in the case of many tribes in the Western parts of the United States, how it has already impacted them. Is hydraulic fracturing sustainable in environmental, social, and economic terms? Are the benefits and drawbacks equally distributed? Currently, there is a moratorium on drilling in NY until the state has gathered enough information to act. It is critical that when the moratorium ends, and discussion on the future of “fracking” picks up, that every stakeholder is equitably represented.

Occasionally I do things besides “read,” “write,” and “read some more”. I’m passionately invested in environmental education, having worked as a Teacher Naturalist with Massachusetts Audubon for six years (www.massaudubon.org), and interned at Tanglewood Nature Center in Elmira, NY (www.tanglewoodnaturecenter.com). Currently, I serve on the Board of Directors for an environmental education nonprofit in Eugene, Camas Educational Network (www.camasnet.org), and invite all of you to come work with us!

I like to walk everywhere, and sometimes diversify my travels via SCUBA, kayak, and scampering.

Growing up exploring the mountains, lakes and rivers of the Pacific Northwest has given me a deep respect for wild places and natural surroundings. In graduate school I want to explore the connection human beings have with the natural environment and find ways to better integrate ecological and social systems.

My main interest is in environmental anthropology and more specifically in community based restoration/conservation programs; cultural conceptions of nature; ethnobotany; sustainable resource use; environmental education; and nature reserve/park design and management. I currently have a bachelor’s degree in Environmental Studies from Southern Oregon University, and I am finishing a certificate in botany.

In the past I have worked with nature centers and natural history museums teaching environmental education curriculums to local school children. I have also worked with the Forest service doing goshawk, spotted owl and salamander surveys. The salamander surveys even resulted in the discovery of a new species, the Scott Bar Salamander. Just recently I finished a 2 year research project on the mycorrhizal symbionts of oak and mountain mahogany trees and published a paper with a professor at SOU. Currently I am working with the BLM doing a large scale landscape ecology project on the biodiverse flora of the Cascade Siskiyou National Monument.

In my free time I like going for long backpacking trips into the wilderness, traveling through Mexico and Central America, exploring creeks and rivers, organic gardening, painting with watercolors, making pottery, learning about ayurvedic healing and nature journaling. I am inspired by natures’ details. I enjoy looking deeply into my surroundings and I hope to share this vision with my local and global community.

Growing up in the great state of Montana, I learned to love the outdoors from an early age. During my undergraduate career at Cornell University, I studied Biology and Society with a focus in Environmental Studies, and co-authored a paper on biofuels and the global food system. I explored other areas as well, such as Gender Studies, and French, and spent a year studying abroad in Aix-en-Provence, France. After graduating, I made the move to the lovely city of San Francisco where I spent two years working for the statewide energy efficiency campaign, Flex Your Power. There, I learned about energy, climate change, and public outreach while working to promote environmentally responsible behavior throughout California.

For my master’s research, I am studying the intersection of gender and the environment with an emphasis on empowerment and collective action. This fall I will travel to India to work with Vanastree, a women’s seed collective, and the Ashoka Trust for Research in Ecology and the Environment (ATREE). Together with local participants, I plan to research how these organizations empower local community members, especially women, and what activities they use to accomplish their goals. I intend to make the research as collaborative as possible, working to investigate questions that participants want answered, and to co-produce written and artistic materials that highlight participant experiences. I also plan to work in collaboration with Kelly Sky to produce a film about Vanastree and ATREE, and to forge connections between the University of Oregon and these two groups.

In my leisure time I like to act, ski, sleep, camp, listen to music, float the river, and hit up the dance floor!

An Indian from Michigan’s snowy Upper Peninsula? Who would have guessed. And yet, that’s my story: I was born and brought up in a small, predominantly Finnish town, surrounded and taken away by nature. For me, summers will always mean jumping off the cliffs at Canyon Falls and watching my braver friends use the tattered old rope swing.

I entered the University of Michigan planning on going into sound engineering, so I could one day record all the bands I idolized growing up. However, in my first few years I got involved in community service events around campus, and found something new and exciting: community development. Then while taking a course on renewable energy while studying in Australia, I was introduced to solar power. Something inside clicked, and I returned to Ann Arbor excited to get involved.

After working for an electrician installing small solar systems, I began a project in my mother’s ancestral village in India. Six months after planning with community members, I went to India and we put up a small system on the village’s school. Then the next year, after wrapping up my BSE in Electrical Engineering, I switched to working on the project full time and exploring how to create a social enterprise out of our work.

…Which brings us to the present. When people ask me what I want to do with my life, I still don’t have a satisfactory answer. The only thing I know for sure is that I want to be happy. I’m still figuring out what happiness means for me, and right now I know that involves working in the fields of renewable energy, international rural community development, and social equality. I look forward to continuing that path to discovery in Eugene, and can’t wait to get going.

I was very lucky to grow up in a passive solar house that my parents built just before I was born in rural Western North Carolina. Although the mountains of North Carolina were a great place to grow up, I really enjoy the bigger mountains and trees out here on the West Coast. 

While at the University of North Carolina, I was involved in one of the first successful campus renewable energy campaigns in the southeast. I also won the Morris K. Udall scholarship (www.udall.gov), a national environmental leadership scholarship, in both 2002 & 2003. In 2004, I spent most of my senior year organizing the first Southeast Student Renewable Energy Conference to engage and network Southern students beyond UNC in energy and climate work. Then, I worked to support and build this network through the Southern Energy Network (www.climateaction.net) until 2009. I graduated in May 2004 with a Bachelor’s Degree in Environmental Science and a Minor in Biology.

In the summer of 2004, I became a co-founding member of Energy Action Coalition (EAC) (www.energyactioncoalition.org), which I was involved with through the summer of 2009. In late fall 2005, I attended the UN Climate Negotiations in Montreal with the EAC. There, I helped start the international youth climate blog: www.itsgettinghotinhere.org , which is now in the top three climate change blogs in the world. I was co-chair of the EAC Steering Committee, which oversaw the central staff and most of the coalition work, from 2006-2008. I have collaborated with a number of community, state, regional and national organizations on fighting new dirty energy facilities and promoting cleaner energy alternatives. In the fall of 2008, I joined the Board of Directors of the Highlander Center (www.highlandercenter.org), which has been central in the fight for social justice in the South and Appalachia since 1932.

I’m just getting connected here in Eugene, but I volunteer weekly at Grower’s Market, am a member of the Rural Organizing Project and volunteer with the Labor Education Resource Center (LERC) at UO to support green jobs networking and resource sharing in Oregon. In my free time, I enjoy biking, hiking, gardening, listening to many different kinds of music, and I dream of learning to play the banjo someday.

Concentration areas: Sustainable Food Systems; Ecology

Advisor: Bendan Bohannan, Biology

Despite being a (begrudging) Boyscout, I was a youngster that didn’t care too much for being in or thinking about the outdoors. Instead, I stayed inside reading books, playing the piano, building models, learning computers, and generally being an artsy nerd. While getting a dual degree in Music Composition and English from Centre College, I started doubting the worth of many of those things, took a class on Kant/natural aesthetics/walking, worked in Yellowstone for a summer, and got hooked on nature so bad it became a liability.

I spent the next few years working in and traveling to beautiful places. I was a Student Conservation Association intern in Yellowstone and Black Canyon of the Gunnison National Parks, a guide in Kantishna, Alaska, and an environmental educator in Denali National Park and Preserve. Between jobs, I traveled extensively as a professional bum. (You can look at maps of the jobs I’ve had and the places I’ve lived, if you’d like.)

Despite having the time of my life, I somehow couldn’t stay away from school for long. I began the Masters program in 2009 and have already grown intellectually in unexpected and exciting ways. My concentrations are in Geographic Information Systems (GIS) and Conservation, and I’m beginning work on a project examining off-trail group wilderness travel in Denali. I’m also taking classes in climbing, mountaineering, and environmental education from UO’s fantastic Outdoor Pursuits Program.

Fun = backpacking, climbing, hiking, packrafting, skiing; co-oping, journaling, listening to music, photographing, reading; and wandering, generally.

Concentration areas: environmental justice, Marxist and gender theory, energy use, ecopedagogy.

Committee:
John Bellamy Foster, Sociology (advisor); Ted Toadvine, Philosophy; Derrick Hindery, International Studies.

My thesis is a political economy of the gendered impacts of large-scale agrofuel development in the global south.

My educational background is in community health with an emphasis on the social/economic aspects of access.

I love theater and work as a stage-hand for the International Alliance of Theatrical Stage Employees (IATSE) Local 675 when I’m not playing assistant to my girlfriend who is a professional set designer.

I’m working toward concurrent Master’s degrees in Environmental Studies and Conflict and Dispute Resolution, as well as taking courses toward the completion of a Nonprofit Management Certificate.

My interests are focused on collaborative planning and policy addressing complex natural resource issues involving multiple stakeholders.  I’m also interested in conservation work and in ecological restoration as a community and economic development tool.  I’m fascinated by the work of land trusts and watershed councils, and worked full time from June 2010 to August 2011 for McKenzie River Trust (a regional land trust based in Eugene) as a Habitat Restoration Technician, and then Conservation Planning Associate through the Resource Assistance for Rural Environments (RARE) program in the University of Oregon’s Community Service Center.

During my previous life as a Hoosier, I completed a B.S. in Biology and an interdisciplinary certificate combining liberal arts and business management. Before moving to Oregon, I worked as a Research Associate in a soil ecology lab, worked and volunteered at organic gardens, co-taught an environmental studies course at an independent school, worked at a local outdoor gear shop, and did research for an upcoming book on environmental social science.

When I’m not working, you’ll find me climbing or bouldering, basking in the sun in a park, cooking, hiking, biking, or finding any reasonable excuse to be outside. I’m also interested in communities, time banks, facilitation, potlucks, gardening, nonviolent communication, and good beer.

I was born in Chile in 1979, and I graduated from Universidad de Chile as a sociologist in 2006. I joined UO Environmental Studies Maters Program last year with the purpose of broaden my professional perspective on the issues interest me most, which are indigenous peoples, ecological traditional knowledge, socio-environmental conflict, rural development and collaborative resource management and environmental impact assessment.

My approach to environmental issues was in origin more practical than academic, as I engaged in environmental justice movements while I was a sociology student. These experiences made me observe with increasing attention the ways societies deal with environmental challenges and conflicts over resources, and how institutions transform themselves through these processes. When graduated, I founded and became director of an ecotourism project joint-ventured with indigenous communities in southern Chile. (www.saltosdetrafkura.bligoo.com).

I am currently developing a tentative thesis project pertaining tourism partnerships involving indigenous communities as stakeholders, which are thought to be a powerful tool in revitalizing these communities while creating incentives for conservation. I want to know whether institutional arrangements that incorporate intercultural elements lead to more resilient organizations, more adequate resources and impacts management, and improved socio-economic and environmental outcomes.

My primary interest is the use of GIS survey tools for participatory, community based research. To this end, I program and field test survey applications for mobile devices such as the iPhone, as well as study the community process and networking that emerges from the use of these tools. This research is funded by a generous grant from the Oregon Transportation Research and Education Consortium (OTREC), and conducted under the supervision of Prof. Marc Schlossberg, who has been working on this sort of thing longer than I’ve been in higher education.

Before graduate school, I was employed by the State of Kansas and spent my days reviewing energy performance contracting projects. Before that, I attended the University of Kansas and received my bachelor’s in Physics. Although I love experimentation and many aspects of the hard sciences, I also enjoy the social sciences and even occasional toe-dipping into the humanities, and my life goal is to work on creating more livable urban areas, an interdisciplinary pursuit if ever there was one. So, here I am.

I enjoy exploring Eugene with my dog Niki and my partner Steph. We know all the best trees in Hendricks and a few good long bike routes as well.

I graduated from Ohio Wesleyan University in 2009 with a B.A. in Zoology. My undergraduate research focused on the sublethal and often subtle effects that pesticides and other chemical pollutants can have on wildlife and human health. This work made me aware of the inadequacy of many current policies related to chemical and nonpoint source water pollution. Here at the University of Oregon, I plan on concentrations in Ecology and Policy. My current research interests involve the success of voluntary policies in reducing pesticide use and agricultural nonpoint source pollution. I hope that ENVS will help me accomplish my lifelong goal of being a Planeteer. A few interests of mine include cooking, environmental and social justice, amphibians, bikes, laughing, and playing the ukulele.

http://pages.uoregon.edu/northrop/

To date, most of my coursework has focused on GIS and urban transportation. However, along the way I developed interests in regional food systems and data visualization. Since finishing my course requirements, I have been working on developing a new method for modeling bicycle transportation using aerial photography and a derived calculation to measure the comfort of individual street segments. The end goal is to represent the urban landscape through the eyes of bicyclists of varying skill and comfort levels and to use that information to guide decisions to make more holistic improvements to bicycle infrastructure. I am also interested in exploring ways to visualize and represent data/ideas/concepts to make them more meaningful and digestible to people.

Outside of school I serve on the Board of Directors of the Willamette Farm & Food Coalition. Additionally, I continue putting in hours over at Lane Council of Governments as a GIS Technician. I spend most of my free time writing music, playing soccer, and gardening. I also heart living with my housemates: Sara Nienaber and Raj Vable.

Concentration Areas: Principles and Methods in Conservation Policy; Conservation Policy in Law and Land Use Planning; Conceptions of Nature, Environment, and Conservation.

Advisors:
Rob Ribe, Landscape Architecture
Peter Walker, Geography and Environmental Studies
Rich Margerum, Planning, Public Policy and Management
Patrick Hurley, Environmental Studies

Research Interests: I am interested in the political and policy implications of disequilibrium ecology for conserving biodiversity on private land. I hope to contribute to sustainability through research in political ecology, with an emphasis on communicative planning. My more specific interests include natural resource policy, environmental economics, game theory, collaborative planning, interpretive policy analysis, Leopold’s land ethic, and the Willamette Valley’s oak savanna.

In my thesis, I am arguing that humans inadvertently risk exacerbating the loss of biodiversity in the name of saving it, by disregarding risk to maintenance-dependent species from species-based land-use regulation.

Prior to entering the ENVS program, I worked as a technical writer, produced field recordings of traditional African percussion, and became actively interested in conserving biodiversity on private land.

I am an agriculturalist, composter and new media communications guru from New York City. I was recently the communications manager at The After-School Corporation (TASC), a nonprofit dedicated to giving all kids opportunities to grow through after-school and summer activities that support, educate and inspire them. Working in new media for over nine years (yikes) now, I am passionate about the power of communication to support local & regional food systems. ENVS concentrations in landscape architecture/planning will provide depth and diversity to better understand the challenges facing urban agriculturalists around the country. Early work in the master’s program has led me to question: how do cities and their communities facilitate and create meaningful connections to share knowledge, support innovation, and build a cooperative food system? How do community food system stakeholders — consumers, growers, distributors, etc. — deal with the challenge of «understanding how to use knowledge to generate results»? And, what is the best way to implement change through monitoring the emergence of useful models (shared/created) in the knowledge-sharing network and help others adopt, adapt, and utilize them?

In a past life, I volunteered with the NYC Greenmarket and served on advisory boards for Slow Food NYC and The Greenhorns, a small nonprofit serving the rosy cheeked young muscle of a new American countryside. A graduate of Fordham University, I enjoy playing banjo, mulching and laughing at (with) my cats Sid and Pumpkin.

I grew up hiking, biking and tidepool-hopping around the Pacific Northwest. In college, I played around with ecology and poetry—with sea turtle conservation in Mexico and magic realism in the literature of marginalized groups—and ended up majoring in Biology and English.

Since then, I’ve worked on energy efficiency and education projects for underserved populations in Detroit, community-based renewable energy projects in Seattle, monitored shorebirds and sea turtles in North Carolina, and freelanced for local papers off and on. I’m passionate about environmental justice, water resources, and writing, and I’m excited to connect these areas in my studies at UO.

Other passions include bikes, homebrews and swimming in any natural body of water I find.

I am currently a dual-enrolled student in the ENVS and Law Programs. My career interests are in International Environmental Policy, particularly in Latin America. I have been an environmental advocate since I was a small child but really became enthralled with the issues in Latin America as an undergrad at the University of North Carolina Asheville. My B.S. was in Environmental Studies and Political Science and culminated in a senior field project on the links between environmental degradation, indigenous rights, and globalization in Honduras. More broadly, I am attempting to bridge the gap between science and policy.

I am originally from AZ but have lived in CO, NC, and now OR. I spent some time traveling around the US, working odd jobs, and generally absorbing information before going back to school. Thus, I have a little experience in a whole lot of unrelated things and my personal interests are as varied. A few highlights include herbal/holistic medicine, gardening, snowboarding, camping, kayaking, photography, crafts, Sumi-i painting, and spinning fire nunchucks.