CHE Graduate Student Associates

We encourage prospective and current students to contact CHE associates to learn about their research, find out about CHE, and build connections. To learn more about how to get involved as a graduate student, visit our How grad students can get involved page.

Loka Ashwood

I am a PhD student in Community and Environmental Sociology also associated with Geography and Agroecology. My work explores the efficacy of participatory processes, and the the politics of siting nuclear power plants in rural places. I examine participatory processes as a mean for actors to impact environmental problems in everyday spaces. contact

 

Meridith Beck Sayre

I grew-up on the shores of Deep Cove in Vancouver, BC, Canada. I completed a BA in Archaeology and an MA in History at Simon Fraser University. Over the course of my education at SFU, I worked in the archaeobotany lab identifying plant remains from archaeological sites in BC and Ecuador. This research led to my interest in environmental change over time and the relationships between people and plants in the past. I am currently a graduate student in the History of Science department researching Jesuit natural history in seventeenth century New France. contact

Athan Biss

I am a graduate student in the History Department interested in the intersection of race, culture and foreign relations. Although I am an Americanist, I am also actively involved with CREECA and have worked extesnively on the hisotry of US-Rusisan relations. My master's thesis, " 'Race Diplomacy': African American-Soviet Relations, 1926-1937," explored the engagement of African American entertainers, political radicals, tourists and intelletuals with the Soviet Union. contact

Jacob Blanc

I am a graduate student in the Latin American history program, with an interest in 20th century social history, emphasizing the intersection of labor movements, agrarian reform and globalization. I am particularly drawn to the overlap of labor and environmentalhistory and hope to infuse both in a way that respects the political agency and material realities of workers. My current research is on the construction of the Itaipú hydroelectric dam on the border between Brazil and Paraguay. contact

Peter Boger

I'm a Ph.D. student in the Nelson Institute's Environment and Resources program. My broad research interests include environmental history, environmental film, environmental education, and animal studies. My dissertation research will try to focus on the impacts of film on people's perceptions of animals and on support for and practice of wildlife conservation. I recently completed my M.S. in Environment and Resources, which focused on teaching environmental education in a cross-cultural context at a summer camp in Siberia. I'm from both New Jersey and North Carolina, but don't ask me to pick which one is really home! contact

Rachel Boothby

I am a graduate student in the Geography department with interests in food and agriculture/sustainable agriculture and related social change. I completed my undergraduate degree at UC Berkeley, and have spent time working toward urban pesticide use reduction, studying school gardens, and with various sustainable agriculture endeavors. Through my graduate work, I hope to examine historical social and environmental change in relation to food production, how institutions mediate our relationship to food, and associated changes in how we conceive of and interact with the environment. I hope to work with the Nelson Institute, Community and Environmental Sociology, and Agroecology programs. contact

Jack Buchanan

Hailing from Southern California, I came into the agroecology masters program here with a background in environmental science and a personal fascination with food and health. An agroecology grad seminar called Integral Ecology spurred my interest in the theoretical side of the equation. The principles I learned in that seminar have colored my interpretation of the various other subject matters I've pursued while here, particularly in agroecology, philosophy and the social sciences. My committee members' home departments well reflect the interdisciplinarity of my thesis: sociology, cultural anthropology, biological systems engineering, and agronomy. contact

Sarah Camacho

I am a graduate student in history specializing in the urban environmental history of the twentieth century American West. I enjoy learning about people's ideas for urban landscapes, and the messy ways in which those ideas are implemented through political and cultural processes. My master's thesis examined an expressway revolt in San Antonio, Texas, while my dissertation focuses on the ideas surrounding growth and development in late twentieth century Denver, the city I now call home. When I'm not researching my dissertation, I put my pre-UW librarian training to work as an information consultant; apprentice for one of Denver's many multi-plot urban farms; and attempt to teach my 2-year-old son to ID the plants that grow out of sidewalk cracks. contact

 

Virginia (Ginny) Carlton

I'm a Ph.D. student in the Nelson Institute's Environment and Resources program and the School of Education's Curriculum and Instruction program. My primary interests are in environmental education, professional development for classroom teachers and environmental literacy assessment. My Master's thesis was an assessment of the classroom instructional practices and school-wide leadership skills of teachers who had participated in differing levels of professional development programming. contact

 

Chelsea Cervantes De Blois

My research interests involve the social relationship and results of agriculture and environmental programs relating to women. I am a current MA candidate in the Department of Languages and Cultures of Asia (LCA) working under Professors Uli Schamiloglu and Anna Gade. I spend my weekends writing for an online Central Asian News paper and studying the Qu'ran with several Turkish and Central Asian women in Madison.

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Chelsea Chapman

I am a graduate student in the Department of Anthropology currently engaged in research for my dissertation on conceptions of energy and how those conceptions animate conflict over energy development projects in central Alaska. To understand how certain fields of knowledge about - and experiences of - energy become authoritative while others are marginalized, I take a critical ethnographic approach to hydrocarbon and renewable fuels, studying regional power production histories, ecological change, and ontologies of energy and land. contact

 

 

Melissa Charenko

I am a first year student in the History of Science, Medicine, and Technology, where I study the history of ecology and the history of biology. I am particularly interested in how changing scientific language gets interpreted by the public and how public discourses in turn shape scientific concepts. contact

 

 

Bridget Collins

I am a PhD candidate in the History of Science, Medicine, and Technology program at the University of Wisconsin-Madison, currently working on my dissertation, entitled, "From the Cradle to the Grave: Infectious Disease in the Twentieth Century American Home," under the direction of Professors Judith Walzer Leavitt and Susan E. Lederer. contact

 

Jennifer Conrad

I have a long-standing interest not only in human-environment interactions but also in human-animal and animal-environment interchanges. My research interests include 20th and 21st-century poetry and theory, including the ethics of representation, developing notions of the post-human, and depictions of animal others in theory, literature, and art. Contemporary poetry, in particular, seems to offer ways to explore and articulate these junctures. I also write poetry: my first collection of poems, A Cartography of Birds, was published in 2002 by Louisiana State University Press. I'm currently a graduate student in the English Department working toward a PhD in Literary Studies. contact

Kara Cromwell

I study host-parasite interactions as a PhD student in the Zoology program at UW-Madison. My work investigates both causes and consequences of parasitism, asking how environmental change and animal behavior interact to influence where epidemics occur, and how parasites affect food web interactions. In addition to parasite ecology, I am interested in how people perceive the creepy, crawly or "gross" elements of biodiversity and I try to find creative ways to communicate about nature's unseemly side. contact

Andy Davey

I am a PhD student in the Geography department. I have a BA in philosophy and have worked in various capacities in the non-profit sector, including living and working with people with developmental disabilities and growing vegetables on an urban farm. I’m broadly interesting in sustainable agriculture, political ecology, political theory, environmental history, and intellectual and cultural history. My recently completed master’s thesis, examined how the values and motivations for participating farmers and consumers at Midwest farmers’ markets intersected with their politics. I was specifically interested in the congruence amongst self-identified liberals and conservatives around food, politics, and the environment, and argued that conservative views are more nuanced than many critics and scholars often acknowledge, in part because of the complexity of conservative intellectual history. I am currently developing a dissertation project, possibly a comparative study of the politics and foodways of diverse intentional communities or university campuses. contact

Cathy Day

I am a PhD student in Geography. My interests center around climate change impacts on agricultural systems and how humans perceive and deal with climatic shifts within a complex social-economic context. My previous work was in small-scale farming systems in the West African Sahel. I am now building a project to assess how agricultural policies, including insurance provided through both government and private insurers, influence the choices farmers make in semi-arid agricultural systems in the southwestern U.S. The core of my interest is farm livelihoods and whether and how farmers can survive into the future on lands that have long been marginal for agriculture. In addition, I may examine whether policies build a basis for effective, diverse agricultural systems and allow for the persistence of smaller farmers. contact

Sarah Dimick

As a PhD student in the English Literature department, I focus on American poetry and environmental literature. I'm particularly interested in texts that address environmental crises. After receiving my BA from Carleton College and my MFA from New York University, I studied at the Minnesota Center for Book Arts, taking classes in letterpress printing, papermaking, and bookbinding. My own poetry has most recently appeared in Forklift, Ohio. When I'm not reading books or writing poems, I enjoy backpacking, particularly on the Superior Hiking Trail in northern Minnesota. contact

Richard Donohue

I was born and raised in the Southwestern US where the Colorado Plateau meets the San Juan Mountains. After studying philosophy and political science as an undergraduate, I completed a MA in Education at CU-Boulder and worked as an ethnographic researcher with an independent group of sociologists. I am now a geographer and cartographer, pursuing a Ph.D. minor in Science and Technology Studies with the Holtz Center. I weave my interests around issues related to energy, networked information and communication, invention and innovation, and visualization practices to investigate the historical and political implications of science and technology. website | contact

Andrew Dribin

I am a PhD candidate in the Department of Art History at the University of Illinois at Chicago (UIC). My research explores the stories of environmental activists in Chicago to save open spaces in the city and the metropolitan region since the 1960s. In particular, I am interested in the intertwined histories of the environmental movement and postwar suburbia. Prior to pursuing my doctoral degree, I received a Master of Architecture (from UIC in 2005) and practiced as an urban designer working with some of the tallest buildings in the world website | contact

 

Emily Eggleston

I am an MA student in journalism and received an MS in geography last spring. I have a BS in Agronomy and carried my interest in soil and food through into both geography and journalism. The People-Environment area of geography was a great venue for me to take soils in an anthropological direction when I studied Japanese-American WWII internment camp gardens. As a journalist, I hope to use my background in science, agriculture, soil, and food issues to write about topics and issues of concern to many different groups of people. The way culture influences people's interaction with the natural environment and food consumption fascinates me. website | contact

 

Ari Eisenberg

I am a student in the Department of History, studying the twentieth century United States. I am especially interested in the mutually constitutive relationship between bodies and space, and the ways that socially marginal people—including the homeless, queer people and people engaging in queer activities—have historically occupied public and semi-public space in the urban United States. My dissertation, "'Save Our Streets and Shelter Our Homeless': The New York City Homeless Crisis, 1978-1993," addresses New York City neighborhood conflicts over housing, homelessness, and uses of public space during a period of profound economic and political change in the city. I am also a member of UW's Program in Gender and Women's History. contact

Nate Ela

I'm a graduate student in the departments of Sociology and Community and Environmental Sociology. I'm interested in how people who are seeking to change food systems are negotiating, adapting to and re-purposing legal, economic, environmental and cultural infrastructure. I grew up in Madison, have a J.D. from Harvard, and have spent the past couple of years working first with food sovereignty activists in Colombia and then on small CSA farms in southeastern Pennsylvania and in Madison.contact

Jake Fleming

Jake Fleming is a PhD Student in the Geography Department; he also works closely with the Center for Russia, Eastern Europe, and Central Asia (CREECA). After receiving a B.A. in Biology from Harvard, he spent 2 years in Kyrgyzstan, first as a Peace Corps volunteer with a community-based ecotourism NGO, and later working with a biologist on apples in home gardens. Jake returned to Kyrgyzstan in 2007 to study the effects of post-Soviet decollectivization on land use among semi-nomadic herders on the shores of Lake Song Kol. His interests include post-socialist transition, nomads, Central Asian languages, and ethnoagriculture. contact

Jesse Gant

I am a Ph.D. candidate in the Department of History. My current research examines how racial ideology and processes of memory formation shaped the rise and the development of the early western leadership of the Republican Party during the Civil War Era. As a CHE graduate affiliate, I have been particularly interested in the role of landscape as a site where memory is produced and contested at both the individual and collective levels. I am also completing a book project called Wheel Fever: How Wisconsin Became a Great Bicycling State, scheduled for release in early September 2013. It examines the problematic role the League of American Wheelmen played in advocating for road reform, sometimes as as proxy of the Republican Party itself, at the end of the nineteenth century. contact

Nathan Germain

I am a PhD student in the Department of French and Italian. My research interests include 19th and 20th century French literature, intellectual history, ecocriticism, and environmental history. I am interested in the history of ideas about nature and the environment and the expression of those ideas in literary forms. My research focuses on experiential, philosophical, ethical, and imaginative representations of non-human nature and humanity's relationship to it. How can these ideas help encourage a new, more meaningful environmental consciousness? How can literature advance ecological ways of being through phenomenological, representational, philosophical, and literary methods? Finally, I am interested in the potential public service mission of ecocritics as important readers of cultural productions and ecological spaces capable of disseminating positive environmental values. contact

Kevin Gibbons

 

I want to understand the connections among rural communities, resource (over)use, commodity trade, poverty, and migration. Governance of natural resources can only be effective if managers take the local context into account and if local communities are invested in the long-term success of the resource. I conduct social research in Ugandan villages around Lake Victoria to try to understand these complex dynamics through interviews, participant observation, mapping/GIS, and participatory filmmaking. I maintain Environment and Media, a blog about how we represent the environment in digital media. website | contact

Todd Goddard

I am a graduate student in the English Department. My dissertation, "'A Property in the Horizon': Placelessness in Nineteenth-Century American Literature and Culture," explores uprootedness, movement, and the erosion of place in the nineteenth century. My invocation of Ralph Waldo Emerson in the title serves as a departure point for a series of investigations into the writings of Charles Dickens, Herman Melville, Mark Twain, Caroline Kirkland, and others. Drawing on the work of cultural geographers, I examine various land speculation practices, land development policy, and the growth of transportation technologies, and I anchor such practices to specific geographic locales, such as Cairo, Illinois—an unlikely but revealing place that links Dickens, Melville, and Twain. contact

Spring Greeney

I am a graduate student in the History Department and a writer, runner, and doodler, besides. I am originally from Amherst, Massachusetts. As a burgeoning historian, my interests center on late-nineteenth/early-twentieth century ideas about American education --arts education in particular--and parallel aspirations for the built environment. My hunch is that the changing definitions of spatial terms like 'home,' 'frontier,' and 'wilderness,' much like products of artistic expression, can reveal a great deal about past individuals' perceptions and aspirations for the future. I like Edward Gorey and Bill Watterson a whole lot. contact

Sarah Groeneveld

My interests lie in the intersections between postcolonial literature, animal studies and the environment. I look at 20th and 21st century British and postcolonial literature for ways in which it engages – sometimes directly and sometimes indirectly – with the more-than-human world. I explore how imperialist discourse relies on the idea of animality as that with opposes civilization and also look at ways that the environment and animals have been affected by the processes of imperialism and colonialism. I am a doctoral candidate in Literary Studies with an MA from UW Madison and a minor in (Non)Human Rights. Along with working as a teaching assistant for literature courses, I also enjoy working as an instructor for the UW-Madison Writing Center. contact

Rachel Gross

I am a graduate student in the Department of History. My work on the consumer culture of outdoor recreation builds on my master's thesis "Synthetic Wilderness: Gore-Tex and the Paths to Mastery in Outdoor Recreation." The thesis examined the evolution of synthetic clothing and gear in wilderness recreation in the 1970s and 1980s. My dissertation shows how the process of selecting and purchasing outdoor clothing and gear has become central to the outdoor recreational experience since the late nineteenth century. What to buy has raised question about the role of technology in nature, who is an authority about nature experiences, and how to get back to nature the right way. Wilderness might seem far removed from consumption, but the marketplace of outdoor recreation was nonetheless persistently intertwined with the search for authentic wilderness experiences. My work explores how Americans struggled with that tension. contact

Micah Hahn

I am a joint PhD candidate in Environment and Resources and Population Health Sciences. My background is in public health, and I study global environmental change and infectious disease epidemiology. Many of the disease patterns we see today are shaped by human's interaction with their environment. As we continue encroaching on previously untouched natural areas, we will likely come into contact with new diseases and disease vectors, which with increasing globalization and rapid global travel, can easily be spread to new populations. I am interested in understanding these patterns of emergence by studying ecosystem interaction and appreciating the degree to which humans can shape the environmental drivers of infectious disease. contact

Brian Hamilton

I am a Maine native who has come to Midwest to pursue a Ph.D. in History. My research explores the environmental dimensions of slavery, the Civil War, and Reconstruction. In my master's thesis, I examine the material contingencies of the abolition of slavery through the story of the northern reformers who traveled during wartime to the South Carolina Sea Islands to revive cotton production. I also serve as the lead author of the website Gaylord Nelson and Earth Day: The Making of the Modern Environmental Movement | contact

Juli Hinds

I am a graduate student in the Life Sciences Communication department. My dissertation work explores the role of environmental issues within Hollywood film westerns during the 1950s. By foregrounding the environment within popular cinema, one can explore and make visible the complex ways in which non-human space has been conceived, mediated and promoted within filmic discourse. The film western frequently reflects on the relationship between human beings and the land, and as such plays a role in the cultural construction and mythmaking of American environmental history. contact

Chris Hommerding

I am a graduate student in the History department's Program in Gender and Women's History. I study the history of sexuality and queer history, especially as they pertain to rural space in the Midwest during the twentieth century. My current research seeks to problematize the basic nation that urban space has been historically liberatory and rural space repressive for queer desires and individuals. I am especially interested in understanding how cultural relationships to the environment--specifically farmland--may have fostered a more accepting space for non-normative forms of desire and sexuality in the rural Midwest for most of the twentieth century. contact

Po-Yi Hung

I'm a Ph.D. candidate in human geography. My dissertation investigates the relationship between cross-regional tea trade and the ongoing physical and symbolic changes of China's southwest frontier environment. The aim is to understand the interactions between tea entrepreneurs, the state, and the local ethnic minorities, and the resulting contestations over the development of China's southwest frontier. Focusing on the landscape of ancient tea forest, I analyze the structural and ideological constituents of frontier landscapes by looking into the market manipulations and state interventions. Additionally, I use ethnographic research to engage in local villagers' everyday life, where frontier landscapes are symbolically and materially reproduced. contact

Nathan Jandl

I am a PhD student in the Literary Studies department. I received my BA in English from Middlebury College and my MA from UW-Madison. My interests include 20th-century American poetry, environmental criticism, literary and spatial theory, and cultural geography. I am also a photographer, mainly of water and landscapes; some of my work can be seen here. contact

 

Sarah Keogh

I am a PhD student in Milwaukee's School of Architecture, affiliated with the Buildings, Landscapes, Cultures Program. I completed my undergraduate degree in Art History at UW - Madison in 2004 and my Master of Architecture degree from UW - Milwaukee in 2008. My dissertation research focuses on readdressing urban histories and exploring water as an active agent in the growth of urban settings. I will explore the systemic relationships that exist between built landscapes and landscapes of water by examining urban / water boundaries and liminal zones. I hope to illuminate how water has acted to influence the evolution of urban landscapes, cultural landscapes, and how these relationships have changed regional geographies. contact

Kelly King

I am a doctoral candidate in the Department of History. My dissertation explores ideas of health and Southwestern landscapes from the 1850s to the 1940s. It rests at the intersection of environmental history, history of science and medicine, and U.S. Western history and draws upon theories of the body, medicine, and science in colonial settings. It foregrounds the discourses of health Anglo migrants used to understand the landscapes they encountered and explores the ways in which perceptions of healthfulness informed the remaking of regional identity, ethnic and racial identity, and social structures in the Southwest. website | contact

Erin Kitchell

I am a graduate student in the Geography department studying environment and development in West Africa. My current research focuses on histories of environmental change, the multiple vulnerabilities of small-scale producers, and the ways in which social networks shape knowledge formation about climatic variability. I will work closely with faculty in the Nelson Institute, Agroecology, and Community and Environmental Sociology. I have a B.A. in History and a background in community-based programming for non-profits. My past experience includes working to integrate environmental education in public school programming, managing public health and land use planning campaigns in peri-urban Mali, and creating training curricula on gender and development issues. contact

Russell Knudson

John S. Nelson fellow and M.S. student in Mechanical Engineering, with research under the auspices of the Solar Energy Lab. My research focuses on the energy performance of a ground-coupled heat exchanger system which is used to heat and cool the Wisconsin Institutes for Discovery building. My interests lie somewhere between technology and practicality. For me, the built-environment is the most exciting place to explore connections between technical, systemic, and cultural relationships with the environment. I am happy to be at UW-Madison and to work with both the CHE group and the Solar Lab. My CHE advisor is Cathy Middlecamp. contact

Stephen Laubach

I am a Ph.D. candidate in the Curriculum and Instruction Department's Science Education Program. My dissertation research centers on the history of ecology teaching in American high schools between 1900 and 1980. Following 18 months in Costa Rica as a community volunteer and later as a teaching assistant for a tropical ecology course, I received a master's degree in Conservation Biology and Sustainable Development in 2000 from the UW-Madison. Most recently I taught high school biology at Aldo Leopold's alma mater, The Lawrenceville School in New Jersey, where I continued to develop a strong interest in field and classroom teaching of ecology. contact

Vanessa Lauber

I am a PhD student in the English Literary Studies department, having received my BA in English and history from Wofford College in Spartanburg, SC. My interests include 20th-century British and South Asian literature, photography, the transnational novel, globalization, environmental criticism, literary and spatial theory, and posthumanisms. contact

Bethany Laursen

I am pursuing a joint M.S. in Environment & Resources and Forestry, researching how knowledge networks in Vernon County, WI, can support adaptive governance of their landscape in light of potential biomass markets. I'm fascinated by epistemologies of science, complexity sciences, collaborative and participatory research, and 'messy' disciplines like experiential education, rural sociology, policy sciences, environmental history, and human geography. When absent from my desk, look for me laying in the leaves, playing guitar and singing, traveling rivers by canoe, swing dancing, or coiling messy ropes as I constantly seek to unite head, heart and hands for myself and others. website | contact

Brian Leech

I am a dissertator in the department of history who studies ethnicity, the American West, labor, and environmental history. I have long been particularly interested in the social and environmental history of mining communities. My dissertation continues this interest by exploring neighborhood life in the copper mining city of Butte, Montana. It discusses Butte’s ethnic neighborhoods, many of which an expanding open-pit copper mine devoured, as well as how the change from underground to above-ground mining affected the town’s workforce, city- planning and experience with environmental hazards. contact

Chris Limburg

I am a geographer researching naga nature spirits in the Himalaya. I am especially concerned with how naga practice and belief shapes human relationships with the environment. Primarily, I use conversations about place, agency, and nature to do this work. My aim is to bring more depth and breadth to contemporary understandings of our world. website | contact

 

John Liu

I am a PhD student in the Community and Environmental Sociology. My research interest is in the sociology of climate change, looking at how knowledge, cultures and institutions shape our societal responses to this global challenge. Prior coming to Madison, I earned a joint master's degree in environmental studies and economics from Yale, and before becoming a tree-hugger, I was trained as a chemical engineer in National Taiwan University. I am from Taiwan and have research experiences in China, India, and the US. contact
Adam Mandelman

I'm a PhD student in the Geography Department working on a dissertation about the history of water in the Mississippi River delta, from c. 1850 to the present. The project examines the changing ways people have negotiated the flow of water through both southern Louisiana's extraordinarily soggy landscapes and their own bodies. Working at the intersection of cultural geography and environmental history, the project brings together scholarship on landscape, race, and environmental health. My other academic interests include: material culture, memory, political ecology, and science and technology studies. website | contact

Antonia Massa-Macleod

I am a PhD candidate in Composition and Rhetoric, currently conducting dissertation research that focuses on the global rhetoric of sustainability and how it is interpreted in urban and small-scale farming projects in the upper Midwest. This research has also led me to explore the increasing cultural diversity among farmers and growing practices in Wisconsin and Minnesota, especially as rural communities become transnational. I'm originally from Oregon, and the tensions between the timber industry and environmental concerns there were early influences on my interest in community sustainability. My home state remains my favorite place to visit and play outdoors. contact

Amanda McMillan

I am a PhD student in Community and Environmental Sociology. My research asks questions about the connections between rural communities and their natural environments through the lens of agriculture. I'm passionate about tracing connections between place, culture, and "home." I'm particularly interested in agriculture as a mechanism of community re-establishment in places recuperating from disaster or change. In the 'real world,' I worked with a non-profit nature conservation organization in France and taught at an agricultural after school club in Pennsylvania. My current research looks at the "why" of family farmland continuity in Wisconsin. contact

Joslyn Mink

I am a student in the Nelson Institute's Environment and Resources graduate program, researching roadside revegetation efforts across the state of Wisconsin. This includes evaluating and expanding the use of native vegetation to help limit the spread of invasive plant species along roadside corridors. Beyond my current research, I am interested in how human populations have interacted with invasive plant species over time. I hope to learn more about the role society has played in spreading, labelling and battling weeds throughout history. contact

Garrett Dash Nelson

I'm a PhD student in the Department of Geography, where I study the history of landscape and social ideology. I'm interested in stitching environment and culture together in a way that allows us to look at Frederick Law Olmsted as a social theorist and Karl Marx as a landscape architect, and, in doing so, envision the landscapes we'd like to build in the future. I've jumped around in several academic sandboxes, studying Social Studies at Harvard as an undergraduate before moving to Geography in the University of Nottingham's Landscape and Culture program. I'm currently on long-term loan to Wisconsin from my native New Hampshire. website | contact

Michelle Niemann

As a PhD student in the English department, I focus on twentieth-century American literature, particularly postwar and contemporary poetry. I am interested in how poets define their work by comparing the poem to an organism, and in how the resulting concept of "organic form" in poetry connects with other conversations about organic food, organic farming, and societies or environments as organisms. I grew up in Fort Wayne, Indiana, and except for my undergrad years at Brown University, I've been a committed Midwesterner. I'm a big fan of Wisconsin's local food culture. During the 2011-2012 academic year, I served as a CHE graduate representative and a dissertation fellow for the Sawyer Seminar on Biopolitics in the Center for the Humanities. I have a minor in U.S. History and have taught literature and composition courses. This semester, I'm working as an instructor in the Writing Center. I'm always eager to talk about eco-related writing projects by grads or undergrads from whatever discipline, so if you have one underway, feel free to make a Writing Center appointment with me! contact

Alexander Olson

I am a PhD student in the department of History where I study Byzantium and the medieval Mediterranean. I am fascinated by what medieval sources can tell us about the climate and weather, and how medieval peoples recorded and responded to floods, thunder, lightning, and earthquakes. I am also interested in how pre-modern states and cultures altered the Mediterranean environment, particularly during the transition from the ancient to medieval periods. By extension, I am interested in how this environment altered them. contact

Anthony Pietsch

I am a graduate student in the Department of History, specializing in environmental history. As an undergraduate, my research involved issues of student dissent and administrative power in higher education, as well as disease and built environments in Wisconsin's Civil War camps. My projected research will attempt to connect issues of labor, technocracy, and environmental change in late nineteenth- and twentieth century America. I am currently considering a project that would trace how Upper Michigan's historic mining and logging industries altered the land, and how local populations adapted those alterations for recreational and economic purposes following the industries' decline. contact

John Porco

I am a PhD student in the History Department. While an undergraduate at Grinnell College I became interested in Environmental Economics, particularly questions of valuing non-market resources. My primary interests are in the development of ideas about valuing natural resources and public goods. My Masters Thesis explores the development of ideas in Land Economics at the University of Wisconsin along with legislation geared towards reforesting the cut-over region of northern Wisconsin in the 1920s. A central theme in my work is the changing nature of economic markets in response to environmental circumstances. contact

Katrina Quisumbing King

I am a Ph.D. student in Sociology and Community and Environmental Sociology. My areas of interest include race and ethnicity, migration, and agro-food systems. Currently, I am investigating investigate farming as a site to examine immigrant adaptation in two aspects: (1) the socio-cultural dimension of incorporation, which includes identity formation and participation (political, community, religious) and (2) economic integration as seen in the market or through self-provisioning. My work also focuses on how the structure of alternative and urban farming may both encourage and limit immigrants' and people of color's accesses to discursive and material resources. contact

 

Megan Raby

I am a graduate student in the History of Science department and a CHANGE (Certificate on Humans and the Global Environment) fellow. My research interests center on the role of place in shaping scientific knowledge as well as the intersection between history of science and environmental history. Broadly speaking, I am concerned with the movement of scientific knowledge and practices across physical and disciplinary space. I am particularly interested in fieldwork in the life sciences during the nineteenth- and early-twentieth centuries by Americans working in the American West, colonial possessions of the US, and areas of American economic influence abroad. website | contact

Kaitlin Rienzo-Stack

A doctoral student in Entomology, I grew up in the wetlands and on the beaches of eastern New York, where my love for the natural world began. My desire to bridge environmental science and policy led to a degree in international agriculture and research in a wide range of landscapes, from Alaska to Uganda. Before coming to UW-Madison, I worked for the USDA Farmer-to-Farmer program in Eastern Europe and as a staff scientist for the US EPA Office of Pesticides. My current research examines ecological and anthropogenic drivers of change in agricultural fields across Wisconsin -- a mix of quantitative insect ecology, population biology, conservation, integrated pest management, and human decision-making. website | contact

Alexandra Rudnick

I am currently a graduate student in the History of Science department. I grew up in Florida surrounded by waterways; this experience led me to study environmental history as an undergraduate at the University of Florida where I completed a senior thesis on the preservation of swampland in the 1950s. After completing my BA I moved to San Jose, California to teach high school biology for two years. Inspired by science and teaching I moved to Madison to complete my PhD. I continue to be interested in the American southeast, and finding the intersections between biology and history. I am particularly attracted to looking at these intersections though the study of the changing practice of agriculture and its direct and indirect impacts on the land and people. contact

Carl Sack

I am a Cartography/GIS masters student in the Geography Department hailing from the Lake Superior region. My thesis research centers on the use of web-based participatory mapping for communicating non-dominant landscape values, which include local knowledge of ecosystem services, cultural resources, personal landscape narratives, and place-based social networks. I am working on building a web-based mapping application for use by local residents of the Bad River Watershed, which stretches through parts of Ashland and Iron Counties in Northern Wisconsin. In my free time, I enjoy exploring parks and wild places and riding my bike. My personal blog is at www.northlandia.com | contact

Sarah Fayen Scarlett

I am a PhD student in Art History's new Buildings-Landscapes-Cultures program. Having always embraced interdisciplinary approaches to history, I earned a BA in American Studies from Yale and an MA from the Winterthur program at the University of Delaware. After years as a museum curator, I currently pursue my interests in the interpretation of spatial experience, representations of place, American housing, and material culture. Dissertation research will explore domestic landscapes in Michigan's Keweenaw Peninsula. My own place-making experiences include growing up in Connecticut, bicycling cross-country, working in Acadia National Park, re-making myself as a Wisconsinite, and now as a Yooper.contact

Chelsea Schelly

I am a PhD student in the Department of Sociology who is inspired by the belief that the technological systems societies use to sustain residential life have important implications for how humans conceive of their relationship to the natural world. My work seeks to understand how technological systems interact with social structures to shape human conceptions of nature, human-nature relationships, and human action. It examines the historical normalization of residential technological systems in America and the ways in which alternative technological systems challenge the political, economic, and environmental consequences of those systems. My current research explores the structural relationships shaping current technology use, how individuals choose to pursue alternative dwelling technologies, and how that choice reflects broader attitudes, opinions, and lifestyles. My research and teaching interests include environmental sociology, science and technology studies, and social theory. contact

Jennifer Schmitz

My graduate research investigates how lakes have responded to 18th-20th century land use changes in northern Wisconsin. Using paleolimnological research and social historical research, I am studying past changes in lake environments and interpreting them in a context of changing land use decisions and social values. With these perspectives, I hope to reveal some of the historical relationships between social decisions and environmental processes that have helped shape the Northern Highlands region of Wisconsin. I am a PhD student in the Limnology & Marine Sciences program and my advisor is Sara Hotchkiss. website | contact

Andrew Stuhl

I view socio-ecological systems through the intellectual lenses of environmental history and history of science, asking what human and natural histories offer to understanding and solving today's environmental problems. My research interests include North American natural and cultural resource management in the 19th and 20th centuries, the use of history in decision-making, leadership studies, and environmental education. My dissertation project will investigate the environmental and cultural history of resource extraction in the Canadian Arctic to comprehend changing land-use patterns, knowledge production, and cultural conflict in the region. This research will focus on encounters among Inuvialuit natives in the Beaufort-Delta region with non-native whalers, trappers, traders, and oil developers over the last two centuries. Ultimately, I hope gaining a richer historical context of the patterns of resource extraction will inform the paths of sustainable development, cultural preservation, and environmental management in the Arctic. contact

Rebecca Summer

I am a graduate student in the Geography department interested in public parks and public lands, landscape history, and connection to the outdoors. I grew up in Washington D.C., and spent my undergraduate years exploring the mountains and forests of New England, while studying the built environment and American cultural history. My research centered on the development of the park system in Louisville, KY. I came to Wisconsin from Denver, where I worked for a nonprofit engaging the public in volunteer stewardship of Colorado's public lands. I hope to continue exploring relationships among ideologies, land use and design, and connection to nature. contact

John Suval

I am a doctoral student specializing in nineteenth-century U.S. and Mexican environmental history. My research focuses on systems of land use and tenure, exploring what such systems reveal about attitudes toward property, nature, progress, and nation. I am particulalry interested in the social, political, and ecological consequences that attended the convergence of U.S. and Mexican land regimes following the Treaty of Guadalupe Hidalgo of 1848. Fallout from this encounter remains central to the culture and environment of the borderlands region. contact

Heather Swan

I am a Ph.D. candidate in Literary Studies with a focus in eco-criticism. I received my MFA in poetry from the UW in 2007, and wanted to further investigate the ways in which art and literature are responding to issues of environmental destruction, exile, and extinction. I am also interested in thinking about how creativity and innovation can be promoted in disciplines such as science or math. A collection of my poems called The Edge of Damage is forthcoming from Parallel Press. contact

Noah Theriault

As a doctoral candidate in anthropology, I am interested in the cultural politics of environmental regulation, state-minority relations, and the political ecology of rural transformations in Southeast Asia and beyond. My dissertation project examines tensions at the intersection of indigenous recognition and environmental conservation through ethnographic research on Palawan Island, the Philippines' so-called "last frontier." Please see my website for more information. website | contact

Matthew Trew

Matthew joins us after completing a Masters in Anthropology and Asia-Pacific Studies at the University of Toronto in his native country of Canada. Before this, he studied visual anthropology at the University of South Carolina. Matthew works in the border province of Battambang, Cambodia, seeking to untangle the unique local culture of this highly contested region. Matthew also works on the conservation of Battambang's famous "bamboo train," a tourist attraction and important source of livelihood for locals that is in danger of being swallowed by plans for redevelopment of the railroad. For more information visit my website (under construction). website | contact

Emmanuel Urey

I graduated with Bsc in Biology and MPH in Public Health from Cuttington University in Liberia. Currently I am pursuing another graduate study in Environment and Resources. I am also pursuing Certificate in the Energy Policy Analysis Program. My research focuses on rural land use management and the implications for the environment. I am particularly interested in how rural dwellers access land for their livelihoods and how livelihood activities affect their immediate environment. The multi-disciplinary Nelson Institute is quite a nice place for students and intellectuals and I am happy to be part of it. contact

Steel Wagstaff

I'm working on a Ph.D. in English (Literary Studies) and have earned a Master's degree in Library and Information Studies. I currently work as a consultant in the DesignLab. My research focuses primarily on 20th Century American poetry, environmental criticism, and the digital humanities, and my dissertation examines the role of place, perception, and presence in Objectivist poetry. website | contact

Bo Wang

 

I am a Ph.D student in Anthropology. My research interests include railroad ethnography, labor, environment, modernization, globalization and the Himalayans. My dissertation will explore the ecological and cultural impact that China's on-going railroad constructions in the Tibetan Autonomous Regions have on the locals. I currently plan to conduct a summer fieldwork in Lijiang--Shangri-La Railroad particularly examining how daily waste management among Tibetan locals are transformed to represent a modernized image of Tibetans for mass tourists by train. I am aslo interested in scutinizing these transformations in the global context in which China is building railroads worldwide with its migrating labor. contact

Chloe Wardropper

I am a Ph.D. student in the Department of Forest and Wildlife Ecology. My graduate work contributes to the UW-Madison Water Sustainability and Climate project, focusing on the governance of ecosystem services related to freshwater in Wisconsin's Yahara Watershed. My research asks how natural resource managers address issues of equity and effectiveness in the context of political and environmental change. After completing my B.A. in the College of Social Studies from Wesleyan University, I worked on public land acquisitions with the Department of Justice, assisted in soil and wetland conservation with NRCS Massachusetts, and implemented environmental practices on a USAID agriculture project in West Africa. contact

Kiersten Warning

Addressing interpersonal violence for 18 years in the United States led me to my current research interest in Northwest Yunnan Province, China (naturally!). I hope to learn about the root causes of IPV and alternate conflict resolution mechanisms by working with a matrilineal society in the foothills of the Himalayas. Anthropology graciously welcomed me into their PhD program. Pressing for Shangri-La are China’s current economic development initiatives that are changing its physical and cultural landscape. History, law, politics, gender, culture formation, ethnic identity, neuroscience, biodiversity, agricultural production, trade, religion, education, and health are in the research mix so far. contact

Kate Wersan

I am a graduate student in the History department where I study early American environmental history. I'm fascinated by land tenure and land use in early America, particularly the laws and customs colonists developed in relation to their changing sense of place. I encountered this topic first as an undergraduate studying the history of land tenure in colonial Gambia, West Africa. My experience in Gambia prompted me to see the importance of ideas about land and land use everywhere I looked, from courses in Soviet history to my thesis on revivalism at a small central Pennsylvania college. Since then, I've been fascinated by the ways that people define, refine, and engage their relationship to land and place. contact

Anna Zeide

I am a graduate student in the Program of the History of Science, Medicine, and Technology. My research takes food as a lens through which to understand the intersections between environmental history, consumer history, and the history of science. I am currently completing my dissertation on the history of the canning industry in the U.S. in the twentieth century. The project follows canners as their industry grew and stabilized, paying attention to the ways in which their relationship to their imagined consumers shaped their deference to scientific and governmental intervention. I am also interested in seeing how this early history of canning offers us a glimpse into the roots of the modern food industry. In addition, I am active in many food and community initiatives at the University and throughout Madison. website | contact

John Zinda

I am a doctoral student in Community and Environmental Sociology. A decade of study and research in China has impressed me with the tough challenges many people face in working for good livelihoods, convivial environments, and fair exchanges--and even agreeing on what is good, livable, or fair. Currently, I am conducting research on protected areas in an area of northwest Yunnan province, most of whose residents are Tibetan. I am examining both the political context in which conservationists, entrepreneurs, and officials work out how conservation and tourism are managed, and how different management models play out in rural communities. website | contact