EMPLOYMENT
Associate Professor of Environmental Studies and Affiliate in History, Williams College, 2023 – present
Assistant Professor of Environmental Studies and Affiliate in History, Williams College, 2017 – 2023
Ziff Environmental Fellow, Harvard University Center for the Environment and the Department of the History of Science, 2015 – 2017
APPOINTMENTS
Visiting Fellow, Yale University Program in the History of Science and Medicine, 2024 – 2025
Visiting Fellow, University of Bologna Institute of Advanced Studies, 2024
Distinguished Junior Faculty Fellow, Stanford Humanities Center, 2020 – 2021
EDUCATION
PhD Cornell University, Natural Resources, 2015
MS Cornell University, Natural Resources, 2010
ScB Brown University, Biophysics with honors, 2006
AWARDS AND HONORS
2024 Falling Walls winner, Falling Walls Foundation, uniting the humanities and the sciences to reverse biodiversity loss
ACLS Fellowship, American Council of Learned Societies, 2021
Arts + Science Residency, Cape Code National Seashore, 2020
Mellon Fellowship in Environmental History [declined], Brown University, 2015
Ciriacy-Wantrup Fellowship [declined], University of California, Berkeley, 2015
Dow Sustainability Fellowship [declined], University of Michigan, 2015
Society of Fellows Postdoctoral Fellowship [declined], Dartmouth College, 2015
James Slevin Teaching Prize, Cornell University, 2015
Environmental Justice Award, Ecological Society of America, 2015
Provost’s Diversity Fellowship, Cornell University, 2014
Buttrick-Crippen Fellowship, Cornell University, 2014
Recognition from the Board of Trustees for Excellence in Research, Cornell University, 2011
Conservation Leadership Fellowship, Doris Duke Foundation, 2008
GRANTS
National Science Foundation, Scholar’s Award, Science & Technology Studies Program, $233,024, 2024 – 2025
National Endowment for the Humanities, Summer Stipend, $6,000, 2021
Hellman Foundation, Research Grant, $3,000, 2020
National Science Foundation, Standard Grant, Science & Technology Studies Program, $7,660, 2013 – 2014
Cornell University Institute for the Social Sciences, Contested Global Landscapes Grant, $2,500, 2013
Social Science Research Council, Dissertation Proposal Development Grant, $5,000, 2012 – 2013
National Science Foundation, Graduate Research Fellowship, Life Sciences – Evolutionary Biology program, $130,000, 2009 – 2012
PUBLICATIONS
Books
Wild by Design: The Rise of Ecological Restoration (Harvard University Press, 2022)
2024 Philip J. Pauly Book Prize, History of Science Society
2024 Science Magazine “Ten Must-Read Science Histories”
2024 Honorable Mention, Rachel Carson Prize, Society for Social Studies of Science
2023 Finalist, George Perkins Marsh Prize, American Society for Environmental History
2023 Finalist, Project Syndicate & La Banque Postale Sustainability Book Award
2023 Honorable Mention, Merle Curti Intellectual History Award, Organization of American Historians
2022 John Brinckerhoff Jackson Book Prize, Foundation for Landscape Studies
Refereed Articles
31. Laura J. Martin, “Cryptic Invaders: The Genomics Revolution, Counter-Terrorism, and the Rise of Invasion Biology,” Osiris, volume 42, Abundance and Loss: Historical Perspectives on Diversity and Nature (editors Erika Milam, Banu Subramaniam, Etienne Benson), in preparation
30. Laura J. Martin, “Beyond Habitat,” LA+ Interdisciplinary Journal of Landscape Architecture, forthcoming 2025
29. “Rewilding,” in Alix Hui and Emily Pawley, eds., The Historian's Handbook for Saving the World: A Guide to the Climate Emergency, forthcoming 2025
28. Laura J. Martin, “Slow Restoration, Rewilding, and Design,” Ri-Vista: Research for Landscape Architecture 22 (2024): 104-113.
27. “Big Box Retail and the Origin of Wetland Mitigation Banking,” in Bart Elmore, Rachel, Gross, and Sherri Sheu, eds., Big-Box USA: The Environmental Impact of America’s Biggest Retail Stores (University of Colorado Press, 2024): 111-133.
26. Laura J. Martin, “The Yale Geochronology Laboratory and the Rewriting of Global Environmental History,” Journal of the History of Biology 56 (2023): 35-63.
25. Holly Buck, Laura J. Martin, Oliver Geden, Peter Kareiva, Liz Koslov, Will Krantz, Ben Kravitz, Edward Parson, Christopher Preston, Daniel Sanchez, Lynn Scarlett, Shuchi Talati, “Evaluating the Efficacy and Equity of Environmental ‘Stopgap Measures,’” Nature Sustainability (2020): https://doi.org/10.1038/s41893-020-0497-6.
24. Laura J. Martin, “Proving Grounds: Ecological Fieldwork in the Pacific and the Materialization of Ecosystems,” Environmental History 23 (2018): 567-592.
23. Kristina Hill, Bradley Cantrell, Erle Ellis, Laura J. Martin, “Ecology on Autopilot: Can Artificial Intelligence Mediate the Human Management of Landscapes?” Landscape Architecture 107 (2017): 106-119.
22. Bradley Cantrell, Laura J. Martin, Erle C. Ellis, “Designing Autonomy: Opportunities for New Wilderness in the Anthropocene,” Trends in Ecology and Evolution 32 (2017): 156-166.
• Featured in The Atlantic
• Featured in Anthropocene Magazine
21. Henrique M Pereira, Jayne Belnap, Monika Böhm, Neil Brummitt, Jaime Garcia-Moreno, Richard Gregory, Laura Martin, Cui Peng, Vânia Proença, Dirk Schmeller, Chris van Swaay, “Monitoring Essential Biodiversity Variables at the Species Level,” in Michele Walters and Robert Scholes (eds.), The GEO Handbook on Biodiversity Observation Networks (Springer, 2017).
20. Vânia Proença, Laura J. Martin, Henrique Miguel Pereira, Miguel Fernandez, Louise McRae, Jayne Belnap, Monika Böhm, Neil Brummitt, Jaime García-Moreno, Richard D. Gregory, João Pradinho Honrado, Norbert Jürgens, Michael Opige, Cui Peng, Dirk S. Schmeller, Patrícia Tiago, Chris A.M. van Swaay, “Global Biodiversity Monitoring: Data Sources and Essential Biodiversity Variables,” Biological Conservation 213 (2017): 256-263.
19. Laura J. Martin, “Mathematizing Nature's Messiness: Graphical Representations of Variation in Ecology, 1930–present,” Environmental Humanities 7 (2015): 59-88.
18. Laura J. Martin, Robert R. Dunn, Rachel Adams, Ashley Bateman, Holly M. Bik, John Hawks, Sarah Hird, David Hughes, Steven Kembel, Kerry Kinney, Sergios-Orestis Kolokotronis, Gabriel Levy, Craig McClain, James F. Meadow, Raul Medina, Gwynne Mhuireach, Corrie Moreau, Jason Munshi-South, Clare Palmer, Laura Popova, Coby Schal, Martin Taubel, Michelle Trautwein, Juan Ugalde, “Evolution of the Indoor Biome,” Trends in Ecology and Evolution 30 (2015): 223-232.
• Featured in The New York Times
• Featured in Süddeutsche Zeitung
17. Dirk S. Schmeller, Romain Julliard, Peter J. Bellingham, Monika Böhm, Neil Brummitt, Alessandro Chiarucci, Denis Couvet, David M. Forsyth, Richard D. Gregory, Laura J. Martin, 17. Jean-Baptiste Mihoub, Jaime Carcia Moreno, Vânia Proença, Chris A.M. van Swaay, Jayne Belnap, “Towards a Global Terrestrial Species Monitoring Program,” Journal for Nature Conservation 25 (2015): 51-57.
16. Laura J. Martin, Anurag A. Agrawal, Clifford E. Kraft, “Historically Browsed Jewelweed Populations Exhibit Greater Tolerance to Deer Herbivory than Historically Protected Populations,” Journal of Ecology 103 (2015): 243-249.
• 2015 Highly Commended Article, British Ecological Society
• Featured in Nature News
15. Laura J. Martin and Shauna-kay Rainford, Bernd Blossey, “Effects of Plant Litter Diversity, Species Origin, and Traits on Larval Toad Performance,” Oikos 124 (2015): 871-879.
14. Laura J. Martin and Sara B. Pritchard, “Correspondence: Inclusive Conservation Excludes,” Nature 516 (2014): 37.
13. Laura J. Martin, John E. Quinn, Erle C. Ellis, M. Rebecca Shaw, Monica Dorning, Clifford E. Kraft, Lauren Hallett, Nicole E. Heller, Richard J. Hobbs, Elizabeth Law, Nicole Michel, Michael Perring, Patrick D. Shirey, Ruscena Wiederholt, “Conservation Opportunities Across the World’s Anthromes,” Diversity and Distributions 20 (2014): 745-755.
12. Laura J. Martin and Bernd Blossey, “Intraspecific Variation Overrides Origin Effects in Impacts of Litter-Derived Secondary Compounds on Larval Amphibians,” Oecologia 173 (2013): 449-459.
11. Laura J. Martin and Bernd Blossey, “Costs of Phragmites australis Management in the United States,” Estuaries and Coasts 36 (2013): 626-632.
10. Jason W. Karl, Jeffrey E. Herrick, Robert S. Unnasch, Jeffrey K. Gillan, Erle C. Ellis, Wayne G. Lutters, Laura J. Martin, “Discovering Ecologically Relevant Knowledge from Published Studies through Geosemantic Searching,” BioScience 63 (2013): 674–682.
9. Laura J. Martin, Bernd Blossey, Erle C. Ellis, “Mapping Where Ecologists Work: Biases in the Global Distribution of Terrestrial Ecological Observations,” Frontiers in Ecology and the Environment 10 (2012): 195-201.
• Featured in Nature News
8. Laura J. Martin, “Where are the Women in Ecology?” Frontiers in Ecology and the Environment 10 (2012): 177-178.
7. Laura J. Martin and Bernd Blossey, “Invasive Plant Cover Impacts the Desirability of Lands for Conservation Acquisition,” Biodiversity and Conservation 21 (2012): 1987-1996.
6. Laura J. Martin, “Re-Imagining Conservation Goals in Light of Global Change,” Frontiers of Biogeography 1 (2012): 2.
5. Laura J. Martin, “Metaphor and the Idea of a Dominant Conservation Ethic,” Conservation Biology 24 (2010): 1172-1173.
4. Laura J. Martin, “Reclamation and Reconciliation: Land-use History, Ecosystem Services, and the Providence River,” Urban Ecosystems 13 (2010): 243-253.
3. Laura J. Martin and Bernd Blossey, “A Framework for Ecosystem Services Valuation,” Conservation Biology 23 (2009): 494-496.
2. Amity M. Wilczek, Judith L. Roe, Mary C. Knapp, Martha D. Cooper, Cristina Lopez-Gallego, Laura J. Martin, Christopher D. Muir, Sheina Sim, Alexis Walker, Jillian Anderson, J. Franklin Egan, Brook T. Moyers, Renee Petipas, Antonis Giakountis, Erika Charbit, George Coupland, Stephen M. Welch, and Johanna Schmitt, “Effects of Genetic Perturbation on Seasonal Life History Plasticity,” Science 323 (2009): 930-934.
1. J. Leighton Reid, J. Bert Harris, Laura J. Martin, Jacob R. Barnett, Rakan A. Zahawi, “Distribution and Abundance of Nearctic-Neotropical Songbird Migrants in a Forest Restoration Site in Southern Costa Rica,” Journal of Tropical Ecology 24 (2008): 1-4.
Essays, Op-Eds, and Book Reviews
“The War Against Weeds,” Noema, May 2024
“The Real Legacy of the Endangered Species Act,” TIME, December 2023
“The Women Scientists Who Saved Wildflowers,” Sierra Magazine, May 2022
“Earth Day is a Chance to Win the Messaging War Against Polluters,” The Washington Post, 23 April 2022
“Is Humanity Doomed? That Depends On Us,” Los Angeles Times, 28 March 2022
“An Ambitious Plan Would Formally Protect 30 Percent of Earth by 2030. But There’s a Problem,” Slate, 11 May 2021
“Avoiding Carbon Colonialism,” The Hill, 26 April 2021
Review of Andrew Robichaud, Animal City: The Domestication of America, H-Net Reviews, November 2020: https://www.h-net.org/reviews/showpdf.php?id=55517
“The Coronavirus and Climate Action,” Scientific American, 10 April 2020
Review of Edward Slavishak, Proving Ground: Expertise and Appalachian Landscapes. American Historical Review 124 (2019): 1914-1915.
Review of Timothy Morton, Dark Ecology: For a Logic of Future Coexistence, Quarterly Review of Biology 92 (2017) 463-464.
“How Does Architecture Affect the Evolution of Other Species?” RCC Perspectives: Transformations in Environment and Society, Issue 2016/5
“G. Evelyn Hutchinson’s Exultation in Natural History,” American Scientist, July-August 2016
Review of Frank Egerton, A Centennial History of the Ecological Society of America, Quarterly Review of Biology 91 (2016): 75-75.
“The X-ray Images that Showed Midcentury Scientists How Radiation Affects an Ecosystem,” Slate, 28 December 2015
“Evolution of the Indoor Biome,” Your Wild Life, 16 March 2015
“Space Cadets and Rat Utopias,” The Appendix: A Journal of Experimental and Narrative History, “Futures of the Past” issue, August 2014
“Is a Footprint the Right Metaphor for Ecological Impact?” Scientific American, 2 April 2014
“The Secret (and Ancient) Lives of Houseplants,” Your Wild Life, 21 April 2013
“Butterflies and Bombs,” Scientific American, 26 Mach 2013
“Postage Stamps Overlook Earth’s Tiny Creatures,” Scientific American, 20 February 2013
“The Death of Natural Selection,” Scientific American, 5 November 2012
“Scientists as Writers,” Scientific American, 15 August 2012
“The Co-evolution of Insects, Plants, and a Career,” Scientific American, 16 April 2012
“Visiting the Corpse Plant,” Scientific American, 20 March 2012
Poetry
“Three Figures for Distance,” The Briar Cliff Review, Issue 27, 2015
“The Dentist” and “Cranberries,” Owl Eye Review, Issue 3, 2014
“Domestic,” Prairie Schooner, Issue 87:1, 2013
“Surveyor” and “Our House,” Fourth River, Issue 9, 2012
“Shopping Carts,” Cider Press Review, Issue 14:1, 2012 (nominated for a 2013 Pushcart Prize)
INVITED LECTURES
2024 Riser Lecture, “Restoration, Rewilding, and Biodiversity by Design,” Northeastern University
2024 “Gardening as Biodiversity Restoration,” Lenox Garden Club, Lenox, Massachusetts
2024 “Designing Wildness,” Ischia Summer School on the History of the Life Sciences, Stazione Zoologica Anton Dohrn, Ischia, Italy
2024 “Caring for Biodiversity in a Changing World,” Università di Bologna, Italy
2024 “The Future of Co-Existence,” Università di Bologna, Italy
2024 Keynote, “The Past and Future of Ecological Gardening,” Frank Lloyd Wright Garden Symposium, The Garden Conservancy, Los Angeles, California
2024 “Restore/Rewild: Collaborating with Non-Human Species,” Department of Landscape Architecture, Cornell University
2024 Lambert Lecture, “Ecological Restoration as Reconciliation,” Connecticut College
2024 Faculty Lecture Series, “From Bombs to Biodiversity,” Williams College
2024 “Using History to Understand Biodiversity,” Northeastern University
2023 “The Future of Biodiversity,” Falling Walls Science Summit, Berlin, Germany
2023 Wild by Design book talk with Elizabeth Myer, School of Architecture, University of Virginia
2023 “Wild by Design,” Clark Art Museum, Williamstown, Massachusetts
2023 Keynote, “Caring for Biodiversity in a Changing World,” Climate Week, New York Botanical Garden
2023 Wild by Design book talk with Michelle Nijhuis, Thoreau Farm and Barnstable Land Trust [virtual]
2023 Wild by Design book talk, Stanford Humanities Center, Stanford University
2022 “Wild by Design,” Consortium for History of Science, Technology and Medicine, History of Earth and Environmental Sciences group [virtual]
2022 “Wild by Design: The Rise of Ecological Restoration,” Conservation Lecture Series, U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service
2022 Wild by Design book talk with Emma Marris, Williams College [virtual]
2022 “The Past and Future of Biodiversity,” Bennington College
2022 “Reversing the Biodiversity Crisis,” panel with Mirey Atallah (UN Environment Programme), Mark Anderson (The Nature Conservancy), and Paul Sabin (Yale University), Center for the Environment, Harvard University
2022 “The War Against Weeds: How Auxinic Herbicides Reshaped Life on Earth,” Davis Center for Historical Studies seminar series, Princeton University
2022 “Wild by Design: The Rise of Ecological Restoration,” Greenhouse Environmental Humanities Series, University of Stavanger, Norway [virtual]
2022 “From Doomsday to Biodiversity: Designing the Ecological Future,” Rhode Island School of Design
2022 Howard E. Woodin lecture, “From Doomsday to Biodiversity,” Middlebury College [cancelled due to covid-19]
2022 “From Doomsday to Biodiversity: Designing the Ecological Future,” Graduate School of Design, Harvard University
2021 “The Specter of Irreversible Change,” Science, Technology, & Society Program, University of Michigan [virtual]
2021 “Simulating WWIII and the Specter of Irreversible Ecological Change,” Seminar on Environmental and Agricultural History, Massachusetts Institute of Technology
2021 “Attacking Ecosystems,” Program in History & Philosophy of Science, Stanford University
2020 “‘The Mood of Wild America’: Non-Native Species as Ecosystem Threats,” Animal Studies Working Group, Stanford University [virtual]
2017 Roundtable on Artful Writing for Academics, Cornell University
2017 “Co-existence as a Goal for Ecological Restoration,” Environmental Humanities Colloquium, University of Virginia
2017 “Native Species and Nativism: The Politics of Ecological Intervention,” University of Pennsylvania
2016 “Ecological Restoration and Historical Reconciliation,” Centre for Humanistic Inquiry, Amherst College
2016 Franke Lecture in Science and the Humanities, “‘Such a Merciless War of Extermination’: Nativism in Early Ecological Policy,” Yale University
2016 “The Politics of Ecological Care,” STS Circle, Harvard University
2016 “Ecological History,” Harvard Global Institute Environmental Humanities Initiative Faculty Workshop, Harvard University
2016 “‘American Plants for American Gardens’: The Early History of Ecological Restoration,” Herbaria Seminar Series, Harvard University
2016 “Ecological Restoration: From Bombs to Bac-O-Bits,” Boston Environmental History Seminar, Massachusetts Historical Society
2015 “Recovery after Attack: Radioecology and Shifting Conceptions of Humans as Agents of Ecosystem Change,” Natural History Seminar, Department of History and Philosophy of Science, University of Cambridge
2015 “Why do Restorationists Care about Community Ecology?” Harvard Forest Seminar Series, Harvard University
2015 “Moving it off the Map: The History of Wetlands Mitigation,” Land and Water: A Long-Term Perspective, Watson Institute for International and Public Affairs, Brown University
2015 “After the Dust Bowl: Ecology’s Role in National and Natural Recovery,” Department of the History of Science Seminar Series, Harvard University
2014 “‘In the Latitude of Doom’: Lauren Donaldson’s Atomic Fieldwork,” The Life Sciences After WWII, World History Center, University of Pittsburgh
2013 Keynote, “Gender Inequality in Ecology,” Society of Wetland Scientists Annual Meeting, Duluth, Minnesota
WORKSHOPS ORGANIZED
2025 Beyond Biophilia: The Future of Ecological Design, Williams College
2017 Ecological History in Asia and the World, with Peter Perdue (Yale University), Yale University
2016 Organizing Committee, Joint Atlantic Seminar on the History of Biology, Harvard University
2012 Ecological Society of America Emerging Issues Conference on “Developing Ecologically Based Conservation Targets under Global Change,” with Dov Sax (Brown University), Bernd Blossey (Cornell University), and Susan-Cook-Patton (Cornell University), National Conservation Training Center
2012 Organizing Committee, Women in the Life Sciences Symposium, Cornell University
INVITED WORKSHOPS
2024 Roundtable on Environmental Baselines, University of Illinois Program in Law & Philosophy, Silver City, New Mexico
2022 Silent Springs: Global Histories of Pesticides and our Toxic World(s), Rachel Carson Center for Environment and Society, Munich, Germany
2020 Human Conditions, Eisen Institute for Historical Studies, University of Michigan [cancelled due to covid-19]
2019 Leveraging the Liberal Arts Model for Local and Global Sustainability, Furman University
2018 Stopgap Measures in Environmental and Climate Policy, Emmett Institute on Climate Change and the Environment and Institute of the Environment and Sustainability, UCLA
2015 Human Niche Construction Workshop, Rachel Carson Center for Environment and Society, Munich, Germany
2014 Evolution of the Indoor Biome Working Group, National Evolutionary Synthesis Center
INVITED COMMENTARIES
2024 Università di Bologna, Ph.D. seminar, Department of Cultural Heritage
2023 Idea of Environment course (Instructor: Abby Spinak), Graduate School of Design, Harvard University
2020 Reviewer for Risk and Resilience degree candidates, Graduate School of Design, Harvard University
2019 “Environmental Challenges in the Berkshires” symposium, Barrington Stage Company and Mass Humanities
2019 Reviewer for Risk and Resilience degree candidates, Graduate School of Design, Harvard University
2018 Mellon Graduate Workshop on Environment-Society Hybridity, Cogut Center for the Humanities, Brown University
2018 “Beyond Disenchantment: Theorizing Science, Technology, and New Religious Movements,” Oakley Center for the Humanities and Social Sciences, Williams College
2018 New Perspectives in Environmental History, Yale University
2016 External reviewer for final projects in “The Idea of Environment” (Instructor: Dilip da Cunha), Graduate School of Design, Harvard University
2016 Commentator, “Human Ecology as an Interdisciplinary Approach to Social and Environmental Crisis,” History of Science Society Annual Meeting, Atlanta, GA
CONFERENCE PRESENTATIONS (SELECTED)
2024 “Wild by Design: How History Can Inform Restoration’s Future,” Society for Ecological Restoration, Vancouver, British Columbia
2022 “Big-Box Wilderness: Retail and Environmental History,” American Society for Environmental History, Eugene, OR
2019 “Instrumentalizing Care: The Automation of Ecological Restoration,” American Association of Geographers, Washington, D.C.
2018 “Environmental History for Public Policy: Methodological and Practical Challenges,” American Society for Environmental History, Riverside, CA
2017 “Intervention Ecology: Caring for Panthers and Sawgrass in the Florida Everglades,” (Conference co-organizer) Ecological History in Asia and the World, Yale University, New Haven, CT
2017 “Environmental Justice in Transnational History and Anthropology,” (Session organizer), Environmental Justice in the Anthropocene Symposium, Colorado State University, Fort Collins, CO
2017 “Knowing, Shaping, and Making Environments: Material Histories,” (Session organizer) American Society for Environmental History, Chicago, IL
2016. “Environmental History & History of Science: Tensions and Overlaps,” History of Science Society, Atlanta, GA
2015. “G. Evelyn Hutchinson’s Geochronometric Laboratory and the Construction of Ecological Time,” History of Science Society, San Francisco, CA
2015 “Pollen and Peat: Ecological Histories,” (Session organizer, “The ESA at 100: Historical Perspectives on Ecology and Ecological Management”) Ecological Society of America, Centennial Anniversary Meeting, Baltimore, MD
2015 “Doing Science as a Historian,” (Session organizer: “Conversations at the Intersection of Conservation Biology and Environmental History”) American Society for Environmental History, Washington, D.C.
2014. “Reconstructing America’s Ecological Past,” New Perspectives in Environmental History, Yale University, New Haven, CT
2013. “Materializing Ecosystems: Connecting the Pacific Proving Grounds and Wisconsin Wetlands, 1954-1972,” Society for Social Studies of Science, San Diego, CA
2013. “Conservation Opportunities Across the World’s Anthromes,” International Congress for Conservation Biology, Baltimore, MD
2013 “Coral, Competition, Cold War: Ecological Research at Eniwetok Atoll in the 1950s,” (Session organizer: “Ecology as Practice: Forging Ecological Knowledge Across National and Disciplinary Boundaries”) American Society for Environmental History, Toronto, ON
2012 “Making Non-Nativity Visible: Invasive Species at the Nexus of STS and Environmental History,” American Society for Environmental History, Madison, WI
2012 “Mapping Where Ecologists Work” (Conference co-organizer) Ecological Society of America Emerging Issues Conference, Shepherdstown, WV
TEACHING
Williams College
ENVI 101: Nature and Society: Introduction to Environmental Studies
ENVI 229 / HIST 264: Environmental History
ENVI 250 / STS 250: Environmental Justice
ENVI 275 / STS 275: Environmental Science, Policy, and Justice
ENVI 355: Biodiversity and Climate Change
ENVI 380 / STS 379: Animals and Society
ENVI 425/ STS 425/ GBST 425: Living with Contamination
ENVI 465: Solutions to the Biodiversity Crisis
Harvard University
History Beyond the Classroom: Galapagos (Graduate student summer intensive, co-taught with Janet Browne)
Cornell University
The Art of Field Biology (first-year writing seminar)
THESES ADVISED
Cole Mason, Rhodes Scholar, Williams College 2023, “Fracked Slopes: Uncovering Aspen’s Connection to Hydraulic Fracturing”
Mirabai Dyson, Williams College 2024, “Water Insecurity and the Techno-Social Divide in Los Angeles’ Skid Row” (second reader)
External Examiner, M.A. (History), Trent University defense for Andrew Hoyt, “Ecology, Settler Colonialism, and the Environments of the American Midwest: The Science and Politics of Ecological Restoration Since 1950,” 2023
Megan Powell, Williams College 2020, “Community Responses to the Dunn Construction and Demolition Debris Landfill in Rensselaer, New York”
Sofia Barandiaran, Williams College 2020, “Towards Holistic Environmental Justice: Confronting Green Gentrification in San Francisco's Mission District”
Emily Elder, Williams College 2020, “People, Power, and Rivers: Socio-Ecological Dynamics in Northern Mongolia”
Sean Dory, Williams College 2019, “Portraying Peril: How Science Centers and Aquariums are Navigating Emotions and Confronting Climate Change”
Niya Avery, Harvard University 2017, “Speaking Gender and Science: A Case Study of Women in the Physical Sciences”
MEDIA APPEARANCES
My work and commentary have been featured in The New York Times, The Atlantic, Smithsonian Magazine, Nature, Scientific American, The New York Review of Books, Los Angeles Review of Books, Süddeutsche Zeitung, The Nation, Financial Times, Landscape Architecture Magazine, MIT Technology Review, Mongabay Newscast, the Australian Broadcasting Corporation, and other major media outlets
PROFESSIONAL SERVICE
National and International
2022 – present, Editorial board, Journal of the History of Biology
2017 – 2023, Local Planning Committee, American Society of Environmental History 2023 conference
2019 – 2020, Program Committee, American Society of Environmental History 2020 conference
2017, Guest editor, Special Issue on Anthropogenic Biomes, Land
2015, Founder of the Harvard Environmental History Working Group
2013 – 2017, Member of Global Earth Observations Biodiversity Observation Network Working Group on terrestrial species monitoring (GEO BON WG2)
2010, Founder of the Cornell Roundtable on Environmental Studies (CREST)
Williams College
2023 – present, Advisory Group on Campus Climate Investments
2017 – present, Science and Technology Studies Advisory Committee
2022 – 2024, Committee on Priorities and Resources
2019 – 2020, College Strategic Planning Working Group on Sustainability
2018 – 2019, Committee on Educational Affairs
PROFESSIONAL ASSOCIATIONS
American Society for Environmental History
History of Science Society
Ecological Society of America
Society for Social Studies of Science