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SEAS Has Welcomed An Unprecedented Number of New Faculty (2017–2020)
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The accomplished professors who joined us since the launch of the School for Environment and Sustainability (SEAS)—formerly the School of Natural Resources and Environment—build upon the strength of our faculty, of which we have long been proud. These more recent members have brought a range of expertise across multiple disciplines, and expand upon our curricular offerings in virtually every specialization.
As we continue to fulfill our strategic vision to strengthen areas where we can make significant impacts on the world’s sustainability challenges, we look forward to welcoming four more faculty in the weeks ahead. We’ll be bringing on a new director for the Institute of Global Change Biology, and two others will be working with the Equity and Justice Initiative. Finally, we look forward to a new director of the Erb Institute—who will be recognized as the Mac McGraw Professor of Sustainable Enterprise.
It benefits us all—most especially our students—to welcome fresh voices among us. Their unique perspectives inspire new collaborations within SEAS and beyond, and ensure that as a school, and as a community, we are ever moving forward.
In the brief descriptions of their work below, we invite you to meet the 16 faculty members who have joined us from 2017 – 2020, and hope that you will follow the links to learn more.
2017
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Jonathan T. OverpeckSamuel A. Graham Dean Ecosystem Science and Management RESEARCH FOCUS: understanding drought and megadrought dynamics (and risk) the world over; climate and paleoclimate dynamics, ice sheets and sea level, climate-vegetation interaction, conservation biology, legal issues related to climate change, environmental communication and environmental education. As an interdisciplinary climate scientist, Dean Overpeck has led active climate research programs on five continents, and has also served as the lead investigator of Climate Assessment for the Southwest and the SW Climate Science Center—two major programs focused on regional climate adaptation. |
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Ivan EastinResearch Professor, Associate Dean for Research and Engagement Sustainability and Development RESEARCH FOCUS: understanding how trade policies, including timber legality regulations, affect the international trade of wood products; and the process of innovation and evaluating the factors that influence the introduction and adoption of new wood products. He works with Native American communities to improve their capacity to more effectively market tribal wood products in the US and internationally. |
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Paul SeelbachProfessor of Practice Ecosystem Science and Management RESEARCH FOCUS: bridging the academic study of aquatic ecosystems to its application across a range of resource management agencies, Dr. Seelbach has served as Research Scientist and Statewide Research Director at the Michigan Department of Natural Resources, Fisheries Division; Coastal Ecosystems Branch Chief at the USGS Great Lakes Science Center; Senior Science Advisor at the Great Lakes Commission; and is currently Senior Fellow at the Michigan Department of Natural Resources, Office of the Great Lakes. |
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Sam StolperAssistant Professor Environmental Justice/Environmental Policy and Planning RESEARCH FOCUS: design and implementation of environmental policy that is both efficient and equitable; teaches courses on this subject to graduate students at SEAS as well as undergraduates in the Program in the Environment (PitE). Dr. Stolper is an environmental and energy economist. Prior to joining SEAS, he was a postdoctoral associate at MIT, jointly through the Department of Economics and the Center for Energy and Environmental Policy Research. |
2018
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Karen AlofsAssistant Professor Ecosystem Science and Management RESEARCH FOCUS: how ecological concepts can be used to address conservation concerns in freshwater environments; impacts of climate-facilitated range expansions on lake fish communities; and effects of environmental stressors including climate change, invasive species, habitat fragmentation and habitat degradation on biodiversity and ecosystem sustainability. |
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Pamela JaggerAssociate professor Sustainability and Development RESEARCH FOCUS: dynamics of poverty and environment interactions in low-income countries. Dr. Jagger is a global leader in interdisciplinary population and environment research; an applied political economist; leads the interdisciplinary Forest Use, Energy, and Livelihoods (FUEL) Lab; and is the Director of the National Science Foundation funded Energy Poverty PIRE in Southern Africa, a 5-year collaborative program to support research and training on the topic of energy access in Southern Africa. |
2019
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Neil CarterAssistant Professor Geospatial Data Sciences RESEARCH FOCUS: complex dynamics that characterize interactions between wildlife and people in a global change context; spatial ecology; landscape ecology; wildlife management, policy, ecology and conservation; and sustainability science. His study locations include: the American West, Nepal, and Mozambique. Dr. Carter employs field monitoring, social surveys, remote sensing, GIS, and spatial and simulation modeling in his interdisciplinary research. |
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Drew GronewoldAssociate Professor Ecosystem Science and Management RESEARCH FOCUS: hydrological modeling; propagating uncertainty and variability into model-based water resources management decisions; predicting runoff in ungauged basins; and monitoring and understanding water quality dynamics in coastal areas. Dr. Gronewold incorporates probability theory and Bayesian statistics into watershed-scale data sets and forecasting tools. |
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Michael CraigAssistant Professor Energy Systems, Sustainable Systems RESEARCH FOCUS: reducing global and local environmental impacts of energy systems while making those systems robust to future climate impacts; illuminating how the operations and evolution of energy systems respond to new technologies and environmental conditions induced by climate change through systems analysis.
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Sara HughesAssistant Professor Environmental Policy and Planning RESEARCH FOCUS: political and institutional dimensions of sustainable and equitable water and climate change policies, primarily in the urban context; politics and production of safe and affordable drinking water in the U.S., including policy failures behind the Flint water crisis; and urban climate change governance, including equitable approaches to building urban climate resilience. |
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Derek Van BerkelAssistant Professor Geospatial Data Sciences/Landscape Architecture RESEARCH FOCUS: the human dimensions of land-cover/land-use change and ecosystem services at diverse scales; landscape management; conservation and recreation planning; and development of sustainable and resilient communities. Dr. Van Berkel employs spatial analysis and geovisualizations of social and environmental data, leveraging social theory, big data, machine learning, spatial-temporal computer modeling and spatial statistics. |
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Brian WeeksAssistant Professor Ecosystem Science and Management RESEARCH FOCUS: how bird species and bird communities have responded to environmental change; interests ranging from the influence of macroevolutionary processes on the vulnerability of communities in the Solomon Islands to morphological changes over the past 40 years in North American birds. Dr. Weeks is an evolutionary ecologist and a museum/field/lab-based biologist. |
2020
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Lisa DuRusselAssistant Professor of Practice Landscape architecture Practicing landscape architect and educator with 15 years of professional design experience leading the design and implementation of award-winning projects that innovate on ecological design. She amplifies collaborative action with deep community engagement through the craft of design, experimentation and cross-disciplinary study. |
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Parth VaishnavAssistant Professor Sustainable Systems RESEARCH FOCUS: how technology can help solve social problems; environmental and human health consequences of energy production and use; finding strategies to decarbonize the economy; making both mitigation and adaptation equitable; and studying the consequences of automation for the environment, equity, and work. Dr. Vaishnav employs quantitative decision analysis, buttressed by qualitative insight, to understand how economic, political, and operational realities constrain technology deployment. |
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Runzi WangAssistant Professor Landscape Architecture RESEARCH FOCUS: change in natural and urban environments across space and over time; ecological planning and design strategies; how land-cover change and urban development influence water quality; neighborhood-scale green infrastructure design optimization; and continental-scale landscape change monitoring and projection. Dr. Wang combines technologies such as big data, machine learning, remote sensing, and spatial statistics. |
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Kyle WhyteGeorge Willis Pack Professor Environmental Justice RESEARCH FOCUS: moral and political issues concerning climate policy and Indigenous peoples; ethics of cooperative relationships between Indigenous peoples and science organizations; and Indigenous justice in public and academic discussions of food sovereignty, environmental justice, and the Anthropocene. Dr. Whyte is an enrolled member of the Citizen Potawatomi Nation. |