Interdisciplinary Faculty & Staff
More than 20 faculty members participate in our program. The home departments of these faculty members are distributed across the College of Arts, Humanities and Social Sciences and College of Natural Resources and Sciences.
They include the following departments:
- Communication
- Critical Race, Gender & Sexuality Studies
- English
- Environmental Studies
- Environmental Resource Engineering
- Environmental Science and Management
- Forestry & Wildland Resources
- Geography
- History
- Native American Studies
- Politics
- Sociology
- Wildlife
E & C faculty members teach graduate seminars and mentor our graduate students. Faculty members participate in the program because they have chosen to be part of an interdisciplinary social science graduate program that focuses on sustainability and justice.
Faculty

Janelle Adsit
English
janelle.adsit@humboldt.edu
(707) 826-5936
FH 228
Janelle's Bio »
Website
Areas of Interest: Environmental justice, ecopoetics, environmental humanities

Mark Baker (Program Coordinator)
Politics
j.mark.baker@humboldt.edu
(707) 826-3907
FH 140
Mark's Bio »
Website
Areas of Interest: Community-based natural resources management, socio-ecological impacts of hydropower development, community-forestry, water politics, political ecology, South Asia, North America

Kayla Begay
Assistant Professor
Kayla.Begay@humboldt.edu
(707) 826-4316
BSS 254
Kayla's Bio »
Areas of Interest: Language Revitalization, Language Endangerment, Language Reclamation, Sociolinguistics, Language Variation, Historical Linguistics, California Indian Culture & Community-based Research.

Renée Byrd
Sociology
rb1409@humboldt.edu
(707) 826-4563
BSSB 530
Renée's Bio »
Areas of Interest: Critical Race Studies; Law & Society; Prison Abolition; Transnational Feminisms; Queer of Color Critique; Sexuality Studies; Environmental Justice; Neoliberal Political Rationalities; Social Theory; Poststructuralism; Globalization; the State and State Violence

Deepti Chatti
Assistant Professor | Environmental Studies Program
dc317@humboldt.edu
(707) 826-4975
Deepti's Bio »
Areas of Interest: Energy ethnography, feminist political ecology, postcolonial science and technology studies, critical development studies, environmental anthropology, South Asian studies, clean energy transitions, gender and technology, energy access, sustainable development research methods

Leena Dallasheh
History
leena.dallasheh@humboldt.edu
(707) 826-5937
FH 149
Leena's Bio »
Areas of Interest: Palestine/Israel, Colonialism, Settler-colonialism and Decolonization, Urban History,Social History, Middle Eastern Studies

Matthew Derrick
Geography
mad632@humboldt.edu
(707) 826-4976
FH 133
Matthew's Bio »
Areas of Interest: Place and identity, territorial conflict and cooperation, regionalization, nationalism and religious identity

Yvonne Everett
Environmental Science and Management
ye1@humboldt.edu
(707) 826-4188
NR 214
Yvonne's Bio »
Website
Areas of Interest: Sustainability science, ecosystem services conservation on public and private lands, community based resource management, collaborative cross boundary landscape management, environmental planning and policy

Nikola Hobbel
English
hobbel@humboldt.edu
(707) 826-3161
FH 172
Nikola's Bio »
Areas of Interest: Dr. Nikola Hobbel researches the intersections of policy, teaching, and the politics of diversity. Her published works include Social Justice Pedagogy across the Curriculum: The Practice of Freedom (with Thandeka K. Chapman), Negotiating the Common Good in Teacher Education Policy: Critical and International Perspectives (with Barbara L. Bales), as well as articles discussing Freirean praxis and critical multiculturalism.

Matt Johnson
Wildlife
mdj6@humboldt.edu
(707) 826-3218
WFB 222
Matt's Bio »
Website
Areas of Interest: Studies relationships between wildlife conservation and human livelihood. Recent interests revolve around the integration of agriculture, food sovereignty, and biodiversity conservation. His work has also involved the interdisciplinary valuation of ecosystem services provisioned by wildlife.

Erin Kelly
Forestry & Wildland Resources
eck107@humboldt.edu
(707) 826-4150
FR 210
Erin's Bio »
Website
Areas of Interest: I am interested in evaluating whether forest policies are effective, and the many intended and unintended consequences of their implementation. Because forestry has long been intertwined with community well-being, much of my research has focused on how communities are affected by the forest sector and by the interactions among forest governance, tenure, and management.

John Meyer
Politics
john.meyer@humboldt.edu
(707) 826-4497
FH 138
John's Bio »
Areas of Interest: Environmental Political Theory, Political Ideas, Everyday Practices, Climate Change and Populism, Sustainability, Anthropocene

Nicholas Perdue
Geography
Nicholas.perdue@humboldt.edu
(707) 826-4115
Founders Hall 134
Nicholas's Bio »
Areas of Interest: Nicholas Perdue studes issues such as urban mobility, transportation systems, accessibility, and placed based human-environment relations. His newest research project proposes new ways to represent and understand historical, cultural, and social elements in climate change maps as a way to help us understand more broadly what is at risk and what could be lost in the near future.

Sarah Ray
Environmental Studies
sr1478@humboldt.edu
(707) 826-3915
FH 134
Sarah's Bio »
Areas of Interest: Her research areas are interdisciplinary environmental studies and the environmental humanities, environmental justice, climate change emotions, and youth activism. She teaches and advises in the Environmental Studies BA Program and the Environment and Community Master's program.

Kaitlin Reed
Assistant Professor of Native American Studies
Kaitlin.Reed@humboldt.edu
Kaitlin's Bio »
Areas of Interest: Tribal land and water rights; Indigenous environmental justice; settler colonial and capitalist resource extraction; environmental conflict; traditional ecological knowledge; land return & decolonization.

Cutcha Risling Baldy
Native American Studies
crislingbaldy@humboldt.edu
(707) 826-4322
Cutcha's Bio »
Website
Areas of Interest: Indigenous feminisms, California Indian politics & culture, environmental justice, media activism, community based research & evaluation, nonprofit & tribal development

Maxwell Schnurer
Communication
mds65@humboldt.edu
(707) 826-3282
TH 004
Maxwell's Bio »
Areas of Interest: His research focuses on social movements, language, power, and freedom.

Marlon Sherman
Native American Studies
ms31@humboldt.edu
(707) 826-3821
BSS 256
Marlon's Bio »
Website
Areas of Interest: Teaches in the Native American Studies Department, specializing in indigenous and tribal law, justice, peacemaking, governance, environment, resource use, culture, history and philosophy. His poems were awarded the 2003 First Book Award for Poetry by the Native Writers’ Circle of the Americas.

Tony Silvaggio
Sociology
avs1@humboldt.edu
(707) 826-3142
BSS 532
Tony's Bio »
Areas of Interest: His current research focuses on understanding the impact repressive legislation (such as the Animal Enterprise Terrorism Act) has on environmental NGOs and activist communities. He also is engaged in research on the environmental impact of the marijuana industrial complex.

Betsy Watson
Faculty Emeritus

Noah Zerbe
Politics
noah.zerbe@humboldt.edu
(707) 826-3911
FH 139
Noah's Bio »
Website
Areas of Interest: Food politics, alternative food systems, and political economy
Staff

Mireya Ortega
Administrative Support Assistant II
Mireya.Ortega@humboldt.edu
(707) 826-4493
FH 180- * Currently Telecommuting
Mireya's Bio »

Alma Zechman
Administrative Support Coordinator II
adz39@humboldt.edu
(707) 826-4493
FH 180-* Currently Telecommuting
Alma 's Bio »