Interdisciplinary Faculty & Staff | Environment & Community

More than 20 faculty members participate in our program. The home departments of these faculty members are distributed across all three of HSU’s colleges (College of Arts, Humanities and Social Sciences, College of Natural Resources, College of Professional Studies). They include the following departments:

Communication
Critical Race, Gender & Sexuality Studies
English
Environmental Studies
Environmental Resource Engineering
Environmental Science and Management
Forestry and Wildland Resources

Geography
History
Native American Studies
Politics
Psychology
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

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

Kevin Fingerman
Environmental Science and Management

kevin.fingerman@humboldt.edu
(707) 826-4148
NR 221
Kevin's Bio »

Areas of Interest: Conducts interdisciplinary research examining the environmental and social impacts of energy technology and policy decisions. In particular, his work has focused on the interactions between energy technologies, water resources, and food production.

Gregg Gold
Psychology

gregg.gold@humboldt.edu
(707) 826-3740
BSS 426
Gregg's Bio »
Website

Areas of Interest: Dr. Gold’s research interests are in primarily in social influence, though he has also published in other areas. He studies how power affects influence, how people react to transgressions, what it takes for people to stay together after a transgression, and how various situations affect the use of power and influence. He also conducts research related to the environment, marijuana use, and how participating as a researcher involved in deception affects the researcher.

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.

Arne Jacobson
Environmental Resource Engineering

arne.jacobson@humboldt.edu
(707) 826-3184
HGH 116B
Arne's Bio »
Website

Areas of Interest: Specializes in international development, renewable energy, and the equity dimensions of energy access in a carbon limited world. His work is interdisciplinary, combining a social geography based approach to development studies with expertise in energy policy and renewable energy engineering. His current research is based in Kenya.

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: Dr. Ray works on environmental justice theory, intersections of identity, power, and place, and the environmental humanities. She has published on disability, immigration, motherhood, transnational environmental justice, and teaching environmental justice literature.

Laurie Richmond
Environmental Science and Management

Laurie.Richmond@humboldt.edu
(707) 826-3202
NR 218
Laurie's Bio »
Website

Areas of Interest: My research focuses on developing collaborative relationships with natural resource-dependent communities to examine how they navigate both political and ecological changes in their resource systems. In particular, I have focused on marine and coastal issues and on indigenous and rural communities.

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.

Jessica Urban
Critical Race Gender & Sexuality Studies

jlu5@humboldt.edu
(707) 826-4927
BSS 250
Jessica's Bio »

Areas of Interest: Her research and other interests vary widely, but are grounded in an interrogation of interlocking systems of power, privilege and oppression as well as a commitment to exploring and growing coalitional strategies for environmental, reproductive, and social justice.