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I work at the intersection of Environmental and Digital Justice, leading an open source, open access learning environment named Gala. Gala users, whether individuals, communities or wider consortia, collaborate on incrementally improving modules for teaching and learning. Data and Media rich, and interactive, these modules serve fields including biotechnology and life sciences, environmental justice, tropical ecology, environmental engineering, neurotechnology, and archeology. 

In reflecting on these emerging practices, I collaborate with philanthropic institutions like the New America Foundation and its Public Interest Technology University Network,and public facing boundary organizations like The Water Tower in Gywinnett County, Georgia, with its work force training programs.  

My commitment open software ecosystems began in actual ecosystems of the Central African Republic. While a Peace Corps volunteer and Fulbright researcher in the 1990s, I depended on the knowledge of specialized beekeepers, trackers, hunters and gatherers. Because they are not formally educated, such knowledge holders are often excluded from policy debates and political negotiations about land, water, labor and more. My dissertation research was in project, national and colonial archives to contextualize ethnographic research on how the skilled environmental stewardship and economic practices of equatorial Africans have shaped precolonial, colonail and contemporary concessionary regimes for transnational resource management (whether extractive, like logging, or protective, like conservation). 

Today, I am interested in building new kinds of archives that enable FAIR and CAREful knowledge exchange that respects intellectual property and personal or community data. I hope such tools move us toward engaging less formally educated specialists’ priorities and perspectives in addressing  health, climate, food, energy and water challenges. I enjoy working with interdisciplinary engineering and ecology teams of increasingly diverse educators and learners within universities and networks of universities.

My students conduct independent research and problem driven collaboration on topics ranging from adaptive capacity in Ecuador to drinking water quality in the USA, or in Gabon; from environmental justice in Kenya’s artisanal mining communities, to active learning in Capetown’s under-resourced schools and communities. They also self-study, documenting the cultures and circumstances of their learning here at UM, from solar catalysis efforts in engineering labs, to geologies and governance possibilities for the future of critical mineral extraction to power green technologies.