Michigan Sustainability Cases, (www.learngala.com)
It began with a proposal from UMSEAS faculty to bring case based learning into the sustainability science arena, and with a prototype platform built by student developers. The prototype captured the imagination of UM’s Provost for Global Engagement, and thus was born a first collection, The Michigan Sustainability Cases, followed by many more on the platform we named for an apple variety grown in Michigan. These interactive open access repositories of interdisciplinary problem solving cases are created by educators and researchers, professionals, and learners. For use in classrooms, mid-career professional development programs, workforce learning and more, they feature audio, visual and narrative components, as well as engaged learning activities, and immersive or interactive data learning experiences. Our author tools make it easy for users to become makers, and for makers to share their strategies for improving teaching and learning. The model of slow but steady growth through communities who collaborate to review and improve content is one that seems to inspire trust, curiosity, and enthusiasm. Avanti! Below, the original design and developer team, with some advisors and early adopters.
Environmental Justice Certificate
This Graduate Certificate offers PhD and Masters Students from other departments and programs on the UM campus an opportunity to interact in classrooms and informally with those in the Environmental Justice field of study at SNRE. This allows for vibrant comparison of international and “in our own backyard” EJ issues, and enables better interdisciplinary learning, communication skills, and theoretical and conceptual debates on the UM campus, historic birthplace of Environmental Justice as a field of academic inquiry. For more information about how to enroll see our website; to get a feel for our community’s conversations, see the core course I co-created, and the online archive of webinars. That course is now co-taught by a range of faculty from within our EJ specialization, the first such academic program in the nation, and which continues to innovate.
Courses
Justice Agendas for Confronting Environmental Crisis: Virtual course with workshops featuring colleagues from around the country for talks and module development
Frontiers in Environmental Justice: Online module-based course with flipped classroom component for student codesign teams on www.learngala.com
SEAS Environmental Media Lab, comms deliverables for broad audiences including opinion pieces, podcast and short videos on environmental issues
Doctoral Work Supervised
Guntra Aistara, with Michael Kennedy. School for Environment and Sustainability (formerly SNRE)Organic agriculture movements in Latvia and Costa Rica. Guntra was a Finalist for the Rappaport prize in Environmental Anthropology 2008. She defended her dissertation in October 2008; then became Assistant Professor at the UN Peace University in Costa Rica where she implemented a campus garden program. Herself from Latvia, Guntra decided to join the Central European University where she is now Associate Professor and PhD Program Director, after a brief sabbatical as an Agrarian Studies Post-doctoral Fellow at Yale University 2014-2015. Check out Guntra’s beautiful book, Organic Sovereignties, with University of Washington Press.
Menan Jangu, with Bunyan Bryant. School for Environment and Sustainability (formerly SNRE). Traditional Healing and Environmental Justice in Tanzania. Confirmed as a member of theBouchet Honor Society during his time at UM, Menan’s Dissertation funding came from Jossi Schiff Foundation and highly competitive University of Michigan Writeup Awards. He won the Campus Wide Teaching Excellence Award, for his independently designed course Environmental Justice in Africa, and defended his dissertation in April2012; job declined at St. Cloud State University in Minnesota in Favor of returning to his home country, Tanzania. His book manuscript Healing Environmental Harms about traditional medicine in extractive industry zones in Tanzania is under revision based on anonymous reviews for publication with Lexington Press in their Environmental Justice Series.
Catherine Benson Wahlén, with Arun Agrawal. Environmental Subjects and NGOs in coastal management of Papua New Guinea marine protected areas. Catherine’s fieldwork was supported by grants (some used, some declined!) from NSF’s anthropology program, Fulbright-Hayes, and NOAA. She defended her dissertation in 2012, and has since worked with the Advocates Coalition for Development and Environment in Uganda and as a consultant to the World Bank, USAID, UN agencies and the private sector. She has done fieldwork and research in American Samoa, Cambodia, Kenya, Madagascar, Papua New Guinea, Switzerland, and Uganda. She currently works with USAID’s BRIDGE program in the Washington DC area.
Krista Gullo Badiane, with Andrew Hoffman. School for Environment and Sustainability (formerly SNRE). Corporate Responses to Climate Change. Krista left a leadership position in Ford’s Corporate Citizenship office to return to doctoral studies. Supported by a Fellowship from the Graham Institute for Sustainability, Krista Defended in 2014. Since then she has conducted extensive consulting in the private sector, and taught as an Assistant Professor of Sustainable Business at Aquinas college in Grand Rapids, Michigan. She has recently relocated to the Seattle, Washington area, where she serves as sustainability reporting lead at Google.
Baruani Mshale with Kelly Askew School for Environment and Sustainability (formerly SNRE). Critical Perspectives on REDD policy implementation in forests and communities of Tanzania. Recipient of SSCR International Dissertation Research Fellowship, Danish Government support of applied research, University of Michigan Campus wide Graduate Instructor award, and Graham Institute for Sustainability Fellowship 2010-2012. Baruani Defended in 2015, and has since been working in Nairobi, Kenya, as a Research Associate at the Center for International Forestry Research and, more recently with What Works for Open Goverment, Twaweza East Africa.
Jennifer Johnson, with Jim Diana. School for Environment and Sustainability (formerly SNRE). Gendered Fishing Economies on a Cosmopolitan Littoral. Field research in Lake Victoria region of Uganda. Jennifer’s work was supported by the Wenner Gren Foundation for Anthropological Research and the NSF Anthropology Program’s Doctoral Dissertation Improvement Award, as well as a competitive University of Michigan Institute for the Humanities Writeup fellowship. She defended in 2014, and accepted a postdoctoral fellowship at Yale University’s Program in Agrarian Studies before joining the faculty at the Purdue University Department of Anthropology. From there, she accepted a Rachel Carson Center Fellowship and is now at Michigan State University, where she directs the Toxic Action Lab.
Daphne Gallagher, with Richard Ford. Department of Anthropology. Subsistence shifts in Burkinabais shifting agriculture: Ethnoarcheological perspectives on human food production. Daphne defended December 2009 and was an alternate for the Yale University Agrarian Studies Fellowship. Instead, she headed west, and currently teaches and serves as Associate Dean for undergraduate education in the Honors College, at the University of Oregon, Eugene. Among other things, her research has pushed back the known dates for the use of shea butter by a millenium.
Ismael Achirri Chibikom, with Kelly Askew. Department of Anthropology. Host Plants, Butterflies and Neoliberal Spaces in Kwa Zulu Natal, South Africa. Achirri, himself a native of Cameroon in west Africa, came to us as a visual anthropologist having studied ethnographic film in Finland. He received support from the prestigious Rackham Merit Fellowship and conducted Field Research in South Africa. He Defended his PhD in 2017, a lyrical environmental ethnography of Black environmentalisms and intercultural environmental poltiics. Ismael has taught at University of Michigan Department of African and African American Studies, Michigan State University, and is now an Assistant Professor at Worcester Polytechnic Institute in Massachusetts, where he is engaged in field programs in Ethiopa, and Ghana.
Jessica Soon Ok Worl, with Maria Lemos. School for Environment and Sustainability (now SEAS).
Risk and Change in Communities of Artisanal Mining in Kenya. Jessica’s field research was funded by a Fulbright Hayes grant, her work in Ann Arbor by a Dow Sustainability Fellowship. She accepted a position at Boston College after defending her dissertation, and is now an Assistant Professor of Environmental Studies and Gender and Sexuality Studies at Davidson College in North Carolina.
Matt Vedrin, with Lutgarde Raskin, Civil and Environmental Engineering. Matt’s research has been supported by an internal University of Michigan Third Century Grant for Problem driven research, fostering collaborative exchanges across the drinking water treatment services teams working in the cities of Lambaréné, in Gabon, and Ann Arbor and Detroit in Michigan. His dissertation investigatedFull-Scale Distribution System Flushing Practices for Better Drinking Water Quality Management. Matt now lives in San Fransisco, and serves as the Postdoctoral Fellow and Program Manager for the EPA funded Co-DOWN consortium based in Austin, Texas.
Deepika Ganesh was designing case study based pedagogies for a Business School in Bangalore, India when she came across our paper about www.learngala.com and she reached out. Fast forward, and she is preparing to take candidacy exams for her PhD, working with School of Education Faculty member Michelle Bellino and myself. Deepika works across Indian and South African learning communities, reflecting on digital and experiential learning create a sense of agency in learners.
Doctoral Committee Membership at SEAS
Brian Maguranyanga, with Steve Brechin and Maria Lemos, Privatization and Black Empowerment in South Africa’s National Parks. Founder, M-Consulting Group, now M-Care Private limited, Zimbabwe.
Cristy Watkins, with Bobbi Low Human Behavioral Ecology and Forest Conservation in Uganda, PostDoctoral Research Fellow, IFRI, SNRE.
Stephanie Hitztaler, with Kathleen Bergen Cultural Ecology of Forest Use in Kamchatka, Siberia, independent scholar (IREX funded work on Russian forest policy).
Ashley Hazel, with Bobbi Low and Johannes Foufopoulos Ecology and Epidemiology of STDs among Tchimba/Himba, Namibia, Postdoctoral Researcher, Department of Anthropology, Stanford University.
Daniel Miller, with Arun Agrawal and Brice Sin Sin, Climate Change and Transboundary Conservation in West Africa. Dan worked as Senior Forest Specialist at PROFOR, World Bank, then on the faculty at University of Illinois Urbana-Champagne, before moving to University of Notre Dame in South Bend, Indiana.
Doctoral Committees Dept of Earth and Environmental Sciences
Tristan Childress, with Adam Simon, Fingerprinting Source Fluids of Iron Oxide-Copper-Gold and Iron-Oxide-Apatite Deposits Using Traditional and Non-traditional Stable Isotope Geochemistry (Economic Geologist, Bureau of Economic Geology
Justin Casaus, with Adam Simon, An Experimental Study of The Incorporation of Sulfur In Fluorapatite During Metasomatism. Currently completing writeup. First Generation Graduate Student.
Doctoral Committees Dept. of History
Clapperton Mavhunga, with Gabrielle Hecht and Nancy Rose Hunt, The Mobile Workshop. Mobility, Technology, and Human-Animal Interactions in Gonarezhou (National Park), 1850–Present. June 2008 (Associate Professor at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology; PI Great Limpopo Project, Earthwatch).
Angela Thompsell, Trophy Hunting in British Africa, Gender, and Museum History. Currently faculty at Brockport College, Completing a book manuscript entitled Hunting Africa: British Sport, Colonial Encounters, and the Nature of Empire.
Doctoral Committees, Applied Physics
Abigail Mechtenberg, with Roy Clarke and Mark H. Ross. Understanding the Importance of an Energy Crisis: hybrid microgrid and vehicle power management focused within an energy, sustainable development, and climate change nexus (Assistant Teaching Professor and Physics Laboratory Co-Director, Notre Dame)
Doctoral Committes, Dept. Anthropology
Aleksandr Skylar, with Krisztina Fehervary. Living in Post Fukushima Grey-Zones: Family Decisions in the Wake of Nuclear Disaster. Currently Visiting Assistant Professor, Colgate University
Katherine Fultz, with Stuart Kirsch, Citizenship, Media and Development Practice in Guatemalan Mining Regions. Currently working with a team of museum educators to create engaging programming for children and families in an art museum setting
Masters Theses Directed at SEAS
Aurora Aparicio, Digital Media Innovation in Pandemic Management (now program analyst, Packard Foundation’s Conservation and Science Program)
Devorah (Dana) Gordin, Semiotics of Sustainabilty: Zombies in public imaginaries of forced mobility under climate extremes (now research staff at UM agroecology labs and Urban Soils Institute)
Brooke McWherter, Human Wildlife Relations in Light of Flood Events, Bolivia (Now a postdoc in BC aftetr PhD in adaptive agroforestry at Purdue University)
Helen Guterriez, Climate Change Adaptation Challenges, Locally Defined in Ecuador (now local adaptation specialist for the “Desarrollo de un Portafolio de medidas locales de adaptación y fortalecimiento de capacidades de los gobiernos locales” funded by the Global Covenant of Mayors
Mayank Vikas, Comparing Urban Parks in Nairobi, Kenya and Delhi, India (now a postdoc after PhD in Political Ecology at University of Wisconsin, Madison)
Aubrey Langland, Artisanal Mining and Mercury Contamination of Fluvial Fisheries (completed PhD in Occupational Health at UM, now Assistant Professor of Environment and Health at Oakland University)
Jacqueline Doremus, Timber concessions and land use in northern Congo Brazzaville (completed PhD in Economics at UM; recipient of Fulbright IIE award and now Assistant Professor in the Orfalea College of Business, Cal Poly, San Luis Obispo).
Michelle Fournier, Small Holder Adaptation in Bolivia’s Amazon, Teacher & Operations Manager at Maine Local Living School
Valerie Benka, Tourism, Ranching and Research in Laikipia’s human/animal interactions. Director of Programs at the Alliance for Contraception in Cats & Dogs
Walker Depuy, a Social History of Mpala Wildlife Research Station, Kenya.PhD at University of Georgia, now Postdoctoral Fellow at Asia Research Institute, NUS
Nathan Clay, Sustainable Wildlife and Forest Management at Concession Scales, Congo. PhD at Penn State. Postdoctoral Researcher, Stockhom Resilience Center, Stockholm University
Jennifer Johnson, A Commodity Chain Analysis of Nile Perch, East Africa (June 2008). PhD at UMSEAS. Directs the Toxic Action Lab at MSU
Masters Projects Directed, SEAS
Practicum, Allyson Wiley and Julia Sustainability in K-12 Curriculum (with Support from Dow, in Partnership with CEDER, at the UM School of Education)
Group Project (co-advised with Terry Nelidov) Sustainability Assessment of Water Based Community Partnerships, Global Environment and Technology Foundation, Washington D.C.
Group Project (co-advised with Paul Mohai): Environmental Justice Organizations, Liability, and Trade (Presentation in 2014; Recent Press in The Guardian and here at SNRE).
Practicum Rebecca Schwartz, Arts as Communication in Community Garden Projects, comparative Analysis of three major American Cities (Presentation 2012)
Group Project (co-advised with Joseph Trumpey): Conservation of Madagascar’s Spiny Forests (Presentation 2011)
Practicum: Renee Henry, Ethnography of Growing Hope’s Raised Beds Initiative in Ypsilanti, MI (presented 2010)
Academic Advisorship SEAS
Mayank Vikas (Entered Fall 2014)
Vitor Machado Lira (entered Fall 2014)
Michael Burbidge (entered Fall 2014)
Mugabi Byenkya (entered Fall 2014)
Katherine Browne (entered Fall 2013)
Alejandro Colsa Perez (entered Fall 2012)
Lisa Fouladbash (entered Fall 2011)
Ryan Stock (entered Fall 2011)
Aimee Massey (entered Fall 2010)
Rebecca Schwartz (entered Fall 2010)
Valerie Benka (entered Fall 2010)
Kathleen Rubio (entered Fall 2009)
Lael Goodman (entered Fall 2009)
Nathan Clay (entered Fall 2009)
Walker Depuy (entered Fall 2009)
Jessica Gorchow (entered Fall 2009)
Erin Carey (with Arun Agrawal, entered Fall 2009)
Katherine Ennis (with Ivette Perfecto, entered Fall 2008)
Jesse Worker (MS NRE/MPP Public Policy 2009)
Sarah Hines (MBA/MS NRE 2007)
Cynthia Koenig (MBA/MS NRE 2006)
Jada Renee Williams (with Bunyan Bryant, entered Fall 2006)
Danielle Gartner (entered Fall 2006)
Jesse Harrison Turner (MD/MS NRE 2005)
Undergraduate Theses Directed, University of Michigan
Catherine Ellingson, 2004: Biotechnology of Jasmine Rice Production (highest honors, Anthro).
Aixa Alemán-Díaz, 2005: Extension Work in Sea Grant Projects, Michigan and Puerto Rico (IRB approved, Highest honors, Dept of Anthropology; NSF Graduate Fellowship for Doctoral Study in Anthropology at Rutgers and American University).
Jen de Moss, 2009: (PITE Honors, wrote on The Tom Brown School, awarded Honors, Program in the Environment; currently pursuing Doctoral study in Anthropology and Conservation Biology at University of Georgia).
Abigail Leinsdorf, 2010: Cattle Management and Social Change in Crested Butte, Colorado (Honors, Anthropology).
STUDENT WORK SUPERVISED IN OTHER UNIVERSITIES
Doctoral Dissertations
2019- Franck Binze Bi Kumbe, with Rajendra Chetty, Departments of English and of Education, University of Western Cape (Republic of South Africa; field sites in Gabon) Lexicographies of Sustainability: distributed water systems described and designed in local terms.
1998-2001 Pierre Roulet, Trophy Hunting in Village Hunting Zones, CAR, Congo and Cameroon. Universite d’Orleans: December 2002 (Lecturer Switzerland’s Graduate Institute of International Economic Development).
2001-7 Heather E. Eves, Bushmeat Management in Central Africa, Yale University (Director, Bushmeat Crisis Task Force, Lecturer and Adjunct Faculty SAIS and VA Tech).
2010 Lesley Daspit, Fourth year student finishing fieldwork on Women Traders and Bushmeat in Bayanga, CAR, Currently Teaching at UNC Wilmington
2010 Armand Zongang Ndongang, Cameroon forest concessions contiguous with transboundary conservation zones, Universite of the Antilles.
2012 Charlotte Kouna, Completed Field Work on Concession level Forest Management in Yokadouma Cameroon, Universite du Maine, France (Researcher at CIFOR, Cameroon)
2010 Marine Robillard, Environmental Conservation and forest foragers of southern Cameroon, Museum of Natural History, Paris, France, Ethnobiology Research Lab
Masters Theses
1999 Universite d’Orleans/IRD in France
Patrice Etoungou, Anthropology Community forest practices in Cameroon.
Henri Zana, Archeology Cultural patrimonies in ceramics: Cameroon and CAR.
Selected Masters theses directed at the Sorbonne in France
2001 Nicholas Buyse, Decentralization of the Forestry Sector in Indonesia.
2000 Lise Cheriffe, A Study in Food Security Efforts: the NGO Afrique Verte.
2000 Rim Natour, International Environmental Aid and the Rise of National NGOs.
2000 Olivier Fauritte, The Line between Development and Humanitarian Aid in Afghanistan.