College of Agriculture & Natural Resources Department of Community Sustainability

Program: CSUS - PhD

Hometown: Ithaca, Michigan

Advisor: Adam Zwickle

My research interests focus on natural resource governance and environmental sustainability. How can the institutions that structure resource decision making promote political fairness, economic prosperity, social wellbeing and environmental sustainability? It is common to make conceptual distinctions between 'humanity' on the one hand, and 'nature' on the other, but this convention of language should not obscure the fact that human and natural systems are integral features of the larger biosphere. I think it is impossible to approach questions of individual and societal welfare without explicitly recognizing our dependence on the ecological systems within which we are always embedded. My work currently focuses on the emergence of watershed level groundwater management organizations as a mechanism for dealing with increasing water scarcity in regions heavily reliant on agriculture - specifically Kansas, California and Michigan.