Research and teaching emphases are on the politics of international development and environmental conservation, with a focus on institutional change, property rights, poverty, and biodiversity. Written extensively on 1) indigenous knowledge, 2) community-based conservation, 3) common property, 4) population and resources, and 5) environmental identities. Recent interests include the decentralization of environmental policy (especially forestry and wildlife), and the emergence of environment as a subject of human concern.

Promoting environmental stewardship has proven to be difficult. Successful approaches seem to need a mixture of understanding, motivation and participation. None alone appear sufficient. Another fascinating notion is Green Care, the use of natural settings to promote human wellness in its many forms (e.g., physical, psychological, spiritual). Work in this area could be called Sustainable Living since it is about crafting a wholesome and meaningful existence on a finite planet. 

Professor Hardin holds a joint position with the Department of Anthropology. Her areas of interest and scientific study include human/wildlife interactions, and social and environmental change related to tourism, logging, conservation and hunting in the forests of Central African Republic. Recent projects focus on the increasingly intertwined practices of health and environmental management in equatorial and southern Africa. She also studies historical and ethnographic aspects of concessionary politics involving corporations, NGOs, and local communities, particularly in Africa.

Some environments bring out the best in people; many do not. That constitutes a puzzle that takes many directions, including: (1) the importance of the natural environment; (2) ways to make environments both understandable and interesting; (3) approaches to meaningful participation in environmental decision-making; (4) exploration of ways to conceptualize and assess effectiveness and well-being.

Rachel Kaplan is the Samuel Trask Dana Professor of Environment and Behavior.

Dr. Keoleian co-founded and serves as co-director of the Center for Sustainable Systems. His research focuses on the development and application of life cycle models and metrics to enhance the sustainability of products and technology.

Research Interests:

My broad research interests are related to the human dimensions of global change and social studies of science. I am particularly interested in understanding: (a) the use of technoscientific information, especially seasonal climate (El Nino forecasting) in building adaptive capacity to climate variability and change (drought planning, water management, and agriculture) in the U.S. and Latin America (Brazil, Mexico and Chile); (b) the impact of technocratic decisionmaking on issues of democracy and equity; (c) the co-production of science and policy and the role of technocrats as decisionmakers; (d) the role of popular participation in urban environmental policymaking and policymaker/client interactions; (e)U.S.-Mexico border region environmental policymaking especially regarding transboundary water conflict, environmental health, a common use of shared natural resources.

Teaching and research in evolutionary and behavioral ecology; resource control and reproductive success in vertebrates, including humans; integration of evolutionary theory and resource management; resources and reproductive variance; reproductive and resource tradeoffs for modern women.

Tom Lyon is the Dow Professor of Sustainable Science, Technology and Commerce, and serves as Director of the Erb Institute for Global Sustainable Enterprise.

Research and teaching interests include corporate environmental strategy; government regulation of business; industrial organization; and energy and the environment.

Teaching and research interests are focused on environmental justice, public opinion and the environment, and influences on environmental policy making. A founder of the Environmental Justice Program at the University of Michigan. Current research includes understanding the causes of disproportionate environmental burdens in people of color communities and the role that environmental factors play in accounting for racial and socioeconomic disparities in health.

Michael Moore's teaching involves courses in natural resource and environmental economics. His research interests include analysis of federal water policy and water allocation conflicts between environmental and consumptive uses of river systems; economic aspects of biodiversity and species conservation; and economics of environmental markets, including markets for green products (such as green electricity) and markets for pollution permits (such as the federal SO2 allowance market).

Joan Iverson Nassauer is Professor of Landscape Architecture in the School of Natural Resources and Environment. She was named Fellow by the American Society of Landscape Architects (1992), Fellow of the Council of Educators in Landscape Architecture (2007), and Distinguished Practitioner of Landscape Ecology in the US (1998) and Distinguished Scholar (2007) by the International Association of Landscape Ecology. Teaching focuses on landscape ecology and landscape perception with applications in design and planning of metropolitan and agricultural watersheds. She has recently served as Visiting Fellow of the New Zealand Institute of Landscape Architects (2006), Farrand Distinguished Visiting Professor at the University of California-Berkeley (2003, and Miegunyah Fellow at the University of Melbourne in Australia (2001).

Ted Parson holds a joint appointment with the School of Law. His interests include environmental policy, particularly its international dimensions; the political economy of regulation; the role of science and technology in public issues; and the analysis of negotiations, collective decisions, and conflicts. His recent research has included projects on scientific and technical assessment in international policy-making; the policy implications of carbon-cycle management; the design of international market-based policy instruments; and development of policy exercises, simulation-gaming, and related novel methods for assessment and policy analysis.

Research focus

Issues of social and ecological sustainability with a primary focus on the drivers of overconsumption and the conditions for restrained resource use.  

Courses taught

Graduate

Principles for Sustainability: From the Local to the Global

Food and Water: Research Questions at the Base of the Economy

Localization: Adaptations for the 80% Downshift

Undergraduate

Global Water

Barry Rabe holds a joint appointment with the Gerald Ford School of Public Policy and is a non-resident senior fellow at the Brookings Institution in Washington, D.C.  He is also a faculty associate and former director of the Program in the Environment. During the 2008-09 academic year, he will be a visiting professor at the Miller Center of Public Affairs at the University of Virginia.  Rabe has published widely on issues of state, local and intergovernmental involvement across a range of environmental issues.  Much of his recent work has examined "bottom-up" approaches to climate change, with particular emphasis on the expanding state government role in this area.  In 2007, he received the Daniel Elazar Award for Career Contribution to the Study of Federalism from the American Political Science Association.  In 2006, he received a Climate Protection Award from the US Environmental Protection Agency.   His most recent book is STATEHOUSE AND GREENHOUSE: THE EMERGING POLITICS OF AMERICAN CLIMATE CHANGE POLICY (Brookings, 2004).

My courses are largely case-based and discussion-oriented. They examine different dimensions of environmental decision-making in organizations, agencies and society in the face of conflict. Specific course topics include: Environmental Dispute Resolution; Collaborative Ecosystem Management; Negotiation and Mediation; and Environmental Organizations.

Steven Yaffee is the Theodore Roosevelt Professor of Ecosystem Management. Research involves natural resource and environmental policy, planning and management; processes of policy formation and implementation; and organizational arrangements for managing natural resources. Of particular interest is policy involving endangered species, public lands, ecosystem management, and nonprofit environmental organizations. Also interested in innovative ways to make collective choices including alternative dispute resolution, collaborative problem-solving, and negotiation processes.