Todd Bryan

Todd Bryan (Ph.D. '08) is one of eight recipients of the Horace H. Rackham Distinguished Dissertation Awards.  Bryan was recognized for his dissertation titled, "Aligning Identity: Social Identity and Changing Context in Community-Based Environmental Conflict." An April 30 ceremony recognizes Bryan and other recipients. The ceremony begins at 2 p.m. in Rackham Auditorium's Assembly Hall.

The award includes an honorarium of $1,000 and recognizes the most exceptional scholarly work produced by doctoral students who completed dissertations in 2008. The Award is sponsored by Austin McLean of ProQuest Information and Learning.

Bryan's dissertation draws from social identity theory to explain the transformation of an intractable environmental conflict. His specific case study examined a long-standing conflict over three national forests in Northern California, the management of which had direct consequences for community health and economic stability in Quincy, Calif., as well as for the ecological sustainability of these three forest ecosystems. Both his framework for analysis and his findings challenged some well-established assumptions about interest-driven behaviors in public disputes, and have implications for theories in the negotiation, conflict management and organizational behavior fields of study as well as for professional practice.

His dissertation committee included SNRE Professors Julia Wondolleck (chair) and Steve Yaffee; Ross School of Business Professor Jane Dutton, and Professor Linda Putnam of the University of California, Santa Barbara. Professor Martha Feldman, formerly of the U-M Gerald R. Ford School of Public Policy, was an early member of Bryan's committee.

In addition to the Rackham award, Bryan's dissertation also received the 2008 Best Dissertation Award from Organizations and the Natural Environment, a division of the Academy of Management, a leading professional association for scholars. In honoring him, the Academy said his SNRE-based research "is perhaps the most in-depth study of identity-based environmental conflict ever undertaken."

He also received SNRE's Ayres-Brinser Award, given annually for the best dissertation.

Bryan is a senior associate at the Center for Science and Public Policy at The Keystone Center in Keystone, Colo., where he works with federal, state and local agencies; tribal governments; non-governmental organizations and communities, and focuses on developing collaborative approaches to environmental and natural resource decision-making.

He has taught environmental mediation at SNRE, where he was a senior fellow with the school's Ecosystem Management Initiative. He also is a lecturer in the School of Public Affairs at the University of Colorado-Denver, where he teaches courses in negotiation and conflict management.