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.

Teaching emphasis is on the application of ecological knowledge to species conservation and ecosystem management. Research interests center on the influence of human activities on the condition of rivers and their watersheds, including the effects of land use on stream health, assessment of variation in flow regime, and estimation of nutrient loads and budgets. Additional, collaborative activities are directed at the translation of aquatic science into useful products for management, conservation, and restoration of running waters. 

In October 2001 Dr. Rosina Bierbaum joined the University of Michigan as Dean of the School of Natural Resources and Environment (SNRE).  Since her arrival, Bierbaum has: overseen the creation of a new undergraduate Program in the Environment; enhanced interdisciplinary teaching and research by successfully recruiting thirteen new faculty to the School, eight of whom hold joint appointments in other Colleges at the University of Michigan; developed a new MS track to link business, engineering and natural resources; tripled research activity in SNRE; and expanded the mission of the School to include global change.  Each year, she teaches in both the undergraduate and graduate programs and guest lectures in a dozen classes across the University.  Additionally, she delivers about 50 presentations in national and international venues annually.

Research interests focus on land use change and its effects on ecosystems and on human vulnerability. This work connects a computer-based simulation (e.g., agent-based modeling) of land-use-change processes with GIS and remote sensing based data on historical patterns of landscape change and social surveys. We are working to couple these models with GIS-based data and other models to evaluate consequences of change. We are also working to understand the ways in which land-use decisions are made. Collaborative research investigate the effects of spatial and social neighborhoods on the physical and social risks on human health.

Instrumental in establishing the School's Environmental Justice Program that focuses on the differential impact of environmental contaminants on people of color and low-income communities; Founder and Director of the Environmental Justice Initiative for research and retrieval/dissemination conferences and policy briefings. Research and conferences include both a domestic and international foci, particularly on climate justice. Teaching portfolio includes: Introduction to Environmental Justice (Environ. 222), Conception, Practical Issues and Dilemmas in Environmental Justice (SNRE 582), and the Masters Project/NRE 701.

Jonathan Bulkley is the Peter M. Wege Professor of Sustainable Systems, and he holds a joint appointment with the Department of Civil and Environmwental Engineering in the College of Engineering.

Teaching efforts are concentrated in water policy, risk-benefit analysis, and case studies in natural resources. Research concentrates on the development and application of both quantitative and qualitative means to help policy makers and decision makers attain improved planning, evaluation, and management of natural resources, especially water resources. Recently, research interests have expanded to include curriculum development for effective teaching of sustainale systems concepts to a wide range of disciplines.

Dr. Burton is the newly appointed Director of NOAA's Cooperative Institute of Limnology and Ecosystem Research and a Professor in the School of Natural Resources and Environment at the University of Michigan. Recently, he was Professor and Chair of the Earth & Environmental Sciences Department at Wright State University, in Dayton, Ohio. While at WSU he directed the Institute for Environmental Quality, started the PhD program in Environmental Sciences, and was the Brage Golding Distinguished Professor of Research.

The goal of Bill Currie's research program is to understand and model the organization, causal interactions, and dynamics in ecosystems. Dr. Currie models ecosystems and landscapes to contribute to understand carbon exchange with the atmosphere, effects of global change, and human-environment interactions. If we can capture the right complexity in our models of natural systems, we can apply this understanding to represent, study, or simulate future scenarios in linked human-natural systems.

To thrive on this finite planet humans need to reduce material and energy consumption by over 80%, and do so, most likely, by mid-century. The need for such a radical change in our behavior derives from an expectation of diminishing and, eventually, leveling material and energy abundance, and an appreciation of the climate disruption caused by our consumption.

Such a transition will be historically unprecedented, but it need not be a collapse, nor a return to a distant past. It will involve giving up business-as-usual thinking and the misdirected hope that, given time, we can return to normal. It will require our adapting to a more appropriate pace. Transitioning to a sustainable patterns of living requires using a psychology of transitions. We must plan for, motivate, and maintain radical, yet perhaps delightful, behavior change starting with each of us, where we are, now.

Beth Diamond is a landscape theorist, designer and cultural instigator who believes in landscape architecture as an art form and a visionary medium for social change and evolution. Her interests stem from a fascination with the qualities and expressions of the built world as a mirror of human civilization and her work in landscape architecture focuses on strategies to transform societies in sustainable and culturally affirming ways.

Teaching interests center around fish ecology, aquaculture, and environmental sciences. Current teaching includes a senior course on fish ecology and an introductory course on environmental sciences. Major research interest has focused on the ecology of natural fishes, particularly pike and muskellunge.  In addition, research interests include a focus on aquaculture, its role in feeding the world, especially poorer people in developing countries, and its impact on the environment.

Program Coordinator. Dr. Ellis' scholarly interests include landscape architecture, landscape planning, landscape ecology, spatial modeling and analysis, and applications of information technology to planning and design. A recent project includes the development of a Land Use Change Early Warning System for the National Park Service. Dr. Ellis has also been involved in designing an environmentally sustainable educational facility for Texas A&M University next to the Monteverde Cloud Forest Reserve in Costa Rica.

Research and teaching in conservation biology and the ecology and evolution of infectious diseases. Major research projects address questions regarding the impact of diseases on wildlife populations and the environmental causes leading to disease emergence. Other projects examine how habitat fragmentation and global climate change result in species extinction.

Tom Gladwin is the Max McGraw Professor of Sustainable Enterprise, and he holds a joint appointment with the Ross School of Business.

Professor Gladwin's research focuses on the intersection of environmentalism and globalism in relation to the behavior of industrial corporations. He has published extensively-more than 125 publications-on the theme that the challenges of environmental sustainability and economic globalization are probably the two most profound forces shaping human destiny. This theme is a vital and challenging one, and one to which Gladwin speaks provocatively. At the core of Gladwin's research is the idea that the reintegration of humanity with nature is necessary if organizational science is to support ecologically and socially sustainable development.

Bob Grese serves as Director of the Matthaei Botanical Gardens and Nichols Arboretum.

My teaching and research involve ecologically-based landscape design and management that respects and heightens awareness of the cultural and natural history of a region. I am particularly interested in the restoration and on-going management of urban wilds and role such lands can play in promoting environmental literacy and in re-connecting children and families with nature. I have long been fascinated by the work of early designers such as Jens Jensen and Ossian Cole Simonds who borrowed from the native landscape in their work, and I feel there is much to be learned about their designs today.I have a growing interest in green roofs and other low impact design strategies and incorporate native vegetation and can borrow from an understanding of locally native ecosystems.

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.

Andy Hoffman is the Holcim (US) Professor of Sustainable Enterprise; a position that holds joint appointments at the School of Natural Resources & Environment and the Ross School of Business. His research focuses on corporate strategies that address environmental and social issues.  His disciplinary background lies in the areas of organziational behavior, institutional change, negotiations and change management.  He has published seven books and opver seventy articles. Prior to academics, he worked for the US Environmental Protection Agency, Metcalf & Eddy, the Amoco Corporation, and T&T Construction and Design, Inc. In 2004, he was a Senior Fellow with the Meridian Institute.

Teaching interests include competitive environmental strategy, strategies for sustainable development, organizational behavior, negotiations, green construction, and organizational change

I have taught a number of courses over the years, including population ecology, community ecology, and entomology. At Michigan, my courses include a Natural Systems Core Course for Masters Students in SNRE and Introductory Biology for undergraduates.

My research links population processes and ecosystem processes in terrestrial environments. I am particularly interested in feedback processes that operate between the population dynamics of herbivores and the quality of plants upon which they feed. I use a combination of approaches and techniques including field experiments, laboratory experiments, mathematical modeling, soil chemistry, plant chemistry, and stable isotope analysis. In addition to the development of theory, I apply what we learn to environmental issues including climate change, pest dynamics, and invasive species.

My specialty, ecological design, is premised in the integration of art and science. It aims to create a built environment that is ecologically functional, contextually meaningful and personally engaging. I am a licensed professional landscape architect and a research ecologist. Current teaching includes civil engineering for designers, ecological planting design studio and sustainable site design seminar. Research focuses on how to design the built environment to promote well-being and health of humans and the natural systems in which we are embedded.

 As an ecological designer I place aesthetics—the visceral and psychological appeal of designed spaces, on equal footing with ecosystem considerations. An engaging experience with place is critical for developing a sense of stewardship because people will fight to save what they care about. In professional practice, teaching and research, I bring the integration art and science to bear on designs for the built environment- be that a flower bed or a national park.

My major research interests focus on the current challenges that plant communities are facing in the context of global change, i.e. climate change, invasive species, and landscape fragmentation. These challenges are interconnected as they form the novel environment under which plants are growing. The fact that forest communities are highly dependent on recruitment dynamics makes the study of early demographic stages critical for understanding the impact of global change on the natural ecosystems around us.

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. He has pioneered new methods in life cycle design, life cycle optimization of product replacement, life cycle cost analysis and life cycle based sustainability assessments ranging from energy analysis and carbon footprints to social indicators.

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.  His research and teaching interests include environmental information disclosure and greenwash; corporate environmental strategy; environmental NGOs; voluntary environmental agreements; 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. She focuses on the cultural sustainability of ecological design in human-dominated landscapes.  Her research offers knowledge and strategies for basing ecological design on cultural insight, strong science, and creative engagement with policy. Her teaching and recent projects apply this approach to brownfields, vacant property, exurban sprawl, and agricultural landscapes.

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.

Ivette Perfecto is professor of Ecology and Natural Resources. Her research focuses on biodiversity in agricultural landscapes, primarily in the tropics. She also works on spatial ecology of the coffee agroecosystem and is interested more broadly on the links between small-scale sustainable agriculture, biodiversity and food sovereignty. She teaches General Ecology, Our Common Future (a course on globalization), Food Land and Society and Field Ecology. Her most recent book is Nature’s Matrix: The Link between Agriculture, Conservation and Food Sovereignty.

Research focus

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

Research interests include the effects of natural and anthropogenic stresses on Great Lakes and marine ecosystems, with a focus on the use of models and integrated assessments in transferring knowledge to the decision-making process. Teaching interests include the roles of conveying uncertainty, peer review, stakeholder input, interpreting trends, prediction, scale, and government interaction in developing and applying Integrated Scientific Assessments.

My research interests include green jobs and other environmental labor market dynamics; social movement analysis; environmental justice; leisure and natural resource use; urban and rural poverty; and race, gender and ethnic relations. My current research includes and assessment of the green job sector.  Other recent researh activities have include four national studies of racial and gender diversity in the environmental field.  I have just completed a book on urban environmental history; I am in the process of completing companion books on (a) conservation history and (b) environmental justice history.  

Paul Webb holds a joint appointment with the Department of Ecology and Evolutionary Biology and he serves as Associate Director of the Program in the Environment. Teaching includes Ecological Issues, fish biology and ecology, animal physiology, and a number of undergraduate independent studies each year. Research includes physiological ecology and functional morphology of aquatic vertebrates, primarily fishes. Research seeks to identify and understand fundamental principles of energetics and form and function, which in turn affect distributions of fishes and their populations and assemblages. These interests are currently focussing on how physical factors shape shorelines and hence shoreline fish communities, affecting management and restoration. Another area of research concerns factors that affect fish assemblages in coastal marshes. Much of these researches are done in collaboration with faculty in the engineering school.

Teaching involves general aquatic and stream/river ecology. Research interests include ecology of rivers and lakes, watershed management, community dynamics and population regulation, trout stream food webs, behavioral adaptations of aquatic insects, fish invertebrate interactions, and fisheries management.

John Witter is the George Willis Pack Professor of Forest Entomology. He focuses on the effects of invasive insects and diseases on individual trees, ecosystems, and landscapes in the Great Lakes Region. He examines interactions of various disturbances, such as insects, drought, frost, pollution, and human actions, and their impacts on health and changes in forests.

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.

Don Zak holds a joint appointment in the department of Ecology and Evolutionary Biology, College of Literature, Science, and Arts. His research investigates links between the composition and function of soil microbial communities, and the influence of microbial activity on ecosystem-level processes. This work draws on ecology, microbiology, and biochemistry and is focused at several scales of understanding. Current research centers on understanding the link between plant and microbial activity within terrestrial ecosystems, and the influence climate change may have on these dynamics. Teaching includes courses in soil ecology and ecosystem ecology.

Research interests focus on testing and enhancing human behavior, decision, and persuasion theories in environmental education and communication (especially risk) contexts applying structural equation modeling, meta-analysis, and case studies. Most current studies focus on evaluating environmental education resources and programs.