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My work aims to better understand human relationships with the natural world. My methodologies are largely historical but my goals are for learning about the present, with the past being a laboratory for revealing who we have become. My main tribe has been the environmental historians who are researchers that investigate how we have confronted such issues as habitat degradation, biodiversity loss, climate change, population pressure and environmental injustice. Our methodologies rely on archives that are both cultural and natural, as we look for clues in landscapes as well as in paper records
I have asked questions about how people seek to ‘repair’ the natural world, allowing me to learn about our experiences with ecological restoration, and our notions about environmental degradation and optimal natures. I have also turned to topics relating to rewilding, invasion biology, chronobiology and disease ecology, using these fields and their pasts to try to make sense of how humans understand and manage the natural world. My research, teaching and outreach have taken up such questions as:
I also think it crucial to combine interdisciplinarity with environmental study, and I believe environmental humanities is a good way to title this pursuit. Even if there are semantic challenges with this label, there is little question that humanists must be joined with scientists for a fuller understanding of how nature works and for unraveling better ways that humans can live on this planet. To build community, we have built a modest working group at SAGUF (The Swiss Society for Environmental Research and Ecology) for establishing our own organization called Environmental Humanities Switzerland, www.eh-ch.ch. EH-CH’s several initiatives have included public lecture series, academic symposia, film festivals, blogs and graduate summer schools. Beyond traditional publication outlets, we feel that films and other multi-media are crucial ways to divulge our messages. We don’t pretend to know which research will eventually show itself to have utility, but we do think that we need to craft our research by realizing that our many serious problems need to be addressed.
| 2021 - present | Professor (Titular Professor), Department of Evolutionary Biology and Environmental Studies, University of Zurich, Switzerland |
| 2009 - 2020 | Senior Lecturer (Privatdozent), Department of Evolutionary Biology and Environmental Studies, University of Zurich, Switzerland |
| 2006 - 2009 | Assistant Professor (tenure track), Department of History, University of Utah, USA |
| 2006 - 2007 | Associate Researcher, Institute of Environmental Sciences, University of Zurich, Switzerland |
| 2000 - 2005 | Postdoctoral fellowships at the University of Bologna, European University Institute Florence, Carnegie Council on Ethics and International Affairs New York City, Swiss Federal Research Institute WSL, American Academy of Rome, Italy |
| 1999 | Ph.D., University of Wisconsin-Madison, USA |
| 1981 | B.Sc., Stanford University, USA |
