Research Mission

I seek to provide ethically sound and socially just strategies for promoting wildlife conservation and environmental sustainability. Conservation has an unfortunate history of pitting human life and welfare against wildlife conservation. This legacy places conservation in lose-lose situations where human welfare usually trumps conservation efforts, and occasional wins by conservationists can lead to social injustices (e.g., expelling impoverished people from nature reserves).  Accordingly my research focuses on replacing the human versus nature perspective with approaches that link humans with their environment.  I am particularly interested in using household ecology, as an alternative to human overpopulation, as a perspective in conservation research, initiatives, and policy.

Teaching Mission

I believe education should encourage people to explore the promises of their talents, and my primary responsibility is to nurture that growth.

My classroom should provide a comfortable space where students can reach beyond their individual perspectives, and experiment with alternatives.  This type of environment facilitates learning from mistakes and minimizes the need for face-saving behaviors.  Providing a safe environment for experimenting with new ideas is not sufficient, however, as meaningful engagement in learning does not happen just because people feel comfortable. It is hard work.  Students must learn how to process highly technical information, idiosyncratic value systems, and complex political, ecological, and legal systems. Accordingly, I am sympathetic to the tenets of liberation pedagogy and problem-based learning, and work to promote development of the intellectual range and emotional generosity that empowers students to create knowledge from interpersonal dialogue.  As a teacher, I accept responsibility for providing students with theoretical constructs, encouraging them to master those constructs, and providing them with opportunities to demonstrate their mastery.  Although I hope my classes are enjoyable, I am even more concerned that they are intellectually challenging.