Our Sustainability Fellowships alumni represent a huge variety of faculties and departments and share something in common: a valuable contribution to advancing sustainability education at UBC.
2021-22 SUSTAINABILITY FELLOWS
Jessica Dempsey, Faculty of Arts
Jessica Dempsey's research and teaching focus on environmental politics. In geography this often goes under the label of political ecology, which refers to much more than the government or the state. It includes consideration of how environmental politics is shaped by and shapes economics, science, culture, history, gender, racism, colonialism, social movements and more. Those working in political ecology, including Jessica, aim to better understand urgent problems – biodiversity loss, drought, poverty, ongoing dispossessions, gendered and racialized violences, climate change – but recognize that diagnosing the causes of these problems, and understanding the relationships between them, is complex and always political.
In Jessica's research she focuses especially on trying to understand how biodiversity loss continues despite the proliferation of international, national and regional conservation laws, policies and advocacy efforts. It seems as though biodiversity loss has a kind of momentum of its own: but from where does that momentum stem? Jessica's current major research projects focus on 1) developing a political economic explanation of extinction, centered on an investigation of Canadian wildlife, and 2) examining dominant, increasingly economic and financial approaches to conservation. Her research is in dialogue with diverse methodologies and literatures, including political ecology, feminist political economy, economic geography, science studies, and green finance.
As a Sustainability Fellow, Dr. Dempsey is working with Dr. Tara Ivanochko on a project that will bring together students, faculty and staff, focusing on climate change to develop a new 18-credit interdisciplinary climate themed certificate.
Allison Earl, SALA, Faculty of Applied Science
Allison Earl is a Sessional Lecturer in both the School of Architecture and Landscape Architecture and the Department of Educational Studies in the Faculty of Education at UBC, specializing in design thinking, place-based experiential learning and sustainability. As an interdisciplinary academic, Allison has first hand experience of the value of interdisciplinary approaches to sustainability education. Perspectives, methods and skills can be applied across disciplinary boundaries enhancing the learning and competencies of students beyond the expected norms of their programs. She believes the success of the sustainability social movement requires creative, innovative leaders who can collaborate and communicate across all disciplines.
As a Sustainability Fellow, Allison is excited to work with Maggie Low from Indigenous Community Planning at the School of Community and Regional Planning (SCARP) to facilitate learning about concepts of urban, participatory and Indigenous planning for teacher candidates in the sustainability cohort at UBC’s Faculty of Education.
Tara Ivanochko, Department of Earth, Ocean and Atmospheric Sciences, Faculty of Science
Tara joined UBC’s Department of Earth, Ocean and Atmospheric Sciences (EOAS) as faculty in the Educational Leadership steam in 2009. In EOAS, Tara has since served as the Director of Environmental Science and as Associate Head Undergraduate Affairs. Tara has also engaged as a Sustainability Fellow with the Sustainability Hub to forward sustainability education at UBC, as a steering committee member for the UBC Centre for Sustainable Food Systems, and as a member of the UBC Interdisciplinary Education Task Force. She helped envision the UBC 20-year Sustainability Strategy and develop the Faculty of Science sustainability course offerings.
As an educator, Tara builds relationships between students and community organizations through collaborative research projects. These projects allow environmental science students to actively contribute to building sustainable communities.
As a Sustainability Fellow, Dr. Ivanochko is working with Dr. Jessica Dempsey on a project that will bring together students, faculty and staff, focusing on climate change to develop a new 18-credit interdisciplinary climate themed certificate.
Maggie Low, SCARP, Faculty of Applied Science
Maggie Low is an Assistant Professor in Indigenous Community Planning at the School of Community and Regional Planning (SCARP) at UBC, specializing in Indigenous planning, Indigenous-state relations and reconciliation. Maggie’s work seeks to advance a better understanding of Indigenous sovereignty as it is expressed outside the Canadian courts, with a focus on the implications of these expressions for the well-being of Indigenous communities. Maggie is of mixed ancestry, including Italian, French and German from her mother’s side. From her father’s side she is French, English and a status member of Wikwemikoong Unceded Territory.
As a Sustainability Fellow, Maggie is thrilled to work with Allison Earl from the School of Architecture and Landscape Architecture (SALA) to facilitate learning about concepts of urban, participatory and Indigenous planning for teacher candidates in the sustainability cohort at UBC’s Faculty of Education.
2020-21 SUSTAINABILITY FELLOWS
Jessica Dempsey, Faculty of Arts
Jessica Dempsey's research and teaching focus on environmental politics. In geography this often goes under the label of political ecology, which refers to much more than the government or the state. It includes consideration of how environmental politics is shaped by and shapes economics, science, culture, history, gender, racism, colonialism, social movements and more. Those working in political ecology, including Jessica, aim to better understand urgent problems – biodiversity loss, drought, poverty, ongoing dispossessions, gendered and racialized violences, climate change – but recognize that diagnosing the causes of these problems, and understanding the relationships between them, is complex and always political.
In Jessica's research she focuses especially on trying to understand how biodiversity loss continues despite the proliferation of international, national and regional conservation laws, policies and advocacy efforts. It seems as thought biodiversity loss has a kind of momentum of its own: but from where does that momentum stem? Jessica's current major research projects focus on 1) developing a political economic explanation of extinction, centered on an investigation of Canadian wildlife, and 2) examining dominant, increasingly economic and financial approaches to conservation. Her research is in dialogue with diverse methodologies and literatures, including political ecology, feminist political economy, economic geography, science studies, and green finance.
Allison Earl, SALA, Faculty of Applied Science
Allison Earl is a Sessional Lecturer in both the School of Architecture and Landscape Architecture and the Department of Educational Studies in the Faculty of Education at UBC, specializing in design thinking, place-based experiential learning and sustainability. As an interdisciplinary academic, Allison has first hand experience of the value of interdisciplinary approaches to sustainability education. Perspectives, methods and skills can be applied across disciplinary boundaries enhancing the learning and competencies of students beyond the expected norms of their programs. She believes the success of the sustainability social movement requires creative, innovative leaders who can collaborate and communicate across all disciplines.
As a Sustainability Fellow, Allison is excited to work with Maggie Low from Indigenous Community Planning at the School of Community and Regional Planning (SCARP) to facilitate learning about concepts of urban, participatory and Indigenous planning for teacher candidates in the sustainability cohort at UBC’s Faculty of Education.
Amanda Giang, IRES, Faculty of Science and Department of Mechanical Engineering, Faculty of Applied Science
Amanda Giang is an Assistant Professor in the Institute for Resources, Environment and Sustainability and the Department of Mechanical Engineering at UBC. Her research addresses challenges at the interface of environmental modelling and policy through an interdisciplinary lens, with a focus on air pollution and toxic chemicals. Combining integrated modelling and qualitative approaches, she is interested in understanding how environmental assessment processes can better empower communities and inform policy decision-making.
Amanda’s current projects include developing digital tools for environmental justice in Canada, assessing the prospective impacts of technology and policy change on air quality and climate impacts of shipping, and modelling the impacts of global policy on mercury pollution. As a Sustainability Fellow, she is working with Prof. Naomi Zimmerman to explore how technology can be used to facilitate interdisciplinary collaboration on air pollution, climate, and energy issues.
Derek Gladwin, LLED, Faculty of Education
Derek Gladwin is an Assistant Professor of Language and Literacy Education in the Faculty of Education. His interdisciplinary research focuses on environmental literacy and sustainability education, particularly exploring social and cultural questions within the educational contexts of digital media, visual culture, and literary culture. He has previously held visiting research fellowships at University of Amsterdam, University of Edinburgh, and Trinity College Dublin. He is the author or editor of several books, including Contentious Terrains (2016), Ecological Exile (2018), and Rewriting Our Stories (2021).
As a USI Sustainability Fellow (2020-21), Gladwin will be developing a new course titled Environmental Literacy (with co-fellow Kedrick James, LLED) for teacher candidates in the Bachelor of Education (B.Ed) program.
Tara Ivanochko, Department of Earth, Ocean and Atmospheric Sciences, Faculty of Science
Tara joined UBC’s Department of Earth, Ocean and Atmospheric Sciences (EOAS) as faculty in the Educational Leadership steam in 2009. In EOAS, Tara has since served as the Director of Environmental Science and as Associate Head Undergraduate Affairs. Tara has also engaged as a Sustainability Fellow with the Sustainability Hub to forward sustainability education at UBC, as a steering committee member for the UBC Centre for Sustainable Food Systems, and as a member of the UBC Interdisciplinary Education Task Force. She helped envision the UBC 20-year Sustainability Strategy and develop the Faculty of Science sustainability course offerings.
As an educator, Tara builds relationships between students and community organizations through collaborative research projects. These projects allow environmental science students to actively contribute to building sustainable communities.
Kedrick James, LLED, Faculty of Education
Kedrick James lives in ancestral sx̌ʷýʔłpx (Way of Life) territory in Boundary Country of British Columbia. He was born in unceded xʷməθkʷəy̓əm (Musqueam) territory. With his family he was a member of the Vancouver Natural History Society since early childhood, and worked for the B.C. Parks Board and as an international migrant farm worker as a young adult. A poet by calling, his journey took him deeply into language, arts and culture, and the digital humanities. Today he is committed to technological innovation, literacy education, and land/wildlife protection and works as an Associate Professor of Teaching and Deputy Head of the Department of Language and Literacy Education at UBC, where he has taught and published on the subjects of ecopoetics, digital ecologies, cultural recycling, environmental literacy and sustainability of information environments. He is also Director of the UBC Digital Literacy Centre where open access apps and software are produced to assist digital literacy education, research, and place-based knowledge mobilization.
Michele Koppes, Department of Geography (natural scientist), Faculty of Arts
Michele Koppes is an Associate Professor in the Department of Geography and holds a Canada Research Chair in Landscapes of Climate Change, where she conducts research at the interface of climate science, geomorphology, glaciology, oceanography, and human adaptation and resilience. She combines field observations with spatial and contextual analysis, numerical modeling and conceptual development to gain a comprehensive understanding of the linkages between climate change, the cryosphere, oceans, land surfaces and people in the Anthropocene. Her current projects include assessing and quantifying rates of glacial, fluvial and anthropogenic erosion; the physiographic signatures of climate change; impacts of glacier change on freshwater resources; adaptation and resilience of high mountain communities; acoustic geomorphology; and decolonial approaches to earth science.
A former TED Senior Fellow and AAAS Congressional Science Fellow, Michele has extensive experience with science communication, public engagement and policy. As a Sustainability Fellow, she is working with Prof. Juanita Sundberg to develop interdisciplinary curriculum about the Anthropocene.
Maggie Low, SCARP, Faculty of Applied Science
Maggie Low is an Assistant Professor in Indigenous Community Planning at the School of Community and Regional Planning (SCARP) at UBC, specializing in Indigenous planning, Indigenous-state relations and reconciliation. Maggie’s work seeks to advance a better understanding of Indigenous sovereignty as it is expressed outside the Canadian courts, with a focus on the implications of these expressions for the well-being of Indigenous communities. Maggie is of mixed ancestry, including Italian, French and German from her mother’s side. From her father’s side she is French, English and a status member of Wikwemikoong Unceded Territory.
As a Sustainability Fellow, Maggie is thrilled to work with Allison Earl from the School of Architecture and Landscape Architecture (SALA) to facilitate learning about concepts of urban, participatory and Indigenous planning for teacher candidates in the sustainability cohort at UBC’s Faculty of Education.
Farah Shroff, Department of Family Practice (PhD), Faculty of Medicine
Dr Farah M Shroff is a passionate promoter of better health for all through social and environmental justice and mind/body wellness. As global public health educator and researcher, she has worked in many nations to support the social determinants of health and better policies for human rights. She teaches at the University of British Columbia in the Faculty of Medicine’s Department of Family Practice and School of Population and Public Health.
Juanita Sundberg, Department of Geography (social scientist), Faculty of Arts
Juanita Sundberg is an Associate Professor in the Department of Geography at the University of British Columbia. Her research brings the insights of feminist political ecology and the sensibilities of ethnography to bear on the politics of nature conservation. Dr. Sundberg’s work seeks to foster conversations between more-than-human geographies, Indigenous theories, critical theories of race, settler colonial studies, and Latin American Studies in relation to climate change and extinction. A new collaborative project with Leticia Durand, UNAM, centers on vegetal politics with a focus on how sargassum intervenes in political ecologies on the Riviera Maya.
As a Sustainability Fellow, she is working with Prof. Michele Koppes to develop interdisciplinary curriculum about the Anthropocene.
Bob Woollard, Department of Family Practice (MD), Faculty of Medicine
Bob Woollard
Dr Woollard is Professor of Family Practice at UBC. He has extensive national and international experience in the fields of medical education, the social accountability of medical schools, ecosystem approaches to health, and sustainable development. He co-chairs the Global Consensus on Social Accountability for Medical Schools (GCSA) and does extensive work in this area with many international bodies.
Naomi Zimmerman, Department of Mechanical Engineering, Faculty of Applied Science
Naomi Zimmerman is an Assistant Professor in the Department of Mechanical Engineering who researches air pollution and climate change. Her research program revolves around the development and application of real-world-based tools to quickly and quantitatively assess the impact of our policy and technology decisions on air pollution and climate outcomes, and to use the knowledge gained to support better environmental policy planning. As a Sustainability Fellow, she is working with Prof. Amanda Giang to bring cross-course collaboration into her Air Pollution, Technology and Society course (MECH 410U).
2019-20 SUSTAINABILITY FELLOWS
Alexander Dick, Faculty of Arts
Alexander Dick is Associate Professor of English at the University of British Columbia. He is the author of Romanticism and the Gold Standard: Money, Literature, and Economic Debate in Britain 1790-1830 (Palgrave 2013) and of many articles and chapters on eighteenth- and nineteenth-century British poetry, fiction, drama, philosophy, and political economy. He is currently working on a new monograph on agricultural improvement and ecological consciousness in eighteenth- and nineteenth-century Britain, specifically on how the introduction of mass-sheep farming in the Scottish Highlands was both championed and protested in that era’s literary culture.
This work traces the origins of both the tacit approval of environmental and economic exploitation and of ideas of ecological concern and unease to the literary culture of early nineteenth-century Britain. He is also interested in the way the bizarre and paradoxical tensions between economic development and ecological concern continue to motivate Western literature, philosophy, media, and culture.
Amanda Giang, Faculty of Science and Department of Mechanical Engineering, Faculty of Applied Science
Amanda Giang
Amanda Giang is an Assistant Professor in the Institute for Resources, Environment and Sustainability and the Department of Mechanical Engineering at UBC. Her research addresses challenges at the interface of environmental modelling and policy through an interdisciplinary lens, with a focus on air pollution and toxic chemicals. Combining integrated modelling and qualitative approaches, she is interested in understanding how environmental assessment processes can better empower communities and inform policy decision-making.
Amanda’s current projects include developing digital tools for environmental justice in Canada, assessing the prospective impacts of technology and policy change on air quality and climate impacts of shipping, and modelling the impacts of global policy on mercury pollution. As a Sustainability Fellow, she is working with Prof. Naomi Zimmerman to explore how technology can be used to facilitate interdisciplinary collaboration on air pollution, climate, and energy issues.
Derek Gladwin, Faculty of Education
Derek Gladwin is Assistant Professor of Language and Literacy Education, where he focuses on transformations in society and culture through environmental humanities and arts-based education. He has previously held visiting research fellowships in the environmental humanities at the University of Edinburgh and Trinity College Dublin. His authored or edited books focused on the environmental humanities and sustainability include: Eco-Joyce, Unfolding Irish Landscapes, Contentious Terrains, Ecological Exile, and Gastro-Modernism.
As a Sustainability Fellow, Derek will be designing a new undergraduate course between the faculties of Arts and Education titled Environmental Humanities and Sustainability Education with co-fellow Alex Dick (English Language & Literatures).
Kathy Harrison, Faculty of Arts
To confront the climate crisis, we need not only specialized knowledge but also openness to and experience with drawing insights from those with complementary expertise. My own academic background is interdisciplinary, with degrees and professional experience in both chemical engineering and political science. I have taught courses about environmental policy in 7 programs over 25 years. I have personally benefited from co-teaching with scientists, engineers, and economists, and also witnessed that the whole is greater than the sum of the parts when teams of students draw on their diverse talents and expertise. I’m looking forward to collaborating on a new Climate Theatre course that integrates social science and performing arts, and to learning from a diverse group of USI faculty fellows this academic year.
Michele Koppes, Faculty of Arts
Michele Koppes is an Associate Professor in the Department of Geography and holds a Canada Research Chair in Landscapes of Climate Change, where she conducts research at the interface of climate science, geomorphology, glaciology, oceanography, and human adaptation and resilience. She combines field observations with spatial and contextual analysis, numerical modeling and conceptual development to gain a comprehensive understanding of the linkages between climate change, the cryosphere, oceans, land surfaces and people in the Anthropocene. Her current projects include assessing and quantifying rates of glacial, fluvial and anthropogenic erosion; the physiographic signatures of climate change; impacts of glacier change on freshwater resources; adaptation and resilience of high mountain communities; acoustic geomorphology; and decolonial approaches to earth science.
A former TED Senior Fellow and AAAS Congressional Science Fellow, Michele has extensive experience with science communication, public engagement and policy. As a Sustainability Fellow, she is working with Prof. Juanita Sundberg to develop interdisciplinary curriculum about the Anthropocene.
Vanessa De Oliveira Andreotti, Faculty of Education
Vanessa de Oliveira Andreotti is a professor at the Department of Educational Studies and holds a Canada Research Chair in Race, Inequalities and Global Change. She has extensive experience working across sectors internationally in areas of education related to global justice, community engagement, Indigenous knowledge systems and internationalization. Her research focuses on analyses of historical and systemic patterns of reproduction of knowledge and inequalities and how these mobilize global imaginaries that limit or enable different possibilities for (co)existence and global change.
Vanessa is currently directing research projects and teaching initiatives related to social innovation oriented towards decolonial futures (decolonialfutures.net and blogs.ubc.ca/earthcare).These projects draw attention to the limits of a single modern/colonial imaginary of progress, development and human evolution and the adjacent possibilities of setting horizons of hope beyond what we can imagine within modern institutions and ways of knowing and being.
Tom Scholte, Faculty of Arts
Tom is a nationally recognized actor, director, writer and producer in the realms of theatre, film, and television. Tom has been trained in the techniques of Theatre of the Oppressed and Theatre for Living by David Diamond under whose direction he was an actor and co-creator in Theatre for Living’s 'šxʷʔam̓ət (home). Since 2017, he has been the Faculty Lead and Artistic Director of Conflict Theatre@UBC, a partnership between UBC’s Departments of Human Resources, Theatre and Film, and Office of Equity and Inclusion, using Forum Theatre to explore blockages to productive and authentic communication in situations of workplace conflict. In addition to his continuing artistic practice, Tom in engaged in ongoing research exploring cybernetics in the Stanislavski System of Acting and Forum Theatre as a modelling facility for complex adaptive social systems. HIs publications on this work can be found in such the journals as Kybernetes and Constructivist Foundations. He is currently pursuing a PhD in these topics in the Centre for Systems Studies at the University of Hull (UK).
Farah Shroff, Faculty of Medicine
Farah Shroff
Dr Farah M Shroff is a passionate promoter of better health for all through social and environmental justice and mind/body wellness. As global public health educator and researcher, she has worked in many nations to support the social determinants of health and better policies for human rights. She teaches at the University of British Columbia in the Faculty of Medicine’s Department of Family Practice and School of Population and Public Health.
Juanita Sundberg, Faculty of Arts
Juanita Sundberg is an Associate Professor in the Department of Geography at the University of British Columbia. Her research brings the insights of feminist political ecology and the sensibilities of ethnography to bear on the politics of nature conservation. Dr. Sundberg’s work seeks to foster conversations between more-than-human geographies, Indigenous theories, critical theories of race, settler colonial studies, and Latin American Studies in relation to climate change and extinction. A new collaborative project with Leticia Durand, UNAM, centers on vegetal politics with a focus on how sargassum intervenes in political ecologies on the Riviera Maya.
As a Sustainability Fellow, she is working with Prof. Michele Koppes to develop interdisciplinary curriculum about the Anthropocene.
Will Valley, Faculty of Land and Food Systems
Since 2014, Will Valley has been an instructor in the Applied Biology program in the Faculty of Land and Food Systems at the University of British Columbia, Vancouver, Canada. He is also the academic director of the Land, Food and Community Series, a set of courses, from 1st through 4th year, that form the core curricula of the faculty, which bring students from the diverse set of disciplines in the faculty to work on issues of food systems sustainability, food security, and food sovereignty.
Will’s current research focus is on identifying common curricular and pedagogical themes within sustainable food systems education programs in order to analyze, collaboratively evaluate, and improve stakeholder experiences and outcomes (e.g. students, community members, and instructors). He is also involved in research that analyzes urban agriculture and municipal policy, and the design, development, and assessment of K-12 school food systems, from growing, preparing, sharing, and managing “waste”, to policy, procurement, school food environment assessments, and curricular design.
Bob Woollard, Faculty of Medicine
Dr Woollard is Professor of Family Practice at UBC. He has extensive national and international experience in the fields of medical education, the social accountability of medical schools, ecosystem approaches to health, and sustainable development. He co-chairs the Global Consensus on Social Accountability for Medical Schools (GCSA) and does extensive work in this area with many international bodies.
Naomi Zimmerman, Faculty of Applied Science
Naomi Zimmerman is an Assistant Professor in the Department of Mechanical Engineering who researches air pollution and climate change. Her research program revolves around the development and application of real-world-based tools to quickly and quantitatively assess the impact of our policy and technology decisions on air pollution and climate outcomes, and to use the knowledge gained to support better environmental policy planning. As a Sustainability Fellow, she is working with Prof. Amanda Giang to bring cross-course collaboration into her Air Pollution, Technology and Society course (MECH 410U).
2018-19 SUSTAINABILITY FELLOWS
Joe Dahmen, Faculty of Applied Science
Joe teaches design studios and courses in the architecture and landscape architecture programs and runs the Studio for Form and Energy. With his partner Amber Frid-Jimenez, Canada Research Chair in design, he runs AFJD Studio, a transdisciplinary design firm based in Vancouver. He is co-founder and Director of Sustainability at Watershed Materials LLC, an architectural materials company supported by the US National Science Foundation and private equity investment.
Joe’s research and design projects investigate the technical methods and cultural effects of resource use at the scales of architecture and territory. He is a frequent conference speaker on these topics and has consulted on projects in North America, Europe, Asia, and Africa.
Alexander Dick, Faculty of Arts
Alexander Dick is Associate Professor of English at the University of British Columbia. He is the author of Romanticism and the Gold Standard: Money, Literature, and Economic Debate in Britain 1790-1830 (Palgrave 2013) and of many articles and chapters on eighteenth- and nineteenth-century British poetry, fiction, drama, philosophy, and political economy. He is currently working on a new monograph on agricultural improvement and ecological consciousness in eighteenth- and nineteenth-century Britain, specifically on how the introduction of mass-sheep farming in the Scottish Highlands was both championed and protested in that era’s literary culture.
This work traces the origins of both the tacit approval of environmental and economic exploitation and of ideas of ecological concern and unease to the literary culture of early nineteenth-century Britain. He is also interested in the way the bizarre and paradoxical tensions between economic development and ecological concern continue to motivate Western literature, philosophy, media, and culture.
Simon Donner, Faculty of Arts
Simon Donner is a Professor of Climatology in the Department of Geography at the University of British Columbia, where he conducts research at the interface of climate science, marine science, and public policy. He is also the director of UBC’s “Ocean Leaders” program which trains graduate students to translate research into policy and management innovations.
At UBC, Simon is also affiliated with Institute of Oceans and Fisheries, Institute for Resources, Environment and Sustainability, Atmospheric Sciences Program and Liu Institute for Global Issues. Current areas of research include climate change and coral reefs; ocean warming, El Nino and sea-level rise; climate change adaptation in small island developing states; and, effective public engagement by scientists on climate change.
Amanda Giang, Faculty of Applied Science
Amanda Giang is an Assistant Professor in the Institute for Resources, Environment and Sustainability and the Department of Mechanical Engineering at UBC. Her research addresses challenges at the interface of environmental modelling and policy through an interdisciplinary lens, with a focus on air pollution and toxic chemicals. Combining integrated modelling and qualitative approaches, she is interested in understanding how environmental assessment processes can better empower communities and inform policy decision-making.
Amanda’s current projects include developing digital tools for environmental justice in Canada, assessing the prospective impacts of technology and policy change on air quality and climate in India, and modelling the impacts of global policy on mercury pollution. As a Sustainability Fellow, she is working with Prof. Terre Satterfield to develop interdisciplinary teaching case studies about the environmental, social, and technological dimensions of energy systems.
Derek Gladwin, Faculty of Education
Derek Gladwin is Assistant Professor of Language and Literacy Education, where he focuses on transformations in society and culture through environmental humanities and arts-based education. He has previously held visiting research fellowships in the environmental humanities at the University of Edinburgh and Trinity College Dublin. His authored or edited books focused on the environmental humanities and sustainability include: Eco-Joyce, Unfolding Irish Landscapes, Contentious Terrains, Ecological Exile, and Gastro-Modernism.
As a Sustainability Fellow, Derek will be designing a new undergraduate course between the faculties of Arts and Education titled Environmental Humanities and Sustainability Education with co-fellow Alex Dick (English Language & Literatures).
Peter Klein, Faculty of Arts
Peter Klein is an Associate Professor at the School of Journalism and faculty affiliate at the Liu Institute. He is also the founder and director of the UBC Global Reporting Centre, which brings scholars and journalists together to report on global issues and innovate how journalism is practiced.
Peter is principle investigator of Hidden Costs of Global Supply Chains, a SSHRC Partnership of global governance scholars and investigative reporters looking at global commerce and its connections to human rights, corruption and sustainability. His Emmy Award-winning course International Reporting brings journalism students around the world together to collaborate on major works of journalism. Peter was a long-time producer at CBS News 60 Minutes, and is a regular contributor to The Globe & Mail and The New York Times.
Vanessa de Oliveira Andreotti, Faculty of Education
Vanessa de Oliveira Andreotti is a professor at the Department of Educational Studies and holds a Canada Research Chair in Race, Inequalities and Global Change. She has extensive experience working across sectors internationally in areas of education related to global justice, community engagement, Indigenous knowledge systems and internationalization. Her research focuses on analyses of historical and systemic patterns of reproduction of knowledge and inequalities and how these mobilize global imaginaries that limit or enable different possibilities for (co)existence and global change.
Vanessa is currently directing research projects and teaching initiatives related to social innovation oriented towards decolonial futures (decolonialfutures.net and blogs.ubc.ca/earthcare).These projects draw attention to the limits of a single modern/colonial imaginary of progress, development and human evolution and the adjacent possibilities of setting horizons of hope beyond what we can imagine within modern institutions and ways of knowing and being.
Jenny Peterson, Faculty of Arts
Jenny Peterson is an Instructor in the Department of Political Science and she also teaches at UBC’s Vantage College. She is broadly interested in the politics of international aid with her past work analysing process of liberal peacebuilding and critiques thereof. Finding much of this critical work homogenizing of a diverse range of processes she has recently began exploring conceptual and empirical deviations from the liberal model.
Engaging with debates on agonism, resistance, hybridity and political space Jenny is now exploring diversity and innovation, both local and international, in peace/justice movements. She has conducted research and led student fieldtrips in Kosovo, Sri Lanka and Ghana. Her teaching interests include international relations, comparative politics, humanitarian studies and peace studies.
Gabriel Potvin, Faculty of Applied Science
Gabriel Potvin is an Instructor in the Department of Chemical and Biological Engineering, and the current Chair of the Applied Science program in Vantage College. He has a background in biochemistry, industrial microbiology, and bioprocess engineering, with a focus on the development of novel recombinant platforms for the sustainable production of industrially-relevant enzymes, and the cultivation of microalgae for the production of biomass and lipids used for energy and biofuel production.
Gabriel has extensive experience in public science and engineering education outreach, and has won several awards for this work. He is currently particularly interested in international education and the development of interdisciplinary education opportunities in engineering programs.
Geraldine Pratt, Faculty of Arts
Geraldine Pratt is a Professor in the Department of Geography and Canada Research Chair in Transnationalism and Precarious Labour. Her research focuses on precarious labour, migration and care work. She has co-written two plays pertaining to Filipino migrant domestic workers (Nanay and Tlingipino Bingo), which have been performed in Vancouver, Whitehorse, Berlin, Edinburgh and Manila.
Geraldine has been teaching about acoustic ecologies since 2011; in some years UBC geography undergraduate students have presented their acoustic cartographies at the Western Front.
Terre Satterfield, Faculty of Science
An anthropologist by training and an interdisciplinarian by design, Terre’s work concerns sustainable development in the context of debates about cultural meanings, environmental values, perceived risk, environmental and ecosystem health. Difficult environmental policy dilemmas and the qualitative and quantitative methods that might resolve these are of particular interest. Locally, her work pertains to First Nations interest in land management, oil and gas development, and regulatory contexts. Globally, her research incorporates biodiversity management and politics, and the perceived risk of new technologies (biotechnology, fracking and nanotechnology). Terre is also a board member or research scientist for several international initiatives that seek to better integrate social science research into policy analysis normally led by the natural and engineering scientists.
Will Valley, Faculty of Land and Food Systems
Since 2014, Will Valley has been an instructor in the Applied Biology program in the Faculty of Land and Food Systems at the University of British Columbia, Vancouver, Canada. He is also the academic director of the Land, Food and Community Series, a set of courses, from 1st through 4th year, that form the core curricula of the faculty, which bring students from the diverse set of disciplines in the faculty to work on issues of food systems sustainability, food security, and food sovereignty.
Will’s current research focus is on identifying common curricular and pedagogical themes within sustainable food systems education programs in order to analyze, collaboratively evaluate, and improve stakeholder experiences and outcomes (e.g. students, community members, and instructors). He is also involved in research that analyzes urban agriculture and municipal policy, and the design, development, and assessment of K-12 school food systems, from growing, preparing, sharing, and managing “waste”, to policy, procurement, school food environment assessments, and curricular design.
2017-18 SUSTAINABILITY FELLOWS
Patrick Robertson, Faculty of Education
Deeply involved in sustainability education and environmental learning for close to 20 years, Patrick is a teacher educator and consultant working collaboratively with a wide range of partners in BC and Canada.
An award-winning educator and accomplished public speaker, he is the principal of Syncollab Strategies, a consulting collaborative based in Vancouver, where he works to build strategic partnerships, influence curriculum and other policy, and manage diverse projects with a variety of local, provincial and national clients and partners.
Patrick also teaches in the Faculty of Education at the University of British Columbia and is a director of various community organizations focused on sustainability, social justice, literacy and the environment. His USI Pathways Initiative, with co-fellow Dr. Rob Van Wynsberghe, the Faculty of Education and community partners, is exploring Sustainability Learning Pathways in Teacher Education at UBC.
Rob VanWynsberghe, Faculty of Education
Rob VanWynsberghe is an Associate Professor in the Department of Educational Studies (EDST) (robvanwynsberghe.ca). He has a PhD in Sociology. He has an abiding research interest in human action and sustainability, especially as influenced by social movement theories, and the purported links between knowledge and change.
Most recently, the social philosophies of pragmatism and practice theory are beginning to bridge what he considers to be important pedagogical gaps in designing socially conscious classrooms. Rob conducts research that defines sustainability as a global social movement and this conceptualization is the main reason why he wants to contribute to meaningful articulations between classrooms and communities.
Working in EDST is a significant factor in his claiming that such collaborations will succeed if creative thoughts, disruptive situations, new norms, and non-standard rewards can coalesce individual and collective action into a better society. You can check out his 2016 book here (utorontopress.com/9781442630406/adaptive-education/) and for details of exciting new Education for Sustainability M.Ed. go to (edst.educ.ubc.ca/programs/education-for-sustainability).
Hannah Wittman, Faculty of Land and Food Systems
Hannah Wittman is Academic Director of the Centre for Sustainable Food Systems at UBC Farm and Associate Professor at UBC, with a dual appointment in the Faculty of Land and Food Systems, and the Institute for Resources, Environment and Sustainability (IRES). Trained in rural and environmental sociology, she conducts community-based research and outreach related to food sovereignty, agrarian reform, farm to school programs, and pathways towards a transition to sustainable agriculture and health equity in Canada and Latin America.
As a USI Sustainability Pathways Fellow, she is leading a team of students and faculty on an initiative to create and deliver a Sustainable Food Systems Minor available to undergraduate students across UBC, using the UBC campus as a Living Laboratory. Her recent edited books include Environment and Citizenship in Latin America: Natures, Subjects and Struggles Food Sovereignty: Reconnecting Food, Nature and Community, and Food Sovereignty in Canada: Creating Just and Sustainable Food Systems.
2016-17 SUSTAINABILITY FELLOWS
Neil Guppy, Sociology
Neil Guppy is Professor of Sociology at the University of British Columbia. At UBC he was Associate Dean (Students) from 1996 to 1999, Associate Vice-President (Academic Programs) from 1999 to 2004, and Head of Sociology from 2005 to 2013. He is a graduate of Queen’s University (BA/BPHE) and the University of Waterloo (MSc/PhD, 1981). He has published several books, including Education in Canada (Statistics Canada, 1998, with Scott Davies), The Schooled Society (Oxford University Press, 2014, 3rd edition; with Scott Davies), and Successful Surveys (4th edition, Thomson Nelson, 2008, with George Gray). He has just published, with Dr. George Ritzer, a leading introductory text in sociology.
Recently his work on public opinion and immigration has appeared in the American Sociological Review and International Migration Review, and a paper on science policy was in Canadian Public Policy. His latest work examines gender roles in science education and his most recent paper is on the “Rise and Stall of the Gender-equity Revolution in Canada.” With the University Sustainability Initiative he is working on integrating more content on the environment and sustainability into introductory sociology (Sociology 100) at UBC.
Tamar Milne, Sauder School of Business
Tamar Milne is a full-time lecturer in the Marketing & Behavioural Science division, co-chair of the Sustainability & Ethics Group, and an instructor in the Ch’nook Initiative (indigenous business education program) at the Sauder School of Business. She teaches courses in ethics, sustainability, social entrepreneurship, business fundamentals, and marketing at the BCOM, MM, and MBA levels. In 2012/13, Tamar was awarded a UBC Killam Teaching Prize for teaching excellence, with specific recognition of her initiative in adopting new learning technologies and her experience in pioneering and redesigning innovative courses. Tamar has two decades of management experience in sustainability, marketing, sales, and communications in a wide variety of sectors, including natural resources, tourism, transportation, and consumer products. She completed her BCom at the University of British Columbia and her MA at Royal Roads University.
David Tindall, Forestry and Sociology
David is a USI Sustainability Teaching Fellow at the University of British Columbia where he is also an Associate Professor in the departments of Forest Resources Management, and Sociology. His research programme focuses on contention over environmental issues, including climate change, forestry, and wilderness preservation. This involves studies of the role of social networks in the environmental movement, values and attitudes about environmental issues, climate change policy networks, climate justice, and relations between Aboriginals and non-aboriginals regarding natural resource and other environmental issues. In the context of his research, David Tindall collaborates with a variety of NGOs. David Tindall teaches graduate courses on social research methods, social network analysis, and undergraduate courses on forests and society, social survey methods, and sociology and natural resources. His new co-edited book (with Ronald Trosper and Pamela Perreault) is entitled, Aboriginal Peoples and Forest Lands in Canada, published in 2013 by UBC Press. In addition to his academic work, David Tindall is a Presenter for the Climate Reality Project Canada. He was born in Vancouver, where he also currently resides. He has a Ph.D. in Sociology from the University of Toronto, and an M.A. and a B.A. from the University of Victoria.
Patrick Robertson, Faculty of Education
Deeply involved in sustainability education and environmental learning for close to 20 years, Patrick is a teacher educator and consultant working collaboratively with a wide range of partners in BC and Canada.
An award-winning educator and accomplished public speaker, he is the principal of Syncollab Strategies, a consulting collaborative based in Vancouver, where he works to build strategic partnerships, influence curriculum and other policy, and manage diverse projects with a variety of local, provincial and national clients and partners.
Patrick also teaches in the Faculty of Education at the University of British Columbia and is a director of various community organizations focused on sustainability, social justice, literacy and the environment. His USI Pathways Initiative, with co-fellow Dr. Rob Van Wynsberghe, the Faculty of Education and community partners, is exploring Sustainability Learning Pathways in Teacher Education at UBC.
Rob VanWynsberghe, Faculty of Education
Rob VanWynsberghe is an Associate Professor in the Department of Educational Studies (EDST) (robvanwynsberghe.ca). He has a PhD in Sociology. He has an abiding research interest in human action and sustainability, especially as influenced by social movement theories, and the purported links between knowledge and change.
Most recently, the social philosophies of pragmatism and practice theory are beginning to bridge what he considers to be important pedagogical gaps in designing socially conscious classrooms. Rob conducts research that defines sustainability as a global social movement and this conceptualization is the main reason why he wants to contribute to meaningful articulations between classrooms and communities.
Working in EDST is a significant factor in his claiming that such collaborations will succeed if creative thoughts, disruptive situations, new norms, and non-standard rewards can coalesce individual and collective action into a better society. You can check out his 2016 book here (utorontopress.com/9781442630406/adaptive-education/) and for details of exciting new Education for Sustainability M.Ed. go to (edst.educ.ubc.ca/programs/education-for-sustainability).
Hannah Wittman, Faculty of Land and Food Systems
Hannah Wittman is Academic Director of the Centre for Sustainable Food Systems at UBC Farm and Associate Professor at UBC, with a dual appointment in the Faculty of Land and Food Systems, and the Institute for Resources, Environment and Sustainability (IRES). Trained in rural and environmental sociology, she conducts community-based research and outreach related to food sovereignty, agrarian reform, farm to school programs, and pathways towards a transition to sustainable agriculture and health equity in Canada and Latin America.
As a USI Sustainability Pathways Fellow, she is leading a team of students and faculty on an initiative to create and deliver a Sustainable Food Systems Minor available to undergraduate students across UBC, using the UBC campus as a Living Laboratory. Her recent edited books include Environment and Citizenship in Latin America: Natures, Subjects and Struggles Food Sovereignty: Reconnecting Food, Nature and Community, and Food Sovereignty in Canada: Creating Just and Sustainable Food Systems.
2015-16 Sustainability Fellows
Susan Nesbit, Civil Engineering and Senior Fellow
Dr. Nesbit, a Professor of Teaching, is a leader in sustainability education and has designed several courses to introduce students to sustainability concepts and community service learning in an engineering context. Dr. Nesbit's teaching achievements have been cited by engineering educators across North America for their excellence. She was an inaugural USI teaching fellow at UBC (2010-2011) and chaired the 2014-2015 cohort of the USI's teaching fellows. In 2015, she co-chaired the seventh international conference on Engineering Education for Sustainable Development (eesd15.engineering.ubc.ca).
Brett Eaton, Geography
Brett is an Associate Professor in Geography at the University of British Columbia, conducting research on the processes controlling stream dynamics, and developing tools that apply this research to better understand the influence of floods, forest fires and dam construction on river systems. He is currently the Vice President of the Canadian Geophysical Union, and an associate editor for the Journal of Geophysical Research - Earth Surface. As an course instructor and advisor, Brett is actively engaged in training students for careers in environmental consulting, and helping them navigate the process of registration with various professional organizations. He has been UBC’s representative on the Geoscience Council of the Association of Professional Engineers and Geoscientists of BC since 2007, and he plays an important role in defining the curricular requirements for registration with APEGBC. Since joining the University Sustainabiliy Initiative at UBC, Brett has led a project to develop a sustainability pathway for students in the BSc and BA specializations offered by Geography, and have contributed to an ongoing curricular renewal intended to increase the sustainability-related content in the courses offered by Geography.
Naoko Ellis, Chemical and Biological Engineering
Naoko is an Associate Professor in the Department of Chemical and Biological Engineering at the University of British Columbia (UBC). Her expertise lies in the area of multiphase reaction engineering with emphasis on fluidized beds. Some current projects include: biomass gasification and pyrolysis; chemical looping combustion; pyrolysis product utilization including bio-oil and biochar applications; and biofuels. She is passionate about engaging others on sustainability related issues, and developing ways to advance environmental literacy. She has developed CHBE 573/CIVL 598: Environmental Engineering and Sustainability Leadership; taught APSC 262: Society and Technology; and CHBE 344/363 Unit Operations and Process Engineering Laboratory - all infusing sustainability framework/component into teaching. She is the co-founder and an active member of the department’s CHBE Sustainability Club, enjoys being outdoors, cycling to work, and taking care of the worm boxes at home.
Tara Ivanochko, Earth and Ocean Sciences
Tara Ivanochko is an Instructor in the Department of Earth, Ocean and Atmospheric Sciences (EOAS). Her background research was in paleooceanography with a focus on changes in the Indian monsoon over the last 100,000 years and the global interconnections of the climate system over this time scale. She is currently Director of the Environmental Science program and teaching the three core courses in this program. These classes are designed to follow and build on one another to develop an integrated systems thinking approach to environmental science and to give the students a solid background in conducting science research. Tara is also involved in developing sustainability education and community service learning opportunities in the Faculty of Science and EOAS.
Neil Guppy, Sociology
Neil Guppy is Professor of Sociology at the University of British Columbia. At UBC he was Associate Dean (Students) from 1996 to 1999, Associate Vice-President (Academic Programs) from 1999 to 2004, and Head of Sociology from 2005 to 2013. He is a graduate of Queen’s University (BA/BPHE) and the University of Waterloo (MSc/PhD, 1981). He has published several books, including Education in Canada (Statistics Canada, 1998, with Scott Davies), The Schooled Society (Oxford University Press, 2014, 3rd edition; with Scott Davies), and Successful Surveys (4th edition, Thomson Nelson, 2008, with George Gray). He has just published, with Dr. George Ritzer, a leading introductory text in sociology.
Recently his work on public opinion and immigration has appeared in the American Sociological Review and International Migration Review, and a paper on science policy was in Canadian Public Policy. His latest work examines gender roles in science education and his most recent paper is on the “Rise and Stall of the Gender-equity Revolution in Canada.” With the University Sustainability Initiative he is working on integrating more content on the environment and sustainability into introductory sociology (Sociology 100) at UBC.
Tamar Milne, Sauder School of Business
Tamar Milne is a full-time lecturer in the Marketing & Behavioural Science division, co-chair of the Sustainability & Ethics Group, and an instructor in the Ch’nook Initiative (indigenous business education program) at the Sauder School of Business. She teaches courses in ethics, sustainability, social entrepreneurship, business fundamentals, and marketing at the BCOM, MM, and MBA levels. In 2012/13, Tamar was awarded a UBC Killam Teaching Prize for teaching excellence, with specific recognition of her initiative in adopting new learning technologies and her experience in pioneering and redesigning innovative courses. Tamar has two decades of management experience in sustainability, marketing, sales, and communications in a wide variety of sectors, including natural resources, tourism, transportation, and consumer products. She completed her BCom at the University of British Columbia and her MA at Royal Roads University.
David Tindall, Forestry and Sociology
David is a USI Sustainability Teaching Fellow at the University of British Columbia where he is also an Associate Professor in the departments of Forest Resources Management, and Sociology. His research programme focuses on contention over environmental issues, including climate change, forestry, and wilderness preservation. This involves studies of the role of social networks in the environmental movement, values and attitudes about environmental issues, climate change policy networks, climate justice, and relations between Aboriginals and non-aboriginals regarding natural resource and other environmental issues. In the context of his research, David Tindall collaborates with a variety of NGOs. David Tindall teaches graduate courses on social research methods, social network analysis, and undergraduate courses on forests and society, social survey methods, and sociology and natural resources. His new co-edited book (with Ronald Trosper and Pamela Perreault) is entitled, Aboriginal Peoples and Forest Lands in Canada, published in 2013 by UBC Press. In addition to his academic work, David Tindall is a Presenter for the Climate Reality Project Canada. He was born in Vancouver, where he also currently resides. He has a Ph.D. in Sociology from the University of Toronto, and an M.A. and a B.A. from the University of Victoria.
2014-15 Sustainability Fellows
Eric Cytrybaum, Mathematics
Juanita Sundberg, Geography
Charles Menzies, Anthroplogy
Susan Nesbit, Civil Engineering and Senior Fellow
Dr. Nesbit, a Professor of Teaching, is a leader in sustainability education and has designed several courses to introduce students to sustainability concepts and community service learning in an engineering context. Dr. Nesbit's teaching achievements have been cited by engineering educators across North America for their excellence. She was an inaugural USI teaching fellow at UBC (2010-2011) and chaired the 2014-2015 cohort of the USI's teaching fellows. In 2015, she co-chaired the seventh international conference on Engineering Education for Sustainable Development (eesd15.engineering.ubc.ca).
Brett Eaton, Geography
Brett is an Associate Professor in Geography at the University of British Columbia, conducting research on the processes controlling stream dynamics, and developing tools that apply this research to better understand the influence of floods, forest fires and dam construction on river systems. He is currently the Vice President of the Canadian Geophysical Union, and an associate editor for the Journal of Geophysical Research - Earth Surface. As an course instructor and advisor, Brett is actively engaged in training students for careers in environmental consulting, and helping them navigate the process of registration with various professional organizations. He has been UBC’s representative on the Geoscience Council of the Association of Professional Engineers and Geoscientists of BC since 2007, and he plays an important role in defining the curricular requirements for registration with APEGBC. Since joining the University Sustainabiliy Initiative at UBC, Brett has led a project to develop a sustainability pathway for students in the BSc and BA specializations offered by Geography, and have contributed to an ongoing curricular renewal intended to increase the sustainability-related content in the courses offered by Geography.
Neil Guppy, Sociology
Neil Guppy is Professor of Sociology at the University of British Columbia. At UBC he was Associate Dean (Students) from 1996 to 1999, Associate Vice-President (Academic Programs) from 1999 to 2004, and Head of Sociology from 2005 to 2013. He is a graduate of Queen’s University (BA/BPHE) and the University of Waterloo (MSc/PhD, 1981). He has published several books, including Education in Canada (Statistics Canada, 1998, with Scott Davies), The Schooled Society (Oxford University Press, 2014, 3rd edition; with Scott Davies), and Successful Surveys (4th edition, Thomson Nelson, 2008, with George Gray). He has just published, with Dr. George Ritzer, a leading introductory text in sociology.
Recently his work on public opinion and immigration has appeared in the American Sociological Review and International Migration Review, and a paper on science policy was in Canadian Public Policy. His latest work examines gender roles in science education and his most recent paper is on the “Rise and Stall of the Gender-equity Revolution in Canada.” With the University Sustainability Initiative he is working on integrating more content on the environment and sustainability into introductory sociology (Sociology 100) at UBC.
Naoko Ellis, Chemical and Biological Engineering
Naoko is an Associate Professor in the Department of Chemical and Biological Engineering at the University of British Columbia (UBC). Her expertise lies in the area of multiphase reaction engineering with emphasis on fluidized beds. Some current projects include: biomass gasification and pyrolysis; chemical looping combustion; pyrolysis product utilization including bio-oil and biochar applications; and biofuels. She is passionate about engaging others on sustainability related issues, and developing ways to advance environmental literacy. She has developed CHBE 573/CIVL 598: Environmental Engineering and Sustainability Leadership; taught APSC 262: Society and Technology; and CHBE 344/363 Unit Operations and Process Engineering Laboratory - all infusing sustainability framework/component into teaching. She is the co-founder and an active member of the department’s CHBE Sustainability Club, enjoys being outdoors, cycling to work, and taking care of the worm boxes at home.
Tara Ivanochko, Earth and Ocean Sciences
Tara Ivanochko is an Instructor in the Department of Earth, Ocean and Atmospheric Sciences (EOAS). Her background research was in paleooceanography with a focus on changes in the Indian monsoon over the last 100,000 years and the global interconnections of the climate system over this time scale. She is currently Director of the Environmental Science program and teaching the three core courses in this program. These classes are designed to follow and build on one another to develop an integrated systems thinking approach to environmental science and to give the students a solid background in conducting science research. Tara is also involved in developing sustainability education and community service learning opportunities in the Faculty of Science and EOAS.
2013-14 Sustainability Fellows
Jedediah Brodie, Botany and Zoology
Jedediah is an Assistant Professor of Conservation Ecology with the departments of Botany and Zoology. He studies the ecology, evolution, and conservation of animals and plants, with a current focus on tropical rainforests of Southeast Asia. Jedediah tries to understand fundamental ecological patterns as well as assess the impacts of climate change, habitat disturbance, and hunting. He is currently the Communications Director for the Society for Conservation Biology Asia Section. Jedediah was a Fulbright Fellow to Malaysia and a David H. Smith Conservation Research Fellow. He feels that limiting the near-term impacts of climatic and other global changes depends on understanding the resilience of ecosystems to altered environmental conditions. Critical gaps remain in understanding the responses of ecosystems to global change, severely hindering society's ability to ameliorate these impacts. Jedediah's research seeks to improve our understanding of biodiversity alterations under conditions of ongoing global changes. This will contribute to developing theoretical structures for the changing ecology of ecosystems, upon which management and conservation decisions can be made and improved. (jedediahbrodie.weebly.com)
Daniel Roehr, School of Architecture and Landscape Architecture
Daniel is an Associate Professor at the School of Architecture and Landscape Architecture. He is director of Greenskins Lab, a research group that disseminates information on urban design retrofits and new approaches that improve the ecological functions of public open spaces. Currently the lab investigates the efficiency of living roofs as an integral part of a stormwater mitigation strategy that also includes green façades and green streets. The research focuses on the integration of living roofs as part of a holistic system for stormwater management. The team regularly publishes and Daniel is currently writing a book titled “Green Roofs in Integrated Urban Water Systems” for Routledge. The team conducts expertise reports and consult professionally. Daniel is a registered landscape architect in British Columbia and Germany and a horticulturalist, has practiced in Europe, Japan, the United States, and China and took part in numerous national and international competitions.
Kate White, Sauder School of Business
Kate is an associate professor and division chair of marketing at the Sauder School of Business. Kate has a chaired position in Consumer Insights, Prosocial Consumption, and Sustainability; and she teaches courses in consumer behavior and sustainability marketing at the BCOM, MBA, and Ph.D. levels. Kate’s research is focused on how social influence can impact consumer decision making and she is particularly interested in how sustainable and ethical consumer behaviors can be encouraged. Kate completed her Ph.D. at the University of British Columbia, her M.A. at the University of Waterloo, and her B.A. at Simon Fraser University. Her published work has appeared in top tier journals including Journal of Consumer Research, Journal of Marketing Research, Journal of Marketing, and Journal of Personality and Social Psychology.
Loch Brown, Geography
Loch is an Instructor for the Environment and Sustainability Program with the Department of Geography. Coming from a background in Sustainable Development in Sub-Saharan Africa, Loch’s research has explored topics ranging from the role of collective action in realizing more sustainable forms of development in The Gambia to the institutional barriers to HIV/AIDS prevention and treatment in South Africa. He is currently lead faculty on the Environment and Sustainability (E&S) Undergraduate Program, where he teaches on seven courses and spearheads curriculum development. Loch has recently teamed up with the Flexible Learning Initiative to integrate more flexible student-centered educational approaches, tools, and technologies across the E&S program in order to enhance student learning in this highly complex and inherently interdisciplinary field. He is also interested in the innovation of teaching technologies, and is currently lead on a project developing interactive digital landscape models to simulate field based learning.
Naoko Ellis, Chemical and Biological Engineering
Naoko is an Associate Professor in the Department of Chemical and Biological Engineering at the University of British Columbia (UBC). Her expertise lies in the area of multiphase reaction engineering with emphasis on fluidized beds. Some current projects include: biomass gasification and pyrolysis; chemical looping combustion; pyrolysis product utilization including bio-oil and biochar applications; and biofuels. She is passionate about engaging others on sustainability related issues, and developing ways to advance environmental literacy. She has developed CHBE 573/CIVL 598: Environmental Engineering and Sustainability Leadership; taught APSC 262: Society and Technology; and CHBE 344/363 Unit Operations and Process Engineering Laboratory - all infusing sustainability framework/component into teaching. She is the co-founder and an active member of the department’s CHBE Sustainability Club, enjoys being outdoors, cycling to work, and taking care of the worm boxes at home.
Tara Ivanochko, Earth and Ocean Sciences
Tara Ivanochko is an Instructor in the Department of Earth, Ocean and Atmospheric Sciences (EOAS). Her background research was in paleooceanography with a focus on changes in the Indian monsoon over the last 100,000 years and the global interconnections of the climate system over this time scale. She is currently Director of the Environmental Science program and teaching the three core courses in this program. These classes are designed to follow and build on one another to develop an integrated systems thinking approach to environmental science and to give the students a solid background in conducting science research. Tara is also involved in developing sustainability education and community service learning opportunities in the Faculty of Science and EOAS.
David Tindall, Forestry and Sociology
David is a USI Sustainability Teaching Fellow at the University of British Columbia where he is also an Associate Professor in the departments of Forest Resources Management, and Sociology. His research programme focuses on contention over environmental issues, including climate change, forestry, and wilderness preservation. This involves studies of the role of social networks in the environmental movement, values and attitudes about environmental issues, climate change policy networks, climate justice, and relations between Aboriginals and non-aboriginals regarding natural resource and other environmental issues. In the context of his research, David Tindall collaborates with a variety of NGOs. David Tindall teaches graduate courses on social research methods, social network analysis, and undergraduate courses on forests and society, social survey methods, and sociology and natural resources. His new co-edited book (with Ronald Trosper and Pamela Perreault) is entitled, Aboriginal Peoples and Forest Lands in Canada, published in 2013 by UBC Press. In addition to his academic work, David Tindall is a Presenter for the Climate Reality Project Canada. He was born in Vancouver, where he also currently resides. He has a Ph.D. in Sociology from the University of Toronto, and an M.A. and a B.A. from the University of Victoria.
Don Krug, Faculty of Education
Don was a Professor in the Faculty of Education and his research was organized around the complex relationships of education (curriculum, pedagogy, cognition, and policy), technologies (emerging media and popular culture and information and communication technology integration); culture (identity, place, aesthetics); communication (language, representation, social networking, simulations, visualization); sustainability (ecologies, economics, societies, and cultures) and social justice (equity, democracy, affirmation and activism). He studied and developed ways to bring these interconnected domains of knowledge into educational settings for pragmatic and critical inquiry by K-12 teachers, students and post-secondary researchers, for example, developing pedagogical communication strategies to identify and study the intertextual meanings of "greenwashing" and how and why nature is sometimes used deceptively to market commercial products as environmentally friendly such as a soft drink machine covered with the image of a rainforest. Dr. Krug passed away in 2017. In Memoriam
2012-13 Sustainability Fellows
Gregory Dake, Chemistry
Greg is a faculty member in the Department of Chemistry in the Faculty of Science. His graduate training and research interests are focused on synthetic organic chemistry, with an emphasis on highly selective routes and methods for the construction of complex organic molecules. He has presented courses on the fundamentals of organic chemistry for Chemistry and non-Chemistry undergraduate students, advanced synthetic organic chemistry methods and tactics for Chemistry majors, and the use and application of transition metal catalysis in organic chemistry for Chemistry graduate students. Recently, he has developed a new course for Science students with a general interest in Chemistry relating to the impact of chemistry on society, "Chemistry: Global Challenges" that focuses on the practical developments that Chemistry has brought society with some of the challenges—and solutions—for society in the future.
Don Krug, Faculty of Education
Don was a Professor in the Faculty of Education and his research was organized around the complex relationships of education (curriculum, pedagogy, cognition, and policy), technologies (emerging media and popular culture and information and communication technology integration); culture (identity, place, aesthetics); communication (language, representation, social networking, simulations, visualization); sustainability (ecologies, economics, societies, and cultures) and social justice (equity, democracy, affirmation and activism). He studied and developed ways to bring these interconnected domains of knowledge into educational settings for pragmatic and critical inquiry by K-12 teachers, students and post-secondary researchers, for example, developing pedagogical communication strategies to identify and study the intertextual meanings of "greenwashing" and how and why nature is sometimes used deceptively to market commercial products as environmentally friendly such as a soft drink machine covered with the image of a rainforest. Dr. Krug passed away in 2017. In Memoriam
Tara Ivanochko, Earth and Ocean Sciences
Tara Ivanochko is an Instructor in the Department of Earth, Ocean and Atmospheric Sciences (EOAS). Her background research was in paleooceanography with a focus on changes in the Indian monsoon over the last 100,000 years and the global interconnections of the climate system over this time scale. She is currently Director of the Environmental Science program and teaching the three core courses in this program. These classes are designed to follow and build on one another to develop an integrated systems thinking approach to environmental science and to give the students a solid background in conducting science research. Tara is also involved in developing sustainability education and community service learning opportunities in the Faculty of Science and EOAS.
Peter N. Nemetz, Sauder School of Business
Peter is a Professor of Strategy and Business Economics at the Sauder School of Business. He received his B.A. in Economics and Political Science from UBC, and an A.M. and Ph.D. in Economics from Harvard University. His principal area of research has been in the allied fields of natural resource and environmental economics and sustainability, supplemented with research in the area of epidemiology through an ongoing research appointment in the Department of Health Sciences Research at the Mayo Clinic in Rochester, MN since 1986.
From 2006 to 2012, he served as coordinator of Sauder’s MBA specialization in sustainability and business, a program that he helped develop and implement, andhe has been actively involved in developing and teaching in the Undergraduate Concentration in sustainability and business. He was Editor-in-Chief of the Journal of Business Administration from 1978 to 2004, and is a member of the editorial board of the Journal of International Business Education. He has been Program Chair of The Vancouver Institute from 1987 to date and has been a consultant to government and several corporations in the areas of energy policy, natural disasters and risk analysis. He has published numerous works in the area of sustainability, including: Bringing Business On Board: Sustainable Development and the B-School Curriculum, co-sponsored by the National Round Table for the Environment and the Economy, 2002 [Distributed by UBC Press]; Sustainable Resource Management: Reality or Illusion? Edward Elgar, 2007; and Business and the Sustainability Challenge: An Integrated Approach, Routledge, forthcoming March 2013.
Alejandro Rojas, Land and Food Systems
Alejandro was an Associate Professor at the Faculty of Land and Food Systems, where he taught for nearly 20 years and was one of the two founders of the Graduate Program in Integrated Studies in Land and Food Systems. Originally from Chile, he held a PhD in Sociology and conducted postdoctoral research in Ecological Anthropology on sustainable rural communities in Latin America. His greatest academic greatest passion was sustainability education. Alejandro was the Principal Investigator of Think & EatGreen @ School, a community-based action research project housed at UBC supported by SSHRCC (2010-15), involving 30 co-investigators from the university, public schools, the food, public health and environment communities, promoting change in what students eat, learn, and do at elementary and high schools in relation to food, health, the environment, and sustainability.
Alejandro was also the Principal Investigator on two projects on food security and sustainability in the city of Vancouver (2000-2008) and at UBC campus, the UBC Food System Project (2002-2009). He was a Co-Investigator on a Social Science and Humanities Research Council of Canada’s International Major Collaborative Research Initiative on Institutional Adaptations to Climate Change (2004-2009) and was a member of the leading team of a Canadian-Chilean project about Vulnerability and Adaptation in Rural Communities to Climate Change and Water Scarcity (2004-2009). Alejandro led a 4-year Chilean-Canadian research project on Adaptive Environmental Conflict Resolution. He was also an Associate Researcher with a CIDA Tier 1 project on Eco-system Approach to Health inn Ecuador involving teams from UBC and three public universities from Ecuador. He inspired many students to think differently about food system issues through developing systems thinking competencies, interdisciplinary collaboration, and community- based experiential learning. Dr. Rojas passed away in 2018. His passion, vision, and leadership in teaching, research, and community engagement will always be missed.
Andrew Riseman, Land and Food Systems
Andrew is an Associate Professor in the Faculty of Land and Food Systems, with a strong interest in student-centered, active pedagogies and in developing learning objects and technologies that help create enhanced learning environments. Andrew’s research focuses on breeding of crops for sustainable production systems and helping to create more sustainable food systems integrated with attractive and livable communities. Andrew is also the USI-UBC Farm Liaison, the Academic Director for Centre for Sustainable Food Systems-UBC Farm, a researcher at the UBC Botanical Garden, and an Associate Member in the Department of Botany.
2011-12 Sustainability Fellows
Andrew Riseman, Land and Food Systems
Andrew is an Associate Professor in the Faculty of Land and Food Systems, with a strong interest in student-centered, active pedagogies and in developing learning objects and technologies that help create enhanced learning environments. Andrew’s research focuses on breeding of crops for sustainable production systems and helping to create more sustainable food systems integrated with attractive and livable communities. Andrew is also the USI-UBC Farm Liaison, the Academic Director for Centre for Sustainable Food Systems-UBC Farm, a researcher at the UBC Botanical Garden, and an Associate Member in the Department of Botany.
Anneliese Schultz, Arts
Anneliese began lecturing in Italian at UBC in 1991, and for the past four years has taught all of her courses as ‘Green Italian’, incorporating sustainability into the syllabus. Anneliese was the first recipient of the ReThink award, given by the student organization Common Energy to recognize faculty who are incorporating sustainability and climate change into their curriculum, and her article “Green Italian: Changing Course in Time?” was published in TAG’s “Tapestry” Magazine in 2009. She has held fellowships to Bread Loaf Writers' Conference and Praxis Screenwriting Workshop, and her fiction has been published in various magazines and anthologies. Her short play, "27 Years", was produced in 2007 and published in 2008, and she has just completed a post-carbon Young Adult novel," Distant Dream".
Eric Mazzi, Applied Science
Eric is an Instructor at UBC's Clean Energy Research Centre, focusing on demand-side energy efficiency and conservation. He has B.Sc. and M.Sc. degrees in mechanical engineering, and completed his Ph.D. in Resources & Environment. His interests include both technology and policy aspects of energy systems, particularly for transportation, heavy industry, and electric power generation.
Kurt Grimm, Science
Kurt Grimm was an associate professor in the Department of Earth and Ocean Sciences at the University of British Columbia. From his foundations in Earth systems science and applied ecology, he was interested in the origins of patterning in the real world and was developing a simple unified description of phenomena in the natural world that delivered broad explanatory power and explicit testability. Topics of interest included self-organizing complexity, environmental and planetary Earth sciences, transformative sustainability learning and A Unified Description of Life (AUDOL). Conceptual and teaching innovations arising inform Life, health, climate and sustainability sciences. Dr. Grimm passed away in 2016. In Memoriam
Erica Frank, Medicine
Erica Frank, MD, MPH is a professor in the School of Population and Public Health at UBC, and a Canada Research Chair. She is the founder and principal investigator of the “Healthy Doc = Healthy Patient” initiative which delineates and builds on the relationship between physicians’ personal and clinical practices. Erica is also founder and director of Health Sciences Online (www.hso.info), which aims to create a global virtual health sciences university. She is also past president of Physicians for Social Responsibility.
Ron Kellett, Applied Science (SALA)
Ronald Kellett is a Professor of Landscape Architecture in the School of Architecture + Landscape Architecture at the University of British Columbia where he teaches and undertakes research linking issues of environment and sustainability to the form and spatial patterns of cities. He holds degrees in Environmental Studies and Architecture and has practiced and taught architecture and urban design at the Universities of Oregon and British Columbia. His work has contributed to the development of environment- and sustainability- oriented urban design knowledge, prototypes, standards, guidelines, design tools and indicators.
Stephen Sheppard, Forestry/Applied Sciences
Dr. Stephen Sheppard is a Professor in the Department of Forest Resources Management and the School of Architecture and Landscape Architecture. He is Director of CALP, a research group which applies environmental psychology methods, visualization, and spatial analysis to planning and community engagement on climate change and sustainability. Dr. Sheppard chairs the social mobilization research theme at the Pacific Institute for Climate Solutions, and has overseen the planning and design of UBC’s new BC Hydro Decision Theatre in the Centre for Interactive Research on Sustainability. Using novel technologies, it fosters collaboration among scientists, managers, stakeholders and policy-makers in moving to sustainable neighbourhoods, both on campus and as an agent of change in the community.
Laurel Schafer, Science
Dr. Laurel Schafer is Professor in the Department of Chemistry, specializing in the development of new catalysts for polymerization and organic synthesis. Dr. Schafer is focused on the development of new catalysts prepared from inexpensive early transition metals of low toxicity. In addition, Dr. Schafer’s research group is an active participant in “Laboratory Greening” within the Department of Chemistry. She has also established the CFI funded UBC3D, an interdisciplinary research facility promoting research excellence from hetero- and homogeneous catalysis through to biocatalysis. Using this centre as a Living Laboratory, she aims to leverage UBC expertise in order to collaboratively develop novel catalytic solutions to local and global synthetic challenges.
Mark Johnson, Science/CfIS
Dr. Mark Johnson is an ecohydrologist with research interests in watershed biogeochemistry and carbon cycling issues. Ecohydrology is an emerging, interdisciplinary field that uses a water-in-ecosystem approach to address applied sustainability-related research questions. Dr. Johnson is engaging in several applied research questions through the UBC USI Sustainability Research Fellowship in conjunction with UBC as a Living Lab. These initial research collaborations include a study of water quality transformations in the CIRS building, and collaborations with the UBC Farm to investigate biochar use in agricultural soils.
2010-11 Sustainability Fellows
Gary Bradfield, Science
Gary is an Associate Professor in the Botany Department. His research focuses on plant community ecology including forest, grassland, and wetland communities. He explores the relationships among species composition (vegetation structure) and environmental variables, and applies his research results to assist with management decisions relating to habitat fragmentation, and restoration and resilience of communities to climate change and disturbance. Gary has extensive collaborative experience with other research groups, and advises on sampling design and multivariate statistical data analysis. Gary has served as Undergraduate Program Advisor in Biology and as Chair, Botany Graduate Studies Committee.
Erica Frank, Medicine
Erica Frank, MD, MPH is a professor in the School of Population and Public Health at UBC, and a Canada Research Chair. She is the founder and principal investigator of the “Healthy Doc = Healthy Patient” initiative which delineates and builds on the relationship between physicians’ personal and clinical practices. Erica is also founder and director of Health Sciences Online (www.hso.info), which aims to create a global virtual health sciences university. She is also past president of Physicians for Social Responsibility.
Ron Kellett, Applied Science (SALA)
Ronald Kellett is a Professor of Landscape Architecture in the School of Architecture + Landscape Architecture at the University of British Columbia where he teaches and undertakes research linking issues of environment and sustainability to the form and spatial patterns of cities. He holds degrees in Environmental Studies and Architecture and has practiced and taught architecture and urban design at the Universities of Oregon and British Columbia. His work has contributed to the development of environment- and sustainability- oriented urban design knowledge, prototypes, standards, guidelines, design tools and indicators.
Andrew Riseman, Land and Food Systems
Andrew is an Associate Professor in the Faculty of Land and Food Systems, with a strong interest in student-centered, active pedagogies and in developing learning objects and technologies that help create enhanced learning environments. Andrew’s research focuses on breeding of crops for sustainable production systems and helping to create more sustainable food systems integrated with attractive and livable communities. Andrew is also the USI-UBC Farm Liaison, the Academic Director for Centre for Sustainable Food Systems-UBC Farm, a researcher at the UBC Botanical Garden, and an Associate Member in the Department of Botany.
Susan Nesbit, Applied Science
Since joining the University of British Columbia in 2000, Susan has obtained extensive training in adult education through UBC's Centre for Teaching and Academic Growth (TAG) and has developed and taught core and elective courses pertaining to sustainability in engineering for programs offered by the Department of Civil Engineering. For more information pertaining to Susan and her work, please see www.blogs.ubc.ca/nesbit.
Rob VanWynsberghe, Education
Rob is an Assistant Professor in the Department of Educational Studies. His teaching/learning, research, and community service focuses on sustainability and the related areas of social movements and capacity building. Rob’s research and educational interests are multi-dimensional, fully participatory, and sensitive to local problems. He employs diverse strategies in the classroom and in the "living lab" of community-based research. Rob’s classrooms feature multi-stakeholder engagement exercises used to develop criteria for doing classroom-based research to address local problems. One question that inspires Rob is “What curricula and pedagogy foster learning about and contributing to the sustainability social movement?”