Environmental Science and Policy

Research

Faculty research tends to fall into four major, overlapping areas of interest. To get involved in any of these projects, please contact the relevant faculty members.

Ecology and Conservation
Several faculty collaborate to understand how the fundamental behavior, ecology, and evolution of organisms is affected by stressors from the environment. Much of our research is focused on human-induced stressors and how animal and plant populations cope with this rapid change. Our projects range from large scale studies of bird populations to the biogeochemical effects of invasive plant species. Faculty involved in this area include:

  • Greg Capelli is an aquatic ecologist studying the diversity and taxonomy of aquatic invertebrates in local stream networks.
  • Randy Chambers works with students to examine environmental conditions influencing plant distribution and growth in wetland ecosystems of Chesapeake Bay and the Florida Everglades.
  • Dan Cristol is working with several graduate and undergraduate researchers to elucidate the consequences of mercury contamination on terrestrial food webs associated with the Shenandoah river.
  • Chris Funk addresses fundamental questions in evolutionary ecology and conservation and has special expertise in amphibian disperal, ecology, and conservation.
  • Rowan Lockwood focuses on the ecological and evolutionary consequences of extinctions in the fossil record.
  • Jim Perry studies the functioning and community structure of remediated and natural wetlands.
  • John Swaddle is collaborating with undergraduate and graduate students to understand how local bird populations (e.g. eastern bluebirds, Carolina chickadees, house wrens) cope with human disturbance (direct human traffic, and chemical alteration of the environment) and changes in land use (impervious surface cover).
  • Stewart Ware studies the distribution and ecology of plant species in forests and on rock outcrops.

Environmental Geology/ Geochemistry
A number of faculty use watersheds as spatially-integrated units for studying the hydrology and biogeochemistry of terrestrial and aquatic environments. A principal focus is on local, developing watersheds and their response to urbanization. Faculty involved in this area include:

  • Chuck Bailey is a structural geologist interested in understanding the geometry and history of deformed rocks as well as the physical and chemical processes associated with deformation in the earth's crust.
  • Randy Chambers directs the summer REU watershed research program. His students use biogeochemistry to detect "hot-spots" for nutrient pollution in streams and ponds impacted by development.
  • Greg Hancock and his undergraduate students document changes in surface and groundwater flows in urbanizing streams and test the efficacy of storm water management methods in local developing watersheds.

Environmental Justice
Several members of our faculty write and teach in the area of environmental justice, which converges the study of ecology with cultural, economical, historical, philosophical and political processes. Students thus gain an interdisciplinary perspective of local, regional, and transnational movements that actively engage the recovery and promotion of sustainable alternatives to environmental destruction. Faculty involved in this area include:

  • Mark Fowler specializes in environmental ethics, particularly the issues raised by ecological citizenship and the “Earth Rights” movement connecting human rights concerns to questions of sustainability.
  • Andy Fisher focuses on public lands policy and resource conflicts in the American West, in addition to the controversies over Native American reserved rights to off-reservation subsistence and spiritual sites in the Pacific Northwest.
  • Bill Fisher has worked with the indigenous Kayapo of the Brazilian Amazon and the regional impacts of large-scale hydroelectric development and extractivist logging and mining; his current research focuses on the expansion of industrial soybean and cotton agriculture into the Amazonian region and new forms of governance involving territorial segregation of areas zoned for conservation and economic development.
  • Timmons Roberts specializes in the struggles for environmental justice in Louisiana, the new environmental networks in Brazil, and the politics of climate change.
  • Regina Root engages the representation of ecological crisis and healing as part of a larger exploration of public memory in Latin(o) America.
  • John Charles focuses on health ethics, with a particular emphasis upon making ethical decisions that relate to justice, rights and responsibilities and environmental health.

International Aid and Policy
This interdisciplinary project seeks to explain the allocation and effectiveness of development assistance for the environment. In order to understand whether aid targeted at the environment is effective, numerous empirical questions must be examined. First, do donors allocate environmental aid to recipients that are likely to use the money effectively and for environmental purposes, or do donors target environmental need above and beyond all other considerations? Second, are multilateral donors (e.g. the World Bank) better at delivering more successful environmental projects than bilateral donors (e.g. the World Bank)? Finally, is the aid aimed at global public goods (e.g. biodiversity) allocated in fundamentally different ways that that for regional or local environmental projects (e.g. water quality improvement)?

To answer these questions, Professors Roberts (Sociology), Tierney (Government), and Hicks (Economics) and a team of undergraduate researchers have assembled a comprehensive database on aid projects undertaken since 1970 from over 50 donor countries and organizations. Faculty involved in this area include:

  • Rob Hicks research interests include the economic valuation of environmental resources, the use of eco-labeling as a tool for markets to reward producers who practice environmentally sustainable methods of production, spatial econometrics, and international aid for the environment.
  • Maria Ivanova focuses her research on the effectiveness of international organizations, environmental policy at the national and global levels, and global governance.
  • Timmons Roberts’ research interests include the economic valuation of environmental resources and the efficient allocation of international aid for the environment.
  • Mike Tierney is studying the allocation of environmental aid to developing countries.