ENVIRONMENTAL POLITICS AT NORTHERN ARIZONA UNIVERSITY
FACULTY WITH ENVIRONMENTAL INTERESTS

David E. Camacho, Ph.D., Professor
David Camacho's environmental work centers around issues of environmental justice.  His most recent publication is Environmental Injustices, Political Struggles: Race, Class, and the Environment (Duke University Press, 1998). His main research objective is to better understand the public policy process; to this end, he has examined environmental policy, Native Americans and the environment, multicultural education, and social movement theory.

Geeta Chowdhry, Ph.D., Professor
Geeta Chowdhry's work centers on the Political Economy of Development, Gender and Development, and the Politics of Hunger, focusing especially on India and South Asia.

Sheila Nair, Ph.D., Associate Professor
Sheila Nair studies the politics of social movements in Southeast Asia, with a focus on the relationship between environmental, women's, and human rights organizations.

Robert A. Poirier, Ph.D., Professor
Robert Poirier is a Comparativist by training, with an emphasis on the Middle East.  His environmental concerns include the relationship between tourism and development in that region.  As a Colorado River river runner, he has developed a particular expertise in the politics surrounding the management of the Colorado River and Grand Canyon National Park.

David S. Schlosberg, Ph.D., Professor
Professor Schlosberg's general interests are in political philosophy and environmental politics. He teaches courses on political theory, environmental movements, environmental political theory, and the environmental science/policy interface (the core course in the Environmental Science and Policy MS Program). His theoretical research deals with issues of pluralization, difference, and discursive democracy in contemporary theory and political life; and his environmental research focuses mainly on the political theory, tactics, and organization of social movements, especially the U.S. environmental movement and environmental justice movement.  Recent publications include Debating the Earth: The Environmental Politics Reader, Second edition, edited with John Dryzek; Environmental Justice and the New Pluralism: The Challenge of Diversity for Environmentalism; and Green States and Social Movements: Environmentalism in the United States, Britain, Germany, and Norway, co-authored with John Dryzek, David Downes, and Christian Hunold. He is completing another book on the definition of justice in environmental and ecological justice, to be published in 2007 (all with Oxford University Press).

Zachary A. Smith, Ph.D., Regents Professor of Political Science
Zachary A. Smith teaches environmental and natural resources policy and administration, public administration and state, local and urban politics. Interested in both theoretical and applied work he served for six years as the chair, of the Advisory Committee, Arizona Commission on the Environment, served as city council person for the City of Flagstaff, and has consulted with governments revising their natural resource management laws both nationally and internationally. He has over seventeen books and thirty articles written or edited on various environmental, natural resource, state government and public management topics including Water and the Future of the Southwest, Groundwater in the West, Politics and Public Policy in Arizona, Environmental Politics and Policy in the West, The Environmental Policy Paradox, Groundwater Policy in the Southwest, The Environmental Impact Statement: History and Success, and The International Management of Groundwater Resources.

Frederic I. Solop, Ph.D., Professor
Professor Solop's environmental work focuses on public opinion on environmental issues locally, regionally, and nationally.  As Director of NAU's Social Research Laboratory, he has done numerous surveys for local governments, various governmental agencies, and private organizations on issues such as environmental values, urban growth, and tourism.

Mary Ann E. Steger, Ph.D., Professor
Professor Steger has done extensive work on environmental policy and environmental organizations.  Her published work in the environmental arena focuses on the links between values (political cultural and postmaterialist or new politics values) and environmental attitudes and the impact of culture and context on the formation of policy in the areas of forest management, immigration, and Native American land and resource rights.  This work is found in a number of journal articles and the following books: Only a Border Apart?  Culture, Context and Public Policy by John C. Pierce, Nicholas P. Lovrich, Brent S. Steel, Mary Ann E. Steger, and John R. Tennert (The Edwin Mellen Press, in press), and Citizens, Political Communication, and Interest Groups:  Environmental Organizations in Canada and the United States by John C. Pierce, Mary Ann E. Steger, Brent S. Steel, and Nicholas P. Lovrich (Praeger Publishers, 1992).

Jacqueline Vaughn Switzer, Ph.D., Professor
Before coming to NAU in 1997, Professor Swizter worked in the public and private sectors as a policy analyst, program coordinator, campaign manager, and legislative aide. Her primary teaching interests are in public policy and public administration, with a focus on environmental and disability policy. She regularly teaches courses on environmental policy, environmental law, environmental movements, international environmental law, and ecological restoration policy.  She is an adjunct member of the faculty in Environmental Sciences, and a faculty research associate with the Ecological Restoration Institute. Among her publications, Sitzer is the author of  Environmental Politics: Domestic and Global Dimensions, 5h ed. (2005); Environmental Activism: A Reference Handbook (2003), and Green Backlash: The History and Politics of Environmental Opposition in the United States (1997).

Carol B. Thompson, Ph.D., Professor
Professor Thompson's research focuses on the impact of the international political economy and trade practices on the development of Southern Africa.  She has a particular interest in intellectual property rights (IPRs) as they relate to the patenting of seeds and plants;  she has consulted with the Government of Zimbabwe on post-Lome trade issues, including the impact of IPRs on biodiversity in Southern Africa.

Stephen J. Wright, Ph.D., Professor
Stephen Wright integrates into his classes materials on ecological security and environmental regimes.  His research interests focus upon issues of development in Africa within the context of globalization; in addition, he is increasingly interested in European Union issues, including the EU's growing environmental agenda.
 
 

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