Faculty Engaged in Sustainability

David Aguilar-Alvarez

Sustainability Profile

My research is on the area of lipid metabolism. I focus primarily on the dietary factors contributing to increased circulating cholesterol levels and affect chronic disease. The practice of sustainable food practices is one of the most effective ways to change lifestyle habits associated with chronic disease.

• Bridging the Classrooms to the Greenhouse and the Garden
• Garden and greenhouse location

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John C. Armstrong

Sustainability Profile

As an astronomer/astrobiologist I do research on planetary habitability, and part of that study includes climate change on earth. In the past, I have done research on local air quality issues and I am currently interested in climate studies using our computational and Geospatial Information System lab. I am a member of the local chapter of the Citizens Climate Lobby, a promoter of solar power and electric vehicles and have a small experimental farm.

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Kirsten Arnold

Sustainability Profile

Many courses within the Interior Design program curriculum incorporate service learning opportunities and sustainability. Applied projects and design concepts are featured within the curriculum as well as courses that focus on interior materials and sustainability. Some projects include:

• Net Zero Tiny House, WSU
• Interdisciplinary Charrette - has sustainability focus (offered each fall)

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Elizabeth Balgord

Sustainability Profile

I am currently researching the impact of climate change on high alpine ecosystems in the Cordillera Blanca, Peru. Specifically we are studying the impact of bedrock geology on water quality. As the glaciers recede, they expose new rocks that can be major sources of water contamination based on the specific geology in Peru. Two different students presented our research at the geological society of America national meeting over the last two years.

I am a professor in the Department of Earth & Environmental Sciences at Weber State University and an affiliated faculty in research and teaching for the Mountain Environments Research Institute at Western Washington University. I specialize in field geology with an emphasis on sedimentology and tectonics. My current projects focus on determining the timing and magnitude of mountain uplift in various mountain ranges throughout western North America, Argentina, and Peru. I am working in Peru to create detailed geologic maps of valleys in the Cordillera Blanca in order to assess the relationship between the chemistry of newly exposed rock units to water pH and heavy metal contamination as the glaciers recede. For that project I am working as part of a multidisciplinary, multi-institutional, and international group of researchers and students trying to assess the impact of climate change on high alpine ecosystems. Part of that work includes teaching undergraduate students how to conduct geologic (and other) research in high elevation environments as part of a large expedition. In the past three years three different Weber State undergraduates have traveled with me to Peru to work on that research.

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Dan Bedford

Sustainability Profile

Dr. Daniel Bedford is a geographer and climate scientist with interests in the climate-society interface. Originally from London, England, he has been studying, teaching, and writing about Earth’s climate system for 30 years. As the scientific evidence of the reality and seriousness of human-caused climate change has become clearer, he has increasingly focused on communicating this evidence to the general public. He now teaches an introductory physical science general education class on global warming, speaks about climate change to a wide variety of audiences, and arranged a visit to Ogden by internationally-acclaimed climate scientist and communicator Dr. Richard Alley in December 2015. He has collaborated with an international team to produce a climate-change MOOC, and is Weber State institution lead for iUTAH, a statewide research effort to understand Utah’s water supply and demand in the face of population growth and climate change. His textbook, Climate Change: Examining the Facts, co-authored with John Cook, was published by ABC-CLIO in August 2016.Current project is to promote my new textbook (mentioned above). It's available from Amazon or from the publisher ABC-CLIO.

I'm also now in the very early stages of compiling an edited volume on climate literacy.

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Fon Brown

Sustainability Profile

Solar powered parking lot light at Ogden Nature Center.

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Brandon Burnett

Sustainability Profile

I am involved mainly in the construction of materials that serve sustainable applications - mainly solar cell materials and gas storage materials. My lab is a synthetic lab that works closely with other departments in the college of science to collaboratively advance solar technology and find new and better ways to sequester and recycle greenhouse gasses. Additionally, I work with USU and the Ogden department of the division of water quality on water testing as it relates to local sources. This is in collaboration with the botany and geoscience departments. Work is pending publication.

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Kathleen Paco Cadman

Sustainability Profile

I've done some community-based research projects that are focused on sustainability, and am teaching a course (Wicked Problems) that includes a section on climate change. I've always had an interest in environmental issues and sustainability. The work that I do is in rural communities in low/middle-income countries. I also teach students about the role of sustainability in health access and outcomes.

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Christy Call

Sustainability Profile

Christy Call is an assistant professor in Weber State University’s English Department. Her dissertation on Cormac McCarthy’s Border Trilogy interpreted the novels from fused frameworks of actor-network theory, new materialisms, and critical animal studies. Christy’s research highlights emergent ethical issues in an age of climate change, specifically focusing on how literature and new interpretative approaches may sponsor more just ways of thinking about relations. She focuses on developing interpretative and pedagogical approaches that encourage a greater awareness of the interconnection between humans, non-human animals, and material objects. Interest and specialization in literary studies through the ecological frameworks of actor-network theory, new materialisms, and critical animal studies. Recently presented a paper on human displacements from climate change. Interview with Naomi Oreskes in Weber: The Contemporary West, soon to be published. Article soon to be published on Cormac McCarthy's literary representation of animals in the American West. Training in secondary and higher education pedagogies for studies in the environmental humanities.

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Michael Cena

Sustainability Profile

Mostly, I advise students to look at Sustainability Research as part of their BIS academic emphases. Students who have ANY interest in building design, community-based service, and many other areas are presented with an SR option.

I serve on both my departments' green teams. In teacher education, we have moved forward with beginning the audits, making awareness, and substituting lightbulbs and power strips. With BIS, we are making steady progress toward GREEN recognition.

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Patrice Connors

Sustainability Profile

Sustainability, especially in the current age, is vital to the survival of our species and the biodiversity of the planet. It is truly a topic that reaches across all disciplines, and I try to talk about sustainability in my introductory course by discussing current climate change (both evidence of and what we as a species can do to mitigate the dramatic changes we are seeing today).

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Hal Crimmel

Sustainability Profile

Hal Crimmel is Rodney H. Brady Distinguished Professor and Chair of the Department of English. Hal was founding co-chair of WSU’s Environmental Initiatives Committee. He teaches environmental and sustainability issues in the Honors and General Education programs, as well as field studies courses. A former fellow at the Rachel Carson Center in Munich, Hal has published five books, among them “Dinosaur: Four Seasons on the Green and Yampa Rivers and Desert Water: The Future of Utah’s Water Resources.” His latest book, “Utah’s Air Quality Issues: Problems and Solutions,” will be published by the University of Utah Press in 2019. His documentary film, “The Rights of Nature: A Global Movement” was completed in 2018 with co-producers Val Berros (Argentina) and Issac Goeckeritz (USA) and is available for screening in the U.S. and abroad.

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Sara Dant

Sustainability Profile

Sara Dant is Professor of History whose work focuses on environmental politics in the United States with a particular emphasis on the creation and development of consensus and bi-partisanism. Dr. Dant’s newest book is Losing Eden: An Environmental History of the American West (Wiley, 2016), and she is the author of several prize-winning articles on western environmental politics. Dant co-authored the two-volume Encyclopedia of American National Parks (2004) and has written environmental sustainability chapters for three books on Utah.

Scholarship

Books

• Sara Dant, Losing Eden: An Environmental History of the American West (Hoboken, NJ: Wiley & Sons, 2016).
• Hal K. Rothman and Sara Dant Ewert, Encyclopedia of American National Parks (New York: M.E. Sharpe, 2004).

Articles and Chapters

• “The ‘Lion of the Lord’ and the Land: Brigham Young’s Environmental Ethic,” in Mormon Environmental History, ed. by Jedidiah Rogers and Matthew C. Godfrey (Salt Lake City: University of Utah Press, forthcoming).
• Sara Dant, “Selling and Saving Utah, 1946-present,” in Utah History, ed. by David Rich Lewis, Brian Q. Cannon, Jeffrey Nichols, and W. Paul Reeve (Logan: Utah State University Press, forthcoming).
• Sara Dant, “LBJ, Wilderness, and the Land and Water Conservation Fund,” Environmental History 19 (October 2014), 736-743.Reprinted in Forest History Today Vol. 20, Nos 1&2 (Spring/Fall 2014).
• Sara Dant, “Going With the Flow: Navigating to Stream Access Consensus,” in Desert Water: The Future of Utah’s Water Resources (Salt Lake City: University of Utah Press, 2014).
• Sara Dant, “Making Wilderness Work: Frank Church and the American Wilderness Movement,” Pacific Historical Review, Vol. 77, No. 2 (May 2008), 237-272.
  • *Winner: The Forest History Society’s 2009 Theodore C. Blegen Award for best article in forest and conservation history.
• Sara Dant Ewert, “Bioregional Politics: The Case for Place,” Oregon Historical Quarterly, Winter 2002, 439-451.
• Sara Dant Ewert, “Evolution of an Environmentalist: Senator Frank Church and the Hells Canyon Controversy,” MONTANA The Magazine of Western History, Spring 2001, 36-51.
  • *Winner: The Forest History Society’s 2002 Theodore C. Blegen Award for best article in forest and conservation history.
• Sara Dant Ewert, “Peak Park Politics: The Struggle Over the Sawtooths, from Borah to Church,” Pacific Northwest Quarterly, Summer 2000, 138-149.
  • *Winner: Charles M. Gates Memorial Award for best article in Pacific Northwest Quarterly in 2000.

Other

• Invited Talk, “Creating Congressional Consensus: Frank Church and Environmental Politics,” Idaho Humanities Council Summer Institute: Lyndon Johnson and the Great Society, Boise, ID, July 2016.
• Expert witness report and testimony on Weber River History for Richards, Brandt, Miller, Nelson on behalf of the Utah Stream Access Coalition. 2012-February 2015.

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Eric Ewert

Sustainability Profile

Professor Ewert's current research and teaching interests lie in environmental studies, the American West, population, historical and economic geography and geospatial technologies. Dr. Ewert has lived in western states from Arizona to Alaska. A lifelong and mesmerized observer of the region, his research and writing focus on the rapid demographic and economic change occurring in the American West and the costs associated with such environmental and cultural transgressions. He has delivered more than two dozen papers at regional and national conferences and traveled widely in the Americas and Europe. Professor Ewert is currently under contract with the University of Utah Press to co-edit a book entitled, "Utah’s Air Quality Issues: Problems and Solutions."

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Jeremy Farner

Sustainability Profile

Jeremy Farner focuses on addressing how affordable housing can impact social and environmental impacts of the built environment. Some of his projects include:

• Sustainable building design and construction techniques
• Habitat for Humanity net zero ready homes
• Net Zero Tiny studio living laboratory
• Research article on HFH homes and need for air sealing
• Study abroad projects in Africa (3), Thailand, Peru, Fiji

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Amydee Fawcett

Sustainability Profile

I am currently the center director for the Center for Leadership in Corporate Social Responsibility. My current teaching and research interest focus on all thing relations’ collaboration, relationship management, corporate social responsibility, and change management. I will be doing my sabbatical Fall 2019 with Hankin University in Helsinki Finland on HADR research. Some of my works include:

• Amos, C., Brockhaus, S., Fawcett, A.M., Fawcett, S.E., Knemeyer, A.M. (2018) Blinded by the light? Analyzing sustainability authenticity, customer service perceptions, and halo effects, International Journal of Logistics Management, early cite.
• Brockhaus, S., Amos, C., Fawcett, A.M., Knemeyer, A.M., Fawcett, S.E. (2017) Please Clap! How customer service quality perception affects the authenticity of sustainability initiatives, Journal of Marketing Theory and Practice, Vol. 25, No. 4, p. 396-420.
• Brockhaus, S. Fawcett, S.E., Knemeyer, A.M., & Fawcett, A.M., (2017) Motivations for Environmental and Social Consciousness: Reevaluating the Sustainability-based View. Journal of Cleaner Production, Vol. 143 pp. 933-947.
• Fawcett, S.E., Brockhaus, S., Knemeyer, A.M., & Fawcett, A.M., (2015), Sustainability as Strategy: Caught in the Luxury Trap, Supply Chain Management Review, November, p. 14-40.

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Carie Frantz

Sustainability Profile

Dr. Frantz is a geomicrobiologist and geochemist in Weber State University’s Department of Earth & Environmental Sciences. Her research work focuses on microbe-mineral interactions in both modern and ancient systems. A native of the Pacific Northwest, she is passionate about sustainability issues, particularly responsible water and energy use, waste minimization, and sustainable building practices. The Earth and Environmental Sciences discipline deals with many issues related to sustainability including efficient and responsible resource extraction, bioremediation, sequestration, environmental systems, climate, and paleoclimate, and Dr. Frantz has done research in several sustainability-related areas. She teaches several sustainability courses, including courses that incorporate environmental science course-based undergraduate research, and incorporates sustainability concepts in all of her courses. At Weber State University, she started the Department of Earth and Environmental Sciences Green Team, which is working to minimize the department’s environmental footprint as well as integrate sustainability- and environment-related topics into the curriculum.

Some active research projects related to sustainability and environmental issues include:

• Biogeochemical characterization and thermal modeling of “rotten” Arctic sea ice
• Paleoenvironmental reconstructions of terrestrial systems during the Early Eocene Climatic Optimum (the last geological period where the Earth saw very high levels of atmospheric CO2 and corresponding high global temperatures)
• Holocene lake level changes in the Great Salt Lake and other Basin & Range terminal lake basins

Students interested in doing undergraduate research related to the above topics, geochemistry, environmental microbiology, or geobiology are encouraged to contact Dr. Frantz.

Links

• https://www.weber.edu/geosciences/Dr_Carie_Frantz.html
• https://www.nsf.gov/awardsearch/showAward?AWD_ID=1826869

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Robert Fudge

Sustainability Profile

I have published on environmental aesthetics and am working on an article on philosophical responses to the impending sixth mass extinction. I am interested in moral frameworks addressing global climate change and our responsibilities for changing behaviors that contribute to the problem.

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Francois Giraud-Carrier

Sustainability Profile

Dr. Francois Giraud-Carrier is assistant professor of supply chain management at the Goddard School of Business and Economics. Francois graduated in 2014 from the University of Utah in with a Ph.D. in Operations Management. He also holds a Master’s of Science in Industrial Engineering for the Paris Institute of Technology in France. In his research, Francois studies how pollution regulations (such as emission taxes and cap-and-trade) impact supply chains, and how firms should operate in a carbon-constrained economy. For example, one of his papers shows that well-chosen regulations can improve firm profits as well as consumer surplus and social welfare, a win-win-win outcome, suggesting that it is possible to align business, social and environmental interests. In other papers, various regulatory mechanisms are compared with respect to fairness or how effectively they encourage the adoption of green innovations. In another sustainability-related stream of research, he studied the adoption of green supply chain management by manufacturers in the Midwest region. Interestingly, the research found that the managers' motivation for sustainability and the company's suppliers (not government regulations) had the greatest impact on adoption. Some of his works include:

1. Agarwal, A., Giraud-Carrier. F. and Li, Y. (2018) A Mediation Model of Green Supply Chain Management Adoption: The Role of Internal Impetus. International Journal of Production Economics. 205, 342-358.
   In this paper we study the adoption of green supply chain management practices by Midwest manufacturers.
2. Giraud-Carrier, F.C. and Schmidt, G.M. (2015) Learning in the fast lane: The Freeway Game. Decision Sciences Journal of Innovative Education 13(3) 273-287. Awarded the 2015 DSJIE Outstanding Teaching Brief.
   The Freeway Game is an online simulation that teaches students about externalities (such as congestion and pollution) and why regulations are sometimes necessary when externalities are present. The above paper explains how to use the game in the classroom. A teaching note is also available from the game website.
3. My dissertation work focuses on environmental regulations with the overarching goal to reconcile business and the environment. I believe that the potential for innovations in products, processes and business models to reconcile economic and environmental goals exists in many areas. One of my dissertation papers, which is being revised for fourth round submission to Management Science, shows that well-chosen regulations can improve firm profits as well as consumer surplus and social welfare, a win-win-win outcome. Other dissertation papers look at regulatory fairness and the impact of regulations on environmental innovations.

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Matt Gnagey

Sustainability Profile

My broad areas of research are in environmental economics and urban and regional economics. Specific research projects include studying the environmental and economic outcomes of smart growth and other land management policies in the Chesapeake Bay Area. Current research in Ogden includes estimating the value of natural amenities through home prices. Dr. Therese Grijalva and I are working on estimating the value that access to outdoors provides to Ogden residents. We are calculating the increase in home values based on proximity to trailheads. We are interested in exploring the spatial variation of the values, as well as the changes over time. Future research projects include understanding behavioral responses in electricity usage due to utility pricing mechanisms.

I also am interested in exploring the relationship between economic growth and environmental quality:

• Estimating the value of natural amenities in Northern Utah
• Exploring the relationship between income growth and air quality
• Understanding the impact of environmental regulations on land use patterns

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Sian Griffiths

Sustainability Profile

My interest in sustainability is primarily personal. Though my creative research reflects issues of sustainability, it does so because that's a part of our world. I would love to see us take better care of our environment.

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Therese Grijalva

Sustainability Profile

In 2000, Therese earned her Ph.D. in environmental economics from the University of New Mexico. Therese’s research focuses on using surveys and experiments to determine the values and preferences individuals have for environmental goods and services. Some of her recent research explores individual preferences for the safe minimum standard (SMS), which is an approach for preserving a renewable resource (versus developing), unless the social costs of doing so are somehow intolerable. Most recently, she has been exploring how individual attitudes about climate change influence discount rates that are employed in analyzing climate change mitigation strategies.

1. “Convex Time Budgets and Individual Discount Rates in the Long Run.” W. Douglass Shaw, Therese Grijalva, Jayson Lusk, and Rong Rong. Requested to revise and resubmit.
2. “The Western Public Domain: Disposal, Land Quality, and the Fiscal Implications of a Transfer to States.” P. M. Jakus, J. Downen, T. C. Grijalva, M. Hogue, L. Pace, J. Stambro. Requested to revise and resubmit.
3. “Interpersonal Discount Rates: An Experiment.” R. Rong, T. C. Grijalva, J. Lusk, and W. D. Shaw. Under Review.
4. “How Does Public Land Ownership Affect Economic Growth?” Paul M. Jakus, Therese C. Grijalva, and Lassina Coulibaly. Under Review
5. “Spatial Impact of Mountain Trails on House Prices.” Matthew Gnagey and Therese C. Grijalva. Under Review
6. “An Experiment of Household Discounting.” Rong Rong, Matthew Gnagey, and Therese C. Grijalva. Under Review
7. "The Economics of Air Quality in Utah," Matthew Gnagey and Therese C. Grijalva. Book Chapter.

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Susan Hafen

Sustainability Profile

I am interested in how people talk to each other about the hard issues of sustainability when they conflict with their values or economic interests. I am also interested in sustainability as it affects our interactions with nonhuman animals. (One research project I did was on the conflict between cat lovers and bird lovers, both of whom believed that their work in saving birds or feral cats had sustainability goals.)

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Shaun Hansen

Sustainability Profile

My work focuses on socially sustainable business- primarily topics involving leadership, trust, and ethics in business and business relationships.

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David Hartwig

Sustainability Profile

I utilize an ecocritical approach to examining performance of Shakespeare's works. I have given several conference presentations on eco-adaptation of Shakespeare, published a review of a "green production" of Shakespeare, and am working on an article right now. I am also engaging in research in land use and the conflict between conservation and preservation, specifically relating to the creation of a wilderness area on North Manitou Island, Michigan. I examine Shakespeare in performance from an ecocritical perspective, addressing the ways in which modern practitioners can adapt Shakespeare's works to further notions of sustainability. Some of my works include:

1. Dissertation: The Place of Shakespeare: Performing King Lear and The Tempest in an Endangered World
2. Review of The Tempest, dir. Rupert Goold for the Royal Shakespeare Company, Green Letters: the Journal of the Association for the Study of Literature and Environment-UK 8 (2008)
3. The Tempest on Ice: adaptation and ecocriticism in performance. Shakespeare Association of America Conference. Towards Ecocriticism in Performance panel (Sheraton, New Orleans, 24 March 2016)
4. All things in common nature should produce: The Tempest, utopic visions, and green performance. Shakespeare Association of America Conference. Green Scenes panel (Hyatt Regency, Bellevue, WA, 7 April 2011)
5. Apocalyptic Visions: Peter Brook’s Adaptations of King Lear. British Graduate Shakespeare Conference (Shakespeare Institute, Stratford-upon-Avon, June 2007)
6. Apocalyptic Visions: Silent Spring and Peter Brook’s King Lear. Association for the Study of Literature and Environment-UK Conference. Responding to Crisis panel (University of Lincoln, 10 September 2006)
7. Baleful Weeds and Precious-Juice Flowers: Shakespeare’s Natural Medicine. British Graduate Shakespeare Conference (Shakespeare Institute, Stratford-upon-Avon, Summer 2006).

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Michael Hernandez

Sustainability Profile

I plan to incorporate a sustainability component in GEO 1030 next academic year. I also plan to make sustainability a component in a new geospatial capstone course (GEO 4850) that will begin next academic year (if approved through the curriculum process).

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Bridget Hilbig

Sustainability Profile

My research interests are broadly focused on how soil microbial communities influence plant-water-nutrient relationships. More specifically, my research is focused on how we can manipulate arbuscular mycorrhizal fungal communities to increase plant nutrient efficiency and drought resistance in agriculture. Arbuscular mycorrhizal fungi are particularly important soil-dwelling fungi that form a symbiotic relationship with the roots of approximately 80% of plant species, and may have the single largest effect on plant drought resistance and performance of any rhizosphere-associated microbe. While commercial mycorrhizal products are available, many questions remain on how to effectively introduce arbuscular mycorrhizal fungi so that they establish and benefit agriculture. Therefore, my research investigates plant-water relationships in agricultural soils amended with different arbuscular mycorrhizal fungi inoculations. Agriculture uses 60-70% of our potable drinking water, and unsustainable practices results in overpumping aquifers and eutrophication in our waterways. Additionally, areas of the Wasatch Front are experiencing moderate to extreme drought, which may become exacerbated by global climate change. My current research program is investigating how arbuscular mycorrhizal fungi identity and provenance can contribute to the conservation of water in urban community gardens, small urban farms, and green roof gardens (i.e. can we reduce the amount of water used for irrigating agriculture through the introduction of arbuscular mycorrhizal fungi? Which methods of introduction are most efficient?). I am particularly interested in local urban agriculture where water is limited by costs and drought. Through collaboration with civil engineers, the results of this research are scaled up to inform estimates of how implementation of different arbuscular mycorrhizal fungi inoculum in urban agriculture modifies material flows in a city affecting urban metabolism.

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Rosemary Hoffman

Sustainability Profile

Three lectures at the end of the Human Biology course (for non-science majors) include ecology, ecological relationships among species, and an emphasis on proof that man-made climate change exists and its future consequences.

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Kyra Hudson

Sustainability Profile

The expansive umbrella which the term sustainability can be incorporated into almost any learning and teaching situation appeals to my educational philosophy. Introducing sustainability in general education courses provides interesting and relevant topics for discussion, writing, and research.

• Presentation at RMMLA entitled "Why Teach Sustainability in a Composition Course?" 2017

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Gary Johnson

Sustainability Profile

I've been involved in undergraduate sustainability research projects and serve as the liaison between the Faculty Senate Executive Committee and the Environmental Issues Committee here at WSU. I'm working with Weber County Water District on a CCEL course for Spring 2017 examining water pricing. I've also done reports for the Weber Basin Water District, the Perry City Parks, iUTAH, and Weber County Elections

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Jacie Summers Johnson

Sustainability Profile

I have helped create and implement the interdisciplinary Charette (IDT, DET, CMT) for the past 6 years, with emphasis in community engaged learning and sustainability. The IDT department has also developed and presented Charitable Chair each spring semester. This event refurbishes old furnishing and auctions them off for charity. I teach Sustainability II--Hard Materials to IDT and BIS students. I am working in conjunction with Jeremy Farner to produce the Tiny Studio, Sustainable house this semester.

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Adam Johnston

Sustainability Profile

My primary service and scholarly focus is in science education, so I do research on teachers' and students' ideas about concepts that are tricky and controversial. I work directly with teachers to help them understand science standards in authentic ways, and this often boils down to understand energy, resources, climate, etc. in ways that are either novel or even controversial to them. Various work in science education.

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Abdul Nasser Kaadan

Sustainability Profile

Prof. Abdulnaser Kaadan, MD, PhD. is a visitor international professor at Weber State University, to teach History of Medicine, History of the Middle East, and in nursing school. He is from Syria, and was orthopedic surgeon since 1986, received his PhD in History of Medicine in 1993 from the High Institute for the History of Arabic Science of Aleppo University. Also, he is the founder and now the president of the International Society for the History of Islamic Medicine (www.ishim.net), and the chief editor of its Journal which is published in English. He was nominated for Nobel Prize in Literature (historical studies) in 2012 by Ibn Sina Academy of Medieval Medicine & Sciences in India. He has participated in more than 110 international congresses outside Syria, has 65 published papers and 8 books, and has been granted 21 scholarships, awards and prizes from Japan, Britain, Singapore, France, Taiwan, Germany, the United States of America, Sweden, Denmark, Switzerland, Belgium, Spain and Syria.

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Thom Kuehls

Sustainability Profile

My research for the past 25 years or so has largely been in the area of environmental political theory. In particular, I have looked at the environmental implications of different theories put forth by different authors in the fields of political theory and international political theory. One of the courses I teach is environmental political theory. I am also participating in the "Shades of Green" lecture series. I have published one book and several book chapters in the field of environmental political theory. Beyond Sovereign Territory was published by University of Minnesota Press. More recently I contributed a chapter on "States" to Critical Environmental Politics edited by Carl Death and published by Routledge.

• States in Critical Environmental Politics, edited by Carl Death, Routledge, 2014.
• The Environment of Sovereignty in A Political Space: Reading the Global Through Clayoquot Sound, edited by Magnusson and Shaw, University of Minnesota Press, 2003.
• Between Sovereignty and Environment: An exploration of the discourse of government in The Greening of Sovereignty in World Politics, edited by Litfin, MIT Press, 1998.
• Beyond Sovereign Territory: The Space of Ecopolitics, University of Minnesota Press, 1996.
• The Nature of the State: an Ecological (Re)reading of Sovereignty and Territory in Reimagining the Nation edited by Ringrose and Lerner, Open University Press, 1993.

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Jeri Nichole Kyle

Sustainability Profile

The "big idea" we researched in my 1010 course is minimalism. We looked at hyperconsumerism, fast fashion, social injustice in the form of offshore labor, waste, and minimalism as a trend.

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John Loveless

Sustainability Profile

I am an adjunct professor that teaches a course on renewable energy. I also run the www.JohnSavesEnergy.com website where I teach others how to make their homes, vehicles and lifestyles net zero, without sacrificing convenience and luxury.

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David Malone

Sustainability Profile

My last three papers have been related to sustainability. Specifically, application of cost management tools to environmental sustainability. For the past several years, I have studied and written on the application of cost management tools to environmental sustainability. I also have written fairly extensively on corporate social responsibility, which has encompassed sustainability issues.

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Alice Mulder

Sustainability Profile

Research Interest: Dr. Mulder’s current research interest sits broadly in human-environment interactions, specifically environmental sustainability on and off the campus, sustainability literacy and land conservation.

Classes Taught: She teaches geography classes related to sustainability, such as Natural Environments of the Earth (GEOG PS 1000), Shades of Green (GEOG 2920), World Environmental Issues (GEOG 3060), and an honors class, Sustainability: What It Is and How to Do It.

Projects and Involvement: She serves as the co-chair of the Environmental Initiatives Committee and is heavily involved in sustainability efforts across campus.

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Cliff Nowell

Sustainability Profile

One of my research areas is resource economics. A list of publications can be found on my home page.

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Stacy Palen

Sustainability Profile

I am involved in several courses at WSU, including the Shades of Green class and the Environmental Physics course (PHSX2090). I have at various times been involved with the Environmental Initiatives Committee, when I can arrange to be available at the meeting times! I have a small farm where we carry out various sustainability related projects. For about four years, I kept up a blog about this. But I've long since gotten too busy actually working on projects, and should try to circle back to that. The fundamental driver of the farm project is to make our footprint as small as possible without anyone noticing that we are bizarre eco-hippies.

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William Robertson

Sustainability Profile

Currently the department chair and assistant professor of Emergency Healthcare at Weber State University in Ogden Utah, Bill has over 25 years of experience in EMS, critical care transport, and clinical education. Bill is an avid scholar specializing in hybrid instructional development, interdisciplinary teaching methods, critical care education, and research. Bill travels around the country, and the world, presenting and teaching on topics related to emergency medicine and clinical education. More recently, Bill has spent time in Ghana and Ethiopia teaching various healthcare providers topics on emergency and critical care medicine with a focus on promoting sustainable EMS education and practice. Bill received his doctoral training in Health Science with an emphasis in Global Health from Nova Southeastern University. As part of his doctorate, Bill interned for a summer in West Africa, and completed his practicum in Sustainability Practices in Global Health Initiatives. He focuses on global health as it relates to emergency medicine. Bill is actively working with countries in Sub-Saharan Africa to assist them in establishing EMS education and care. The emphasis of this collaboration is to promote sustainable practices such that our assistance will not be required at a particular point.

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Matthew Romaniello

Sustainability Profile

My current research is an examination of Enlightenment-era doctors, ethnographers, and scientists and their interest in the connection between the environment and health in the Russian Empire. European and Asian scholars who traveled through Russia in the eighteenth and nineteenth centuries described and categorized the people, landscape, and customs of the empire through the lens of newly-developing theories in biology and ethnography about racial differences inscribed on the body. While this current project focuses upon the relationship between the environment and the population of the empire, it also builds upon my earlier work that studied the long-term effects of agricultural practices, medical commodities, and growth of knowledge networks for disseminating information on the international stage.

Current

Ongoing book project, Diagnosing Disease in Eighteenth-Century Russia (a look at connections between the environment, health, and public responses to challenges)

Past Research

"Tobacco! Tobacco! Exporting New Habits to Siberia and Russian America", Sibirica 16:2 (2017): 1-26

"True Rhubarb? Trading Eurasian Botanical and Medical Knowledge in the Eighteenth Century", The Journal of Global History 11:1 (2016): 3-23

"Humoral Bodies in Cold Climates, in Russian History through the Senses: From 1700 to the Present", edited by Matthew P. Romaniello and Tricia Starks (London: Bloomsbury Academic), 23-43

"Who Should Smoke? Tobacco and the Humoral Body in Early Modern England", The Social History of Alcohol and Drugs 27: 2 (2013): 156-73

"Muscovy’s Extraordinary Ban on Tobacco", in Tobacco in Russian History and Culture: From the Seventeenth Century to the Present (New York: Routledge), 9-25

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Heather Root

Sustainability Profile

My work focuses on plant and lichen communities of western North America. I examine how these communities contribute to ecosystem services and respond to ecological disturbances, such as wildfire, timber harvesting, and grazing. I also use lichen communities as bioindicators, which can help map many pollutants at a fine spatial scale.

My research broadly uses lichen and plant communities to address environmental issues surrounding land management, disturbance, and air quality. Below are some of the recent manuscripts that I've published on these topics.

Published Works

Root, HT, B McCune, S Jovan. 2014. Lichen communities and species indicate climate thresholds in southeast and south-central Alaska, USA. Bryologist 117: 241-252.

Dodson, EK, HT Root. 2014. Native and exotic plant cover vary inversely along a climate gradient 11 years following stand-replacing wildfire in a dry coniferous forest, Oregon, USA. Global Change Biology.

Root, HT, LH Geiser, S Jovan, P Neitlich. 2015. Epiphytic macrolichen indication of air quality and climate in interior forested mountains of the Pacific Northwest, USA. Ecological Indicators 53: 95-105.

Root, HT, MG Betts. 2015. Managing Moist Temperate Forests for Bioenergy and Biodiversity. Journal of Forestry.

McCune, B, HT Root. 2015. Origin of the dust bunny distribution in ecological community data. Plant Ecology 5: 645-656.

Root, HT, Dodson EK. 2016. Pssst...pass the algae: succession in lichen soil crusts. Frontiers in Ecology and the Environment, 14(8), 451-452.

Root, HT, Verschuyl, J, Stokely, T, Hammond, P, Scherr, MA, Betts, MG. 2017. Plant diversity enhances moth diversity in an intensive forest management experiment. Ecological Applications, 27(1), 134-142.

Miller, JE, Villella, J, Carey, G, Carlberg, T, Root HT. 2017. Canopy distribution and survey detectability of a rare old-growth forest lichen. Forest Ecology and Management, 392, 195-201.

Root, HT, Brinda, JC, Dodson, EK. 2017. Recovery of biological soil crust richness and cover 12-16 years after wildfires in Idaho, USA. Biogeosciences, 14(17), 3957-3969.

Root, HT, Brinda, JC, Dodson, EK. 2018. Biotic soil crust community composition 12-16 years after wildfires in Idaho, USA. The Bryologist, 121(3), 286-296.

Miller, JE, Root, HT, Safford, HD. 2018. Altered fire regimes cause long-term lichen diversity losses. Global Change Biology 24(10: 4909-4918.

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Elizabeth Sandquist

Sustainability Profile

Integrating sustainability practices is a challenge in the biomedical sciences, which I teach and research. Biomedical sciences promote the health of our society through the development of tools and knowledge to treat and prevent disease. It supports sustainability efforts led by epidemiologists and the public health sector, though it does not directly promote sustainability.

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Kathleen Stevenson

Sustainability Profile

As director of the printmaking area in the Art Department I seek to bring printmaking- a traditionally heavy chemical/solvent usage area- into a cleaner, greener space with adaptable materials and processes- all without the loss of print quality and tradition.

Additionally, I have an ancillary interest in the Northern Utah Climate Change Lobby as a member.

Currently, our area has begun research on a variety of green print processes. As time and budget allow, we'll transition to these processes. We are also interested and 'greening' our lab, to include plants etc. We're just beginning to scratch the surface with both aspects. Additional ideas, research, and feedback are always welcome!

We seek to teach and help art students use the visual arts as a way to explore, instruct, raise awareness and advocate for any and all aspects of sustainability. In particular, we understand the unique ability of the visual to broaden the cultural conversations regarding the natural cycles and environments and humankind's significant impact on and for them.

• Honors 1530 course; "Moveable Murals", with Prof. Tamara Goldbogen and Erinne Roundy
• Plans for student art exhibition (call with go out to undergrad, grad, post-grad regionally and nationally, to be part of April 20, 2019 Conference at USU, "Future Memory: Mapping the Anthropocene".
• Student Art Exhibition at annual UT Sustainability Conferences (held at WSU); 2017, 2018, and planned for 2019

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Dr. Stephanie Speicher

Sustainability Profile

Stephanie Speicher teaches courses that focus on instructional planning, assessment and curriculum theory. Throughout her career, she has had the opportunity to work in a variety of educational settings from traditional schools as a social studies teacher to a backpacking/rock climbing instructor for Outward Bound and most recently as a public charter school principal. For over twenty years, she has assisted teachers, administrators and other educational professionals to enhance their teaching, leadership and collaborative skills. Specifically, her research interests include preservice teacher agency development, the implementation of learning communities in the classroom and the bridging of social justice ideology into experiential education methodology. Stephanie lives in North Ogden, Utah with her husband, 2 daughters and a growing flock of backyard chickens.

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Disseration: https://digitalcommons.usu.edu/cgi/viewcontent.cgi?article=7835&context=etd

Speicher, S., & Clark, J. S. (2014). Active content acquisition: Utilizing low ropes course initiatives to teach social studies concepts. Oregon Journal of the Social Studies, 2(1), 48-55.

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Jeff Strahan

Sustainability Profile

Prior to coming to WSU, I managed a large metals recycling plant in Ogden, Utah and worked on many large, industrial salvage projects where the material salvaged was reclaimed, recycled and redistributed to various secondary reclamation centers and reused. In the process of managing this centers, I saw the advent of technology which served to reclaim materials locked in land fill locations being dug up and processed via "Eddy Current" utilization, thereby returning thousands of tons of metallic, buried waste to primary insertion into the markets for reuse in manufacturing and processing.

I was also responsible for reclaiming thousands of tons of materials which were buried in military target practicing areas for re-utilization in the commercial markets.

 

The company that I was managing closed down its operations in the Ogden area in a "streamlining" corporate effort.

 

Currently working with the WSU Concept Center on solar powered Kiosks for distribution around the campus for student use. These covered seating stations will serve as plug in charging locations for students to sit at, plug into and charge phones, laptops or other devices which will utilize solar cells for the primary power production. Production of three of these units are currently underway in the Concept Center in the Automotive Technology building.

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Matthew Thue

Sustainability Profile

I'm interested in practical sustainability--in other words, sustainability that acknowledges real-world constraints and looks for creative ways to work within those constraints.

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Carla Trentelman

Sustainability Profile

Research project; "Uncovering Attitudes towards Water at Weber State University: Focus Groups & Interviews"; also "Background Interviews."

This was a qualitative study executed by myself and Dan Bedford, Geography, in spring 2014, with the assistance of my Environment and Society class (SOC 3300). The class held a series of focus groups with various WSU stakeholders (under our supervision), and Dr. Bedford and I conducted a series of semi-structured, face-to-face interviews with WSU administrators. Both written and oral research reports of the findings have been presented both to WSU Facilities Management and Energy and Sustainability Office, and to leadership from iUTAH, a statewide, NSF-funded water research project; findings and the innovative cooperation between researchers (faculty and student) and university operations were presented at Association for the Advancement of Sustainability in Higher Education (AASHE) October 2015.

Additional Notes

• Anonymized data from this study have been published.
• The students from the class published their research report in ERGO:
  • Sqrow, Kassandra, Timothy Gibbs, Mercedes Anto, Zack Bjerregaard, Nathan Brown, Somsak Hendricks, James Nielson and Rachel Sweet. 2015. Uncovering Attitudes towards Water at Weber State University. ERGO vol. 9.
• Findings were also presented at the Intermountain Sustainability Summit (poster - 2014), a research conference and a campus mini-symposium.
• Class research project: Behaviors, Motivations, Beliefs, and Attitudes Related to Bottled Water Usage at Weber State University. Fall 2013. My Sociology of Water class conducted a multi-method research project, which they designed, including a campus-wide online survey; analysis of sales data, information from Facilities Management and the Energy and Sustainability Office (ESO); a trash audit; and calculating the carbon footprint for transport of bottled water. Findings were disseminated in oral presentations at three research conferences, a panel presentation and poster presentation at the Intermountain Sustainability Summit (2014), and in a journal publication:
  • King, A., Z. Bjerregaard, M. Booth, S. Clugston, M. Dittmore, S. Fossett, D. Pilkington, P. Sawatzki, and C.K. Trentelman. 2015. Behaviors, Motivations, Beliefs, and Attitudes Related to Bottled Water Usage at Weber State University. The Journal of the Utah Academy of Sciences, Arts, and Letters. 91:191-211.

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Michael Wutz

Sustainability Profile

I have environmental and ecological centered sections in most of my upper-division courses, and our WSU-based journal WEBER - THE CONTEMPORARY WEST, often features personal essays or poetry in the West, climate change, etc.

Excerpted from my syllabus, MENG 6240, Global Contemporary Fiction, Fall 16 (with a segment on climate change):

• Jhumpa Lahiri, The Lowland
• JL official site, including interviews and Readers' Guide
• The Anthropocene I, II, III
• Dipesh Chakrabarty, "The Climate of History: Four Theses," New Literary History 35, 2 (2009): 197-222.
• "Postcolonial Studies and the Challenge of Climate Change," New Literary History 43, 1 (2012): 1-18.
• Michael Pollan, "The Intelligent Plant," The New Yorker, 23 Dec 2013
• The Lowland - Focus Questions (including sustainability)
• Mira Nair, The Namesake (2007, film screening, time permitting)

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Gail Yngve

Sustainability Profile

Indirectly, I have been involved in English Dept. sustainability projects to reduce consumption of electricity and paper, as well as recycling and reducing paper waste. Additionally, I have worked with students on Service Learning projects that were oriented towards sustainability, and I have now added a unit on sustainability to my 2010 courses. (Special interests: reducing carbon emissions and bee habitat)

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James Zagrodnik

Sustainability Profile

The HPHP Department has achieved Green Level status; we have adopted a part of the Ogden River parkway and clean it up a few times a year. Only one planet we have to live on so far, need to make sure we dont kill Gaia and thus ourselves.

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