About

The Environmental Studies Department at the University of California, Santa Cruz, is home to a passionate and welcoming group of faculty dedicated to excellence in research and teaching. The faculty are often recognized with high-profile grants, top-tier publications, and prominent advisory roles with governments, nonprofits, academic organizations, and more. The department emphasizes a diverse and sustainability-driven research community, with faculty members collaborating on major publications, presenting at conferences, and winning prestigious grants and fellowships from organizations like the National Science Foundation and the United States Department of Agriculture. The department's faculty are actively involved in guiding undergraduate and graduate students through various degree pathways, supporting experiential learning and research opportunities across campus.

Research topics

• Sociology
• Social Science
• Computer Science
• Engineering
• Library science
• Political Science
• Philosophy
• Epistemology
• Environmental resource management
• Marketing
• Public relations
• Medicine
• Gerontology
• Economics
• Ecology
• Environmental science
• Psychology
• Business
• Environmental planning
• Geography
• Positive economics

Selected publications

• Utilitarian and biocentric stakeholders' visual preferences for floodplain restoration heterogeneity

  Restoration Ecology · 2026-01-22

  article

  Abstract Introduction Many stakeholders care more about how a restored landscape looks than about ecological design features, yet visual preferences for restored landscapes have rarely been evaluated. Restoration projects could benefit ecologically from incorporating more heterogeneity at the project's onset, but this impacts visual aesthetics. Objectives We evaluated the visual preferences for different types and levels of habitat heterogeneity of two stakeholder groups. Methods We developed a three‐dimensional interactive survey in Unreal Engine to evaluate participants' visual perception of terrain variability, tree clustering, tree size variability, understory complexity, and large woody debris for riparian forests that were simulated from field and remote sensing data. Participants were grouped into either primarily biocentric (hiker, wildlife viewer, and restoration ecologist) or utilitarian (fisher, hunter, and farmer) land users. Results Both participant groups had similar preferences for an intermediate level of habitat heterogeneity, though results differed for certain features. Biocentric stakeholders preferred landscapes with more variable topography and tree size, greater understory complexity, and more large woody debris than utilitarian participants. Biocentric and utilitarian participants had similar definitions for natural and for cared for landscapes. Utilitarian participants' ideal understory complexity matched their definition of cared for, whereas biocentric participants' ideal matched their definition of naturalness and visual complexity. Conclusions Generally similar perceptions of landscapes by both utilitarian and biocentric participants may result from living in the same region. Nonetheless, their preferences differed slightly because of how each group moves through the landscape.

  PublisherDOI

• Ecological economics as the science of sustainability and transformation: Integrating entropy, sustainable scale, and justice

  PLOS Sustainability and Transformation · 2024-02-22 · 9 citations

  articleOpen access1st authorCorresponding

  Ecological economics, developed in the late 1980s, came to be known as the multi- and transdisciplinary science of sustainability. Since that time, it has blended basic and applied research with the intention of both informing and bringing change to environmental policy, governance, and society. However, many conventional economists have questioned its originality and contributions. This paper begins by clarifying the foundational perspectives of ecological economics that it engages an economy embedded in both real and limited ecosystems as well as socially constructed power relations. Herman Daly, a founder of the field, expanded on Nicholas Georgescu-Roegen’s entropy economics by focusing on a quantifiable sustainable scale of the economy and achieving justice in the control and distribution of economic benefits. He called for both quantitative analyses of economic scale and discursive approaches to a just distribution. The paper then discusses how the terms entropy, scale, and justice are used and interact in the literature, illustrated by some of the key debates in the field involving the Ecological Footprint, substitutability of natural and manufactured capital, and the growth—“agrowth”—degrowth debate. The debates also illustrate the potential for the field to influence policy. Ecological economics as the science of both sustainability and transformation can deploy numerous concepts and tools to provide insights on how to illuminate and solve some of the most pressing problems of the Anthropocene.

  PublisherOA PDFDOI

• Empiricism

  Edward Elgar Publishing eBooks · 2023-02-21

  book-chapter1st authorCorresponding

  This comprehensive Dictionary brings together an extensive range of definitive terms in ecological economics. Assembling contributions from distinguished scholars, it provides an intellectual map to this evolving subject ranging from the practical to the philosophical.

  PublisherDOI

• Disaggregation

  Edward Elgar Publishing eBooks · 2023-02-21

  book-chapter1st authorCorresponding

  This comprehensive Dictionary brings together an extensive range of definitive terms in ecological economics. Assembling contributions from distinguished scholars, it provides an intellectual map to this evolving subject ranging from the practical to the philosophical.

  PublisherDOI

• Marginal user cost

  Edward Elgar Publishing eBooks · 2023-02-21

  book-chapter1st authorCorresponding

  This comprehensive Dictionary brings together an extensive range of definitive terms in ecological economics. Assembling contributions from distinguished scholars, it provides an intellectual map to this evolving subject ranging from the practical to the philosophical.

  PublisherDOI

• Kaldor–Hicks efficiency criterion

  Edward Elgar Publishing eBooks · 2023-02-21 · 1 citations

  book-chapter1st authorCorresponding

  This comprehensive Dictionary brings together an extensive range of definitive terms in ecological economics. Assembling contributions from distinguished scholars, it provides an intellectual map to this evolving subject ranging from the practical to the philosophical.

  PublisherDOI

• State of nature

  Edward Elgar Publishing eBooks · 2023-02-21

  book-chapter1st authorCorresponding

  This comprehensive Dictionary brings together an extensive range of definitive terms in ecological economics. Assembling contributions from distinguished scholars, it provides an intellectual map to this evolving subject ranging from the practical to the philosophical.

  PublisherDOI

• Integrated water resources management (IWRM)

  Edward Elgar Publishing eBooks · 2023-02-21 · 6 citations

  book-chapter1st authorCorresponding

  This comprehensive Dictionary brings together an extensive range of definitive terms in ecological economics. Assembling contributions from distinguished scholars, it provides an intellectual map to this evolving subject ranging from the practical to the philosophical.

  PublisherDOI

• Fallacy of misplaced concreteness

  Edward Elgar Publishing eBooks · 2023-02-21

  book-chapter1st authorCorresponding

  This comprehensive Dictionary brings together an extensive range of definitive terms in ecological economics. Assembling contributions from distinguished scholars, it provides an intellectual map to this evolving subject ranging from the practical to the philosophical.

  PublisherDOI

• Cycle

  Edward Elgar Publishing eBooks · 2023-02-21

  book-chapter1st authorCorresponding

  This comprehensive Dictionary brings together an extensive range of definitive terms in ecological economics. Assembling contributions from distinguished scholars, it provides an intellectual map to this evolving subject ranging from the practical to the philosophical.

  PublisherDOI

Frequent coauthors

• Nadine Heck

  15 shared

• Adina Paytan

  University of California, Santa Cruz

  14 shared

• Donald C. Potts

  University of California, Santa Cruz

  14 shared

• Karen Lykkebo Petersen

  6 shared

• Richard B. Howarth

  University of Nottingham

  5 shared

• Marc Mangel

  University of California, Santa Cruz

  4 shared

• Donald Ludwig

  4 shared

• Bruce C. Paton

  3 shared

Education

• Ph.D., Energy and Resources Group

  University of California, Berkeley

  1996

• MBA, Haas School of Business; Business & Public Policy

  University of California Berkeley

  1991

• MA, International Relations

  Georgetown University

  1985

• AB, International Relations

  Stanford University

  1982

Awards & honors

• Numerous research grants
• Numerous teaching awards