Teaching

UNIVERSITY OF MASSACHUSETTS BOSTON

ENVSTY 325 Biodiversity Conservation: Bridging Nature and Culture (Fall 2026)

This course examines the interdependencies between humans and biodiversity through a biocultural approach to conservation. A biocultural approach aims to understand how ecosystems, species, and human cultures co-evolve toward centering local values, perspectives, and needs into biodiversity conservation strategies. Topics include biological, cultural, and linguistic diversity patterns and threats; human-wildlife systems; Indigenous Peoples and Local Communities; zoos, aquariums, and natural history museums; human-wildlife conflict and coexistence; and biocultural diversity in urban ecosystems. Students will also gain insights into conservation science and practice through exercises in documenting local ecological knowledge; developing social science surveys; conducting fieldwork; and communicating research results.

ENVSTY 410 Fourth-Year Seminar: Environmental Issues (Spring 2026)

In this seminar, students are exposed to current global environmental issues in a discussion format designed to stimulate student interest and develop critical thinking skills. The course is designed for vertical alignment of the curriculum and cohort development for environmental studies and sustainability majors.

ENVSTY 310 Third-Year Seminar: Professional Development (Spring 2026)

In this seminar, students develop professionally by learning about resumes, personal statements, cover letters, public presentations, interview skills and etiquette, reading and evaluating the primary literature, writing reports/proposals, and learning how to prepare for internships, jobs, and graduate programs.

ENVSCI 179G First Year Seminar in Sustainability (Fall 2025)

This course focuses on current issues in sustainability with an additional emphasis on student success and professional development. Through case study analysis and research papers, students learn about the complexities of balancing the three pillars of sustainability: environment, economics, and social justice.

PRINCETON UNIVERSITY

ENV/ANT/EEB 307 Systems Approaches to Conservation (Fall 2024)

This course examines the diversity of life on earth and how that diversity is interrelated within a complex and adaptive social-ecological system. Students explore the complexity underlying conservation issues and learn to identify and critique policy and management interventions that center the social-ecological contexts of biodiversity conservation. Topics include biological and cultural diversity patterns and threats, biocultural approaches to conservation, social-ecological systems theory, feedbacks, and telecouplings.

FRS 109 The Wildlife Trade (Fall 2023)

What do elephant ivory, pangolin scales, and baby orangutans have in common? They are all major players in the global wildlife trade. From discussions of the origins of COVID-19 to concerns about the extinction of the last white rhinos, the wildlife trade has garnered significant attention worldwide. In this course we explore how species have been appropriated as inputs into markets, including as pets, wild meat, and traditional medicine. We draw on diverse fields such as ecology and anthropology and apply the tools of systems thinking to analyze the wildlife trade through the lens of conservation science.