People

I am fortunate to have excellent colleagues to work with, both within the School and across the University.  Fellow political ecologists sustain a lively research culture within the School, and our efforts are supported by a number of scholars elsewhere at UVic who share similar interests.

My energy literacy has been developed largely in conversation with colleagues at the Institute for Integrated Energy Systems, an enormously welcoming focal point for research on sustainability in/and energy systems. Likewise the Cultural, Social and Political Thought Graduate Program is a hotbed for innovative work, consistently attracting excellent students who work hard to foster a politically-engaged intellectual community.

Finally, but perhaps most importantly, graduate and undergraduate students continue to raise interesting and important questions, and to contribute to keeping things lively and intellectually challenging.

Recent Graduate Students

2024    Katherine Pearce, MA Environmental Studies

Thesis: Catalyzing Local Climate Action: Can regional collaboration support transformative change?

2021    Catriona Mallows, MA Environmental Studies

Thesis: Cultivating Solutions: Oyster farmers’ responses to environmental change in British Columbia

2020    Emily Paige Bishop, MA Environmental Studies

Thesis:  The Forces of Yes: Analyzing Community-Scale Resistance to LNG Development in British Columbia

2019     Dana Cook, MA Environmental Studies

Thesis: A Powerful Landscape: First Nations Small-Scale Renewable Energy Development in British Columbia

2018     Eryn Fitzgerald, MA Environmental Studies

Thesis: Powering Self-Determination: Indigenous Renewable Energy Developments in British Columbia

2015      Mathew Murray, MA Environmental Studies

Thesis: Re-scaling Governance: First Nations and the Challenge of Shale Gas Development in British Columbia

2015      Christine Twerdoclib, MA Environmental Studies

Thesis: Monitoring Expertise: A perspective on environmental impacts monitoring in northeast British Columbia

2013   Kathryn Garvie, MA Environmental Studies

Thesis: Beyond Consultation: First Nations and the Governance of Shale Gas in British Columbia

2013    Lindsay Monk, MA Environmental Studies.

Thesis: Decolonizing Home: A re-conceptualization of First Nations’ housing in  Canada

2012    Nathaniel Gosman, MA Environmental Studies.

Thesis: Maximizing Energy Savings Reliability in BC Hydro Industrial Demand-side Management Programs: An Assessment of Performance Incentive Models

2012    Anna Melnik, MA Environmental Studies

Thesis: Inner Sustainability: Exploring experiences of needs, satisfaction, and frustration in sustainable lifestyle practices

2011    Margaret (Maggie) Low, MA Environmental Studies

Thesis: Negotiating Environmental Governance: Lessons from the Great Bear Rainforest Agreements in British Columbia, Canada

Co-Supervisor

2019    James Davey, MA History and CSPT

Thesis: A Bridge to Nowhere: British Columbia’s Capitalist Nature and the Carmanah Walbran War in the Woods (1988-1994)

2018    Kevin McCartney, MA Sociology

Thesis: Pricing Air to Starve the Fire: An Institutional Ethnography of Smart Prosperity

2015      Garrett Richards, PhD (Interdisciplinary: Env. Studies/Political Science)

Thesis:  Climate Change Action through Co-Productive Design in Science-Policy Partnerships at Municipal, Provincial, and National Levels of Government

2012    Mekonnen Aragaw, PhD: Interdisciplinary (Environmental Studies/Anthropology)

Thesis: Assessing the Impacts of Rural Electrification in Sub-Saharan Africa: The Case of Ethiopia

2011    Michael Large, LLM in Faculty of Law

Thesis: Ecological Degradation and Population Demands:  Wicked problems and the rule of rules in Canada/America

2010    Blake Anderson, MA, Environmental Studies
Thesis: Fossilizing Democracy: The Twin Energy Crisis and the Challenge to Liberal Democracy.

2009    Victor Lorentz, MA, Political Science and CSPT
Thesis: Producing the Boreal: The Politics of Environmentalism, Capitalism and Nature in Canada’s Northern Forests.

2009    Catherine D. Rhodes, MA Dispute Resolution, University of Victoria
Thesis: Cross Cultural Neighbors: Exploring Settler Responses to the Tsawwassen Urban Treaty

2008    Michael Optis, MASc (Mechanical Engineering), University of Victoria
Thesis: Incorporating Life Cycle Assessment into the LEED Green Building Rating System

photo credit: Jason Straka

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