Team

Michael Craig, Ph.D.

Assistant Professor, University of Michigan School for Environment and Sustainability

Ph. D., Engineering and Public Policy, Carnegie Mellon University (2017)

M.S., Technology and Policy, Massachusetts Institute of Technology (2014)

B.A., Environmental Studies, Washington University in St. Louis (2010)

As an Assistant Professor of Energy Systems, Michael researches how to reduce global and local environmental impacts of energy systems while making those systems robust to future climate impacts. In between and after his graduate education, he worked at Oceana and the U.S. National Renewable Energy Laboratory. How climate change and other environmental issues will impact humans and natural systems motivates his research. 

Michael conducts system-level analyses to understand the deployment potential and operations of new technologies given the constraints and features of the larger systems in which they are embedded. Through system analysis, his research also illuminates how the operations and evolution of energy systems respond to new technologies and other factors, e.g. nonstationary environmental conditions induced by climate change. Michael frequently collaborates with economists, climate scientists, engineers, and other disciplines. 

Sue Anne Bell, Ph.D., FNP-BC

Assistant Professor, Department of Systems, Populations and Leadership, University of Michigan School of Nursing

Ph.D., University of Michigan (2014); Graduate Certificate in Women’s Studies (2014)

M.S., Nursing, Emory University (1999)

B.S., Nursing, Florida State University (1997)

Dr. Bell is a nurse scientist and family nurse practitioner, with expertise in disaster response, community health and emergency care. Her research focuses broadly on the health effects of disasters and the impact of climate change on human health within a health equity framework. She is particularly interested in the long-term impact of disasters on human’s health, in developing policy that protects and promotes health throughout the disaster management cycle, and in the relationship between community resilience, health disparities and disasters. Dr. Bell is active in multiple emergency preparedness and response activities, including serving on federal panels, co-authoring books and advising on national policy issues. She is clinically active in disaster response through the U.S. Department of Health and Human Service’s National Disaster Medical System with recent deployments to Hurricane Irma, Hurricane Maria and the California wildfires.

Kyle Whyte

George Willis Pack Professor, University of Michigan School for Environment and Sustainability 

University Diversity and Social Transformation Professor, University of Michigan

Faculty Director, Tishman Center for Social Justice and the Environment 

Principal Investigator, Energy Equity Project

Ph.D., Philosophy, Stony Brook University (2009)

M.A., Philosophy, University of Memphis 

B.S., Business Administration, Babson College

Kyle Whyte is George Willis Pack Professor at the School for Environment and Sustainability, teaching in the SEAS environmental justice specialization. He is founding Faculty Director of the Tishman Center for Social Justice and the Environment, Principal Investigator of the Energy Equity Project, and Affiliate Professor of Native American Studies and Philosophy. His research addresses environmental justice, focusing on moral and political issues concerning climate policy and Indigenous peoples, the ethics of cooperative relationships between Indigenous peoples and science organizations, and problems of Indigenous justice in public and academic discussions of food sovereignty, environmental justice, and the anthropocene. He is an enrolled member of the Citizen Potawatomi Nation.

Kyle currently serves on the White House Environmental Justice Advisory Council and the National Academies' Resilient America Roundtable. He is President of the Board of Directors of the Michigan Environmental Justice Coalition and the Pesticide Action Network North America. He has served as an author for the U.S. Global Change Research Program, including on the National Climate Assessment, and for the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change Working Group II. He is a former member of the Advisory Committee on Climate Change and Natural Resource Science in the U.S. Department of Interior and of two environmental justice work groups convened by past state governors of Michigan.  

Steven Yaffee, Ph.D.

Associate Professor, University of Michigan School for Environment and Sustainability

Ph.D., Environmental Policy and Planning, Massachusetts Institute of Technology (1979)

M.S., Natural Resource Policy, University of Michigan (1973)

B.S., Resource Planning and Conservation, University of Michigan (1972)

Professor Yaffee's research focuses on collaborative decision making on complex environmental and sustainability choices, including the ways that traditional political processes and organizations function, and how new collaborative structures can be developed to encourage more effective decision making. He is particularly interested in landscape-scale conservation and sustainable natural resource management, and how decision-making institutions can be encouraged to take on an ecosystem-scale perspective. Of particular interest is policy involving biological diversity, public lands, marine and coastal ecosystems, and energy. 

Steve's research and teaching draws from substantial on-the-ground work with nonprofit organizations and charitable foundations in facilitating dispute resolution and collaborative problem-solving processes, and in helping them develop monitoring, evaluation and adaptive management strategies. 

Stella Cousins, Ph.D.

Research Scientist, University of Michigan School for Environment and Sustainability

Ph. D., Environmental Science, Policy, and Management, University of California Berkeley (2016)

M.S., Forest Science, Yale University (2010)

B.S., Biological Sciences, Stanford University (2004)

Dr. Stella Cousins is an ecosystem ecologist interested in understanding how and why forests change. She uses patterns measured in trees and forests such as growth, mortality, and community dynamics to reveal how ecosystems respond to human demands and disturbances. Her current research focuses on the drivers of tree mortality in California forests and the transformations that can be expected in ecosystems that experience rapid change. In earlier research she has examined forest carbon processes, air pollution impacts to montane forests, provision of watershed services, and the management of vegetated cultural landscapes. 

Her work leverages comprehensive surveys conducted by the USFS Forest Inventory and Analysis (FIA) Program, long-term monitoring, and measurements ranging from individual tree rings to whole forest structures. Dr. Cousins is broadly interested in how landscapes can be sustainably managed for multiple benefits, which often involves collaborating on multi-disciplinary teams and investing in place-based data collection. She is especially interested in social-environmental problems facing the Western United States. 

Prior to joining SEAS, Dr. Cousins was an Assistant Professor at California Polytechnic State University and a postdoctoral scholar at UC Berkeley. She completed her Ph.D. at UC Berkeley and was a graduate fellow at the National Socio-Environmental Synthesis Center (SESYNC).

Nancy French

Senior Research Scientist, Michigan Tech Research Institute (MTRI)

Adjunct Professor, College of Forest Resources and Environmental Science (SFRES)

Ph.D., Natural Resources/Remote Sensing, University of Michigan (2002)

M.S., Natural Resources/Remote Sensing, University of Michigan (1991)

B.S., Physics, Bates College (1983)

Dr. French is Senior Scientist at the Michigan Tech Research Institute and an Adjunct Professor in the College of Forest Resources and Environmental Science at Michigan Technological University. She serves on the Editorial Board and as an Assistant Editor for the International Journal of Wildland Fire. Dr. French's primary research has focused on wildfires and their effect on the structure and function of terrestrial ecosystems. Her research has included studies in boreal, arctic, and temperate ecosystems of North America and Eurasia and the use of remote sensing technologies to understand impacts of fire on ecosystems and carbon cycling. Her research has included mapping and monitoring burn severity, as well as sensing surface moisture conditions and the development of geospatial methods for quantifying wildland fire emissions of carbon and air pollutants. In particular, Dr. French is developing approaches to use satellite data, including Landsat, MODIS, and SAR systems, to monitor the spatial and temporal patterns of fire and fire effects on land, water, and air and integrating remote sensing and GIS into decision products.

Megan Czerwinski

Ph.D., Nursing, University of Michigan (2020)

B.S.N., Nursing, University of Michigan (2015)

B.A., Art & Design, University of Michigan (2015)

Meg is an artist, registered nurse, and scientist focused broadly on community health and the sustainability of the social-ecological systems that support it. Her research is guided by frameworks of environmental justice and collaborative design. 

Northern Michigan forests have nurtured Meg from childhood. Her appreciation of the relationship between human health and balance within nature deepened as a graduate student participant in a community sustainability solutions exchange at the Albert Schweitzer Hospital in Lambaréné, Gabon. She subsequently completed dissertation research examining the development of sustainability competence in nursing education. 

Before joining the Western Forest & Fire Initiative, Meg was a frontline nurse at the University of Michigan Hospital, where she remains clinically active. Prior contributions also include to the University of Michigan President’s Commission on Carbon Neutrality as a member of the Campus Culture and Communication internal analysis team, and to Gala - an open-access sustainability education platform. As a postdoctoral fellow, Meg will investigate barriers to and facilitators of preparedness, adaptation, and resilience to wildfire and smoke events among older adults, specifically those requiring long-term care.

Caroline Beckman

Ph.D. Candidate, University of Michigan School for Environment and Sustainability 

B.S., Earth Systems, Stanford University (2021)

Caroline is an incoming PhD student studying human behavior and climate hazards at the School for Environment and Sustainability. Broadly, her research interests center on how communities and individuals respond to climate change. With a focus on climate adaptation, she seeks to explore how people understand specific climate hazards and what factors promote health-protective responses during climate events.

In prior research, Caroline worked on mixed-methods research projects covering a range of topics related to climate change including ocean conservation behavior, land conservation, air quality, and environmental justice. She received a BS in Earth Systems at Stanford University with a focus in human environmental systems. Before coming to SEAS, Caroline worked as a community organizer and program manager at Climate Resilient Communities, a community-based organization in the San Francisco Bay Area working on climate adaptation to wildfire smoke, extreme heat, and flooding.  

Julia Wondolleck, Ph.D.

Associate Professor, Emeritus, University of Michigan School for Environment and Sustainability

Ph. D., Environmental Policy and Planning, Massachusetts Institute of Technology (1983)

M.C.P., Environmental Planning, Massachusetts Institute of Technology (1980)

B.A., Economics, University of California Davis (1977)

Julia Wondolleck’s research and teaching is focused on the collaborative dimension of ecosystem management. She is interested in the structure of policy and administrative processes that promote the sustainability of ecological and human systems in the face of diverse yet legitimate interests, scientific complexity, and often conflicting and ambiguous legal direction. Wondolleck has spent over 30 years examining the emergence and functioning of inter-organizational and community-based collaborative processes in ecosystem-scale resource planning and management. This research looks at both conflict and collaboration in the management of public natural resources and, in particular, the factors that promote and sustain collaborative resource management processes over time. Current research projects include: assessing lessons for policy and practice from marine and coastal ecosystem-based management initiatives around the world; understanding the factors that enable resilience of local communities; examining effective end user engagement in collaborative science; and advancing understanding of the connections between the factors that encourage and sustain collaborative ecosystem management initiatives and the institutional arrangements that might better enable community-level adaptation to the effects of climate change.

Anthony "Tony" Gardella

Associate Economist, Industrial Economics Incorporated

M.S., Environment and Sustainability, University of Michigan (2022)

M.S., Economics, University of Michigan (2022)

B.A., Environmental Analysis and Policy, Boston University (2015)

Tony Gardella graduated with a focus on Environmental Policy and a Master of Applied Economics student in the Department of Economics. He worked as a Thesis Research student under Dr. Fischer and Dr. Moore. He explored how to analyze the impacts of policy in the face of the complex wildfire problem we face. Many policies are designed and analyzed to understand how they lower the risk of wildfire damages. Few are concerned with how the costs of wildfire are distributed and who are burdened with them. To address this issue, he used an agent based modeling approach to understand how wildfire costs on homeowners at the WUI are distributed within a neighborhood, and how demographics may determine who are disproportionately burdened with these costs.

Tony is also an ORISE fellow at the EPA, working on model validation techniques for the Climate Economics and Modeling Center. His work entails developing a custom R package for automated data model comparison with a global Integrated Assessment Model. Prior to attending the University of Michigan, Tony worked on the Predictive Ecosystem Analyzer(PEcAn) project under Dr. Dietze at Boston University. The PEcAn project aims to develop and promote accessible cyber-infrastructure for ecosystem modeling and forecasting, such that science, policy, and management can be informed by the best available data and models. All together, Tony has an interest in socio-ecological systems, how we model them, and how we use models to inform our actions in the face of climate change.