Faculty

Dr. Alfonso A. Aranda is a passionate scholar-activist dedicated to advancing environmental justice and community engagement. He holds a Ph.D. in Geography from the University of California, Davis, where his research has focused on addressing environmental health disparities in agriculturally-structured and farmworker communities. Dr. Aranda's expertise lies in conducting community-based participatory research (CBPR) to collaboratively assess health risks, exposure to carcinogens, and...

Professor Rachel Brahinsky teaches in the Urban and Public Affairs graduate program, the undergraduate Urban Studies program, and the Politics Department. She earned a PhD in geography from UC Berkeley, where she focused on the human and social geography of cities, with an emphasis on the politics of race and place. Her research and teaching center around the challenges of race and inequality in the context of rapidly changing American cities, with a longtime focus on the San Francisco Bay Area...

Dr. Dowd-Uribe is an interdisciplinary social scientist with core scholarly interests including sustainable agriculture, international development, food systems, climate adaptation, water security, and agroecology, with a principal geographic focus in Africa (Burkina Faso and Togo), and Latin America (Costa Rica and Colombia). He executes these interests through applied interdisciplinary research that seeks to understand the potential and actual social impacts of novel technologies and...

Vijaya Nagarajan is an associate professor in the Department of Theology and Religious Studies and in the Program of Environmental Studies. In addition to teaching at the University of San Francisco, she has also taught at the University of California, Berkeley and Harvard University.

Vijaya's academic interests weave among the fields of Hinduism, Environment, Gender, Ritual, and the Commons. She received her PhD in South Asian Language and Literatures from UC Berkeley. Vijaya has received...

Tanu Sankalia is a tenured full professor in the Department of Art + Architecture, and coordinates the Urban Studies Concentration within the Environmental Studies Program. He teaches courses in urban planning and design, architectural and urban history, and architectural design. He was trained in urban design at UC Berkeley, and in architecture at the School of Architecture, Ahmedabad, from where he graduated with a gold medal for the best diploma thesis.

Professor Sankalia's research and...

David Silver is a professor of environmental studies and affiliate faculty of urban agriculture. He teaches classes on urban agriculture, hyper-local food systems, and food, culture, and storytelling. David recently published The Farm at Black Mountain College (Atelier Editions and Black Mountain College Museum + Arts Center, 2024), the product of a decade's worth of original research. He serves as the faculty advisor of the USF Food Pantry and is one of the original founders, with Carol Spector...

Melinda Stone is an interdisciplinary artist who has been engaging in community-based projects for most of her life.

Stephen Zavestoski received his BA from the University of Notre Dame, and his MA and PhD from Washington State University.

He teaches courses in the area of Environmental Sociology. Dr. Zavestoski's research areas include environmental sociology, social movements, sociology of health and illness, and urban sustainability. He has published more than 40 articles and book chapters and co–edited Social Movements in Health (2005, Blackwell) and Contested Illnesses: Citizens, Science, and Health...

Kimberly Carfore is an adjunct professor of environmental studies and theology and religious studies. Her research interests include gendered experiences of divinity and embodied theology, nature spiritualities, ancestral skills, and wilderness experience.
 

Novella Carpenter is the author of Farm City: The Education of an Urban Farmer and The Essential Urban Farmer. She attended UC Berkeley's Graduate School of Journalism, where she studied with Michael Pollan. She lives in Oakland where she runs GhostTown Farm, a 1/10 of an acre homestead with an orchard, honey bees, chickens, and lots of vegetables.

Daniel Cooper was born and raised in Nicasio in West Marin, California. His research is composed of two primary streams that often overlap and converge. The first branch is top-down focused on global perspectives. The second thread is ethnogeographic, derived from participatory bottom-up approaches to document and analyze traditional knowledge among the Akawaio, Makushi, Arekuna, and Alleluia in the Guiana Highlands of South America. Additional interests include North American social movements...

Sam Mickey is an adjunct professor in the Theology and Religious Studies department at the University of San Francisco. He has also taught at Dominican University of California, Pacifica Graduate Institute, and the California Institute of Integral Studies, and he has worked for the Forum on Religion and Ecology at Yale. His research and teaching interests include environmental ethics, religion and ecology, and integral ecology.