Cluster focus

Societies around the world face complex environmental problems that affect the quality and security of human life. Solving these problems requires both interdisciplinary research to better understand how the Earth’s complex environmental systems function and how they interact with human systems, and integrating that research into decision-making and public policy to help manage our planet’s natural resources in a sustainable and secure manner. The cluster has helped to strengthen UW-Madison’s leadership in international global environmental science by integrating scientists, humanists and social scientists to look at environmental effects on the global level. The cluster faculty also have filled critical gaps and built a collaboration of more than 12 closely linked faculty members who have developed new research opportunities. This larger faculty network looks toward the development of new interdisciplinary programs on campus: one focusing on science, democracy and environmental policy, and the second on environmental history and justice.

Cluster accomplishments

  • In 2006, the cluster faculty received a $3.1 million grant from the National Science Foundation’s IGERT (Integrative Graduate Education, Research and Training) Program to launch the development of a new transdisciplinary graduate training program in global sustainability studies. A new graduate seminar on this topic is already being offered and ultimately the cluster hopes to develop a graduate minor and degree.
  • Cluster faculty have already developed several collaborative research teams, which have published two articles in Science and Nature, with authors from the cluster as well as affiliated faculty. The articles, “Impact of Regional Climate Change on Human Health” and “Global Consequences of Land Use,” received national press coverage, including a full-page feature in the Washington Post, and stories on CNN and in the New York Times.
  • The cluster group has written several research proposals together, including a NASA-funded project focused on the health effects of deforestation for those who live on the perimeter of the Amazon Rainforest. The campus International Institute has also helped fund a Global Environmental Studies research circle.
  • A new graduate seminar on this topic is already being offered and ultimately the cluster hopes to develop a graduate minor and degree.
  • A cluster faculty member and the coordinator were named Aldo Leopold Fellows at the Aldo Leopold Center where they had extensive training on outreach, media and public relations. This training has helped them to create better public understanding of environmental research.
  • The cluster faculty are also working to build a connection to participatory citizen science through the Web so that citizens around the world can report directly how they experience environmental change in their area. This level of participatory citizen science has never been implemented on a global scale before.

Cluster structure

The cluster coordinator and faculty who helped put this program together remain involved in building connections among faculty, departments and units that were previously unconnected. The cluster has evolved to include members of other clusters in its research circle, and is connected with faculty through the Gaylord Nelson Institute for Environmental Studies and with other faculty across campus in the schools of Medicine and Public Health, and Veterinary Medicine. The cluster is also connected with the UW-Madison Robert Wood Johnson Health and Society Scholars Program workshops on transdisciplinary education on environmental issues, connecting seven programs across natural and social sciences. The cluster also would like to expand in the health sciences area and build a stronger partnership with the Center for Global Health, which would create an interdisciplinary connection unparalleled at other universities.

Cluster coordinator, faculty and lead dean

Cluster Coordinator

  • Jonathan Foley, Professor, Environmental Studies and Atmospheric and Oceanic Sciences

Cluster Faculty

  • Samer Alatout, Assistant Professor, Rural Sociology and Environmental Studies

  • Leila Harris, Assistant Professor, Geography and Environmental Studies

  • Jonathan Patz, Associate Professor, Environmental Studies and Population Health Sciences

Lead Dean

  • Lewis Gilbert, Acting Director, Gaylord Nelson Institute for Environmental Studies