Natural Resources

Environmental Studies Sustainability & Environmental Studies
October 1, 2014

Denison’s Environmental Studies Department welcomes our newest faculty member, Dr. Justine Law. Dr. Law’s research explores the ways in which rural communities extract, manage, and use natural resources.

Dr. Law’s passion for the environment dates back to her childhood. Her father, an avid hunter and fisherman, instilled in her an appreciation for her natural surroundings. Dr. Law completed her undergraduate education at Allegheny College, in Meadville, Pennsylvania, where she obtained a B.S. in Environmental Science with a Studio Art minor. At Allegheny, Dr. Law fell in love with the liberal arts education model. Her professors challenged her and opened her eyes to new perspectives. Simultaneously, tutoring calculus in high school and college helped cultivate a love of teaching, and these passions for the environment and teaching encouraged her to pursue a career in academia.

“Law’s research explores the ways in which rural communities extract, manage, and use natural resources.”

Post Allegheny, Dr. Law earned her M.A. and Ph.D. at the Ohio State University. Her master’s research focused on the role of Appalachian forest landowners in the region’s reforestation. At the time, many Appalachian coal-fired power plants were wrestling with the idea of converting to wood-firing technologies. Dr. Law recognized the infeasibility of this endeavor and became interested in how wood energy generation works at different scales in different places. She wrote her Ph.D dissertation on wood energy developments in Michigan’s Upper Peninsula and in central Vermont, both regions where wood is a major source of renewable heat and power. In the dissertation, she draws on numerous fields and literatures—including political ecology, alternative political economies, energy geographies, forest ecology, and forest management—to explore how wood energy might support equitable rural development while sustaining forest health.

During her free time, Dr. Law still loves painting and drawing. She also can’t help but embrace stereotypical ‘nature-lover’ activities such as hiking, kayaking, and rock climbing. And in a world where animals can talk, if she had the opportunity to have dinner with any two, she would pick a velociraptor and an ant. She would want to learn the velociraptor’s artful ways and understand the ant’s colony behavior. All in all, Dr. Law is very excited to teach at Denison and to get to know the students.

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