Environmental Studies Archives - The College of Idaho

By Henry Miller

Rochelle Johnson

After growing up in the forests and meadows of New England, I now enjoy the stunning landscapes of the sage-brush steppe ecosystems of southwestern Idaho. Before moving to teach at the College of Idaho, I studied at Bates College (B.A., English, 1990) and worked for two years in the health insurance industry in Cambridge, Massachusetts, learning—in addition to the “9 to 5” commuter lifestyle—that an English major‘s skills in analytical thinking, precise expression, and conceptual organization are deeply valued in the business world. I then went west to Claremont Graduate University (M.A., Ph.D., 1999), where I studied American literature and benefited from taking courses in environmental history while backpacking all over the West. In the 1990’s, the “environmental humanities” was just emerging as a field, though not known by that name. I was fortunate to get involved just as this interdisciplinary mode of study was taking off and just as ASLE, the Association for the Study of Literature and Environment, was forming. I attended the first conferences focused on literature and environment and later served as President of both ASLE. Thanks to great mentors and encouraging professors, I was able to center my dissertation work on a historicized reading of the cultural work performed by nineteenth-century natural history. While my interests have changed over the years, once centering on theories of power and ecocriticism and later on material culture and theories of perception, my fascinations with language, meaning, and materiality sustain me. An author or editor of books, scholarly articles, reviews, and creative essays, my work has been supported or recognized by the Carnegie Foundation, the Idaho Humanities Council, the American Antiquarian Society, and the National Endowment for the Humanities, among other organizations. I value professional service, community, and finding ways for my academic scholarship to have public relevance in our politically and environmentally fraught age. On a more personal note, I enjoy exploring the vitality of matter through yoga, gardening, and running. EDUCATION Ph.D., Claremont Graduate University M.A., Claremont Graduate University B.A., Bates College SCHOLARSHIP & RESEARCH To learn more about my scholarly publications, creative writing, speaking engagements, and awards, or to see my full CV/resume, please visit: https://www.rochellejohnsonwriter.com/.

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By Henry Miller

Rachel Headley

I am broadly trained geomorphologist, glacial geologist, and environmental scientist. My interests and research range from glacial erosion and provenance to fluvial to sediment transfer to geoscience education to microplastics. I have experience in a variety of broad areas: traditional field geology, microplastic analysis, glacial flow modeling, detrital zircon separation, discipline-based education research and river monitoring. I’ve worked in a variety of locations: Alaska, the Cascades, the Alps, the Midwest, and Idaho. My teaching is focused around using evidence-based practice to give students an understanding of Earth and environmental sciences, particularly incorporating research and data-rich experiences. EDUCATION Ph.D., Earth and Space Sciences, University of Washington, 2011 B.S., Physics, University of Maryland – College Park, 2003 SCHOLARSHIP & RESEARCH Orlofske, J. M, *Wilson, B. R., *Tesar, T. E., Tyrell, C. D., and Headley, R. (2024), Fluvial habitat associations of riverine dragonflies (Odonata, Gomphidae) in the Huron Mountains (Michigan, USA), River Research and Applications, 1–13, doi: 10.1002/rra.4339 Headley, R. M. (2022), An intervention to address math anxiety in the geosciences, Journal of Geoscience Education, doi: 10.1080/10899995.2022.2065826 Headley, R. M. (2017), Climate Change: River Redirected, Nature Geoscience, 10, 327-328, doi:10.1038/ngeo2946. Enkelmann, E., P. O. Koons, T. L. Pavlis, B. Hallet, A. Barker, J. Elliott, J. I. Garver, S. P. S. Gulick, R. M. Headley, G. L. Pavlis, K. D. Ridgway, N. Ruppert, H. J. A. Van Avendonk (2015), Geophysical Research Letters, Cooperation among tectonic and surface processes in the St. Elias Range, Earth’s highest coastal mountains, 42(14), 5838-5846, doi: 10.1002/2015GL064727 SPEAKING ENGAGEMENTS Headley, R. M., Owens, B., and Patterson, E., Microplastics Along the Boise River in Urban Idaho. (2023) Geol. Soc. Abst. w/ Programs.55(6), doi: 10.1130/abs/2023AM-395363 Headley, R. M., Megerian, C. E., and Morgan, D., (2023), Spatial Variation in Glacial Erosion and Moraine Deposition of the Muldrow Glacier Through Holocene Warming, Geol. Soc. Abst. w/ Programs. 55(5), doi: 10.1130/abs/2023RM-388034 Patterson, E., Owens, B., and Headley, R., (2023) Suspended Microplastics in an Idaho Mountain Stream. Geol. Soc. Abst. w/ Programs.55(6), doi: 10.1130/abs/2023AM-395328. Fiedler, S., Johnston, A., Wilson, B., Orlofske, J., Tyrell, C., Headley, R. (2022), Linking Fluvial and Sedimentation Characteristics to Larval Dragonfly Habitat, American Water Resources Association – Wisconsin Section 45th Annual Meeting. Headley, R. M., *Megerian, C. E., *Miller, E., *Wang, S., and Morgan, D., (2021), Variation in Glacial Till Provenance Among Recessional Moraines of a Laurentide Ice Sheet Lobe, Abstract C32A-07 presented at 2021 Fall Meeting, AGU, New Orleans, LA, 13-17 Dec.

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By Henry Miller

Megan Dixon

Teaching is my great love. It is wonderful to meet students, hear their ideas, and help them learn to express those ideas as part of the ongoing conversation of education. My first PhD was in Slavic Languages and Literature, which means that I learned Russian, Polish, and French, and visited Russia several times. A desire to better understand changes in the world then led me to Human Geography, my second PhD and the basis for most of my teaching at CofI. In many of my classes, once you look at our topics they will seem obvious to you—but you won’t have looked before. I enjoy making people more aware of rivers and canals, soil, economic landscapes, urban development, and the possibilities of messy maps. Every other fall I get to teach Russian History. I also love teaching First-Year Seminar because I want everyone to feel that writing is “theirs.” My favorite exercise is to ask you to write until you surprise yourself! EDUCATION Ph.D., Geography, University of Oregon, 2009 Ph.D, Slavic Languages and Literature, University of Wisconsin-Madison, 1999 B.A., Russian, Rice University, 1991 SCHOLARSHIP & RESEARCH 2026, forthcoming. Mapping socio-ecological interactions in Russia’s hinterland: Grounding the study of diversity. Accepted to Sharafutdinova and Hashamova, eds., Race, Nation, and Nature. 2026, forthcoming. Indigenous place against imperial space: integrating Eurasia into the Russian imagination. Accepted to Bassin and Rudling, special issue of SpatioTemporality. 2026. Book contract from Lexington Press, April 2023. Tentative title: Uncolonizing Russia with Aleksei Ivanov. Due to Bloomsbury Press in September 2025. 2023. “Mapping Metals for Renewable Energy.” StoryMap hosted on Esri platform via College of Idaho institutional account. 2022. Seeking Ecology and Equity Along the Boise Greenbelt. Changing Societies and Personalities 6 (2): 350-363. 2020. Mapping the“Material Substrate”as Analysis of the Capitalocene. EuropeNow 35. 2017. The restructuring of public space in St. Petersburg’s ‘Baltic Pearl.’ In M. Czepczynski and S. Hristova, eds., Public Space: From Reimagination to Occupation. Ashgate. 2016. With J. Graybill. Uncertainty in the Urban Form: Post-Soviet Cities Today. E. C. Holland and M. Derrick, eds., Questioning Post-Soviet. Woodrow Wilson Center. 19-37. 2013. The Southern Square in the Baltic Pearl: Chinese ambition and “European” architecture in St. Petersburg, Russia. Nationalities Papers 41.4: 552-569. 2013. Transformations of the Spatial Hegemony of the Courtyard in Post-Soviet St. Petersburg. Urban Geography 34.3: 353-375. SPEAKING ENGAGEMENTS 2025. (Also 2017-2024). “A social-ecological portrait of Lake Lowell.” Presenter at Master Naturalist session on water quality, Deer Flat National Wildlife Refuge. Synthesis of research and analysis about Lake Lowell done for and by students in CofI Environmental Studies Capstone courses from 2014-2016 and in succeeding years. 2024. Osher Institute at Boise State University, Short Courses in Russian history, literature, and culture (also 2017-2020, 2022). 2024. “Geography’s contribution to discussion of decolonization: mapping the specificities of socio-ecological interactions” (paper). Association for Slavic, East European, and Eurasian Studies (ASEEES), Boston. November. 2023. “‘Russian’ Identity in the Novels of Alexei Ivanov: considering one end of geopolitics” (paper). Invited Conference in Honor of Geography Professor A. B. Murphy. Eugene, OR. June. 2023. “Imagining ‘Russia’ from east to west: integrating Eurasia into the Russian imagination” (paper). Workshop on Geographical Imaginaries in Central and Eastern Europe: Space in politics, history, culture and religion after 1989. Lund University, Sweden. May. 2023. “Digging Under Regionalization: How to Re-map ‘Russia’ in Eurasia” (paper); co-organizer of session “Words for Mapping Eurasia: Vectors of Colonization and Nation-State Formation.” Annual Meeting of American Association of Geographers (AAG), Denver, CO. March. PROFESSIONAL EXPERIENCE 2023-2025. Title VIII Fellow at University of Illinois Urbana-Champaign Russia and East European Summer Research Workshop. December 2021. Writer-in-residence at Hemingway House, Community Library, Ketchum, ID. July 2019, 2016. ArcGIS mapping Workshop and attendance at Esri User Conference, San Diego, CA. Supported by Mellon Travel Grants, The College of Idaho. June-July 2017. Short-term Research Grant, Kennan Institute, Woodrow Wilson Center, Washington, DC. RECRUITMENT TERRITORIES Southeast (KY, TN, NC, SC, LA, MS, AL, GA, FL) International Students Undergraduate Students in the following territories: McCall, Idaho (Hwy 55/95 Loops) Southwest (AZ, NM, TX) Northeast (CT, RI, MA, NH, VT, ME) Mid-Atlantic (PA, NJ, DE, MD, DC, VA, WV)

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Rochelle Johnson

Rachel Headley

Megan Dixon