As Professor of Geography Mike Loranty concludes his three-year term as environmental studies director, Associate Professor of Environmental Studies Andy Pattison will step into the role for 2026–2029. Get to know the humor, adventure, and motivation of our new director!
What brought you into the field of Environmental Studies?
As long as I can remember, I loved being outside. When I was 9 years old, we moved from New York City to southwestern Connecticut, and all of a sudden, I had a lot more woods around me. It was great. I started a recycling program in my high school and spent a lot of time in the woods IDing birds, bugs, trees, etc.
I learned that a proposed zoning change in my town would lead to less protected open space (I did not know it then, but the issue was MUCH more complicated than that), so I started showing up to the Town Planning Commission meetings to hear about the details, and eventually they made me an honorary member with voting rights.
In college, I was a biology major and an environmental studies minor — the latter because I wanted to understand what I would now call the politics of environmental issues to complement my training in ecology. After a lot of cool jobs and experiences in New Mexico, Fiji, Costa Rica, Colorado, and California, I received a PhD in Public Affairs with a concentration in environmental policy, management, and law.
But I consider myself an interdisciplinary environmental social scientist, so when I came to 91Â鶹¾«Æ·, the ENST Program was the perfect place for me to land. I suppose what brought me to ENST, like many others, was a love of the outdoors and a desire to understand and protect it. But what I specifically went to graduate school to understand — my piece of the puzzle, so to speak — is the relative roles of power, institutions, and scientific information in the environmental policymaking process. That is what I love to research and teach.
What do you hope to bring to the Environmental Studies Program during your time as Director?
I have been at 91Â鶹¾«Æ· for 10 years, and in that time, we have grown in terms of majors and minors and have hired more faculty to support that growth. We have also revamped the curriculum to require an environmental science course, more environmental humanities, and an environmental politics/policy/economics requirement. So, I think we have been doing great, and I do not want to get in the way of that.
We could examine what we are doing well and find ways to show it off more, for instance, make our ENST 450 Community-based Study of Environmental Issues senior capstone course and the reports that the students create there more visible to the broader community. And while we have strong connections with the biology, earth and environmental geosciences, geography, and economics departments, it would be good to strengthen our ties to other campus departments and programs. Those are a couple of ideas, but mostly I want to support our fantastic faculty, students, and staff to do what they do best.