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Kari Marie Norgaard

Professor of Sociology and Environmental Studies, University of Oregon

Professor Norgaard (B.S. Biology Humboldt State University 1992, M.A. Sociology Washington State University 1994, PhD Sociology, University of Oregon 2003) is a non-Native Professor of Sociology and Environmental Studies at University of Oregon. Dr. Norgaard trained as a postdoctoral fellow in an interdisciplinary IGERT Program on Invasive Species at University California Davis from 2003-2005 and from there joined the faculty as Assistant Professor at Whitman College in Walla Walla, WA from 2005-2011. She joined the University of Oregon faculty in 2011. Over the past ten years Dr. Norgaard has published and taught in the areas of environmental sociology, gender and environment, race and environment, climate change, sociology of culture, social movements and sociology of emotions. She currently has two active areas of research:

1) work on the social organization of denial (especially regarding climate change), and

2) environmental justice work with Native American Tribes on the Klamath River.

Both of these areas of scholarship have been nationally recognized through the award of research grants, speaking invitations, and coverage of research by high profile media outlets including the Washington Post, National Geographic, British Broadcasting System, and National Public Radio. Her book Living in Denial: Climate Change, Emotions and Everyday Life came out with MIT Press in the Spring of 2011. Norgaard is the recipient of the Pacific Sociological Association’s Distinguished Practice Award for 2005.

Experience

  • –present
    Associate Professor of Sociology and Environmental Studies , University of Oregon