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Post-Doctoral Fellows
Current Position: Postdoctoral Fellow Bill Lane Center for the Study of the North American West Stanford University Contact Office: 650.721.2649 Gregory Simon received his Ph.D. in Geography from the University of Washington. His current research explores urbanization and natural resource management in the American West, and the environmental history and political economy of the Bay Area. In 2007-2008, he will teach “The Environmental History of the Bay Area” in the History Department (Winter) and “NAFTA and the Environment” in Earth Systems (Spring). Teaching Research Currently I have three ongoing research interests focusing on the American West and South Asia: Urban Environmental Histories and Political Ecologies. As a National Science Foundation Interdisciplinary Fellow in Urban Ecology at the University of Washington, I examined a century of urbanization, and natural resource management in the Seattle metropolitan area. This work (published in Urban Ecosystems) details how evolving institutional framings of nature, periodic city growth initiatives, and a shifting sphere of political actors has shaped the goals and outcomes of park and open space management policies. I also have a deep interest in the political economy of urban wildfires. As a post-doctoral fellow at Stanford University I am working on a book project exploring the environmental history and political economy of the 1991 Oakland Hills Firestorm in the San Francisco Bay Area. Using a variety of spatial and historical data sources, this research reconstructs the story of the firestorm as more than a single event of tragedy, loss and heroism, and instead as part of a larger process of pre and post firestorm regional economic development, suburban sprawl, environmental management and community planning policies in the East Bay Hills. Environmental Policy and Development in the American West. The American West is notable for its extensive network of public lands. One the most influential guidelines shaping visitor behavior and informing management policies on Federal lands are the seven ‘Leave No Trace’ Principles. My co-author and I argue that these principles, while well intentioned and remarkably effective in minimizing backcountry impacts, rely on an outdated conception of ‘trace’ that is a-historical, anti-spatial and inconsistent with a modern environmental ethical code emphasizing individual responsibility, and the connection between spaces of production and consumption. We go beyond leveling a philisophico-cultural critique, by engaging policy and offering a set of complementary ‘Leave No Trace’ Principles suggesting that ‘the wilderness experience starts at home’. A manuscript on this topic is in review in the journal Environment. As a post-doctoral fellow at Stanford, I am currently applying for funding to embark on a collaborative, interdisciplinary project examining agricultural water reuse and recycling programs in the US West. Dramatic population growth, depleted aquifers, and great uncertainty about future precipitation levels are forcing water managers to radically alter how they use their supplies of freshwater. While many urban areas have implemented waste water recycling programs, the real promise of recycled water can be found in agricultural irrigation. Focusing on an initial case study in the Monterey Bay Area, I will examine field worker health concerns, crop quality issues and consumer anxieties – all of which are potential barriers to implementing agricultural waste water irrigation programs. Rural development, economic reforms and environmental management in South Asia. Through extensive field work funded by the University of Washington Graduate School and the National Science Foundation, I examine development projects aimed at reducing household energy use and improving indoor air pollution in Maharashtra, India. Currently I am exploring the fate of these projects as they have recently transitioned from a centrally planned, government subsidized framework to one that requires foreign direct investments and market mechanisms to deliver health and environmental benefits to households. I am particularly interested in how market-based development programs are experienced and reworked locally by various marginalized community members. This research makes an important contribution to theories in development studies exploring participatory development under conditions of privatization and state disinvestment. I have a manuscript in review in the journal Political Geography, and I am currently working on another manuscript in the same vein exploring how pure market mechanisms influence the distribution of smokeless cookstoves in Maharashtra. Alongside a description of class-based distributional inequities resulting from commercialization, this paper will also illustrate how households demonstrate creative expressions of power in order to actualize self-defined health concerns. Other research interests Practicing interdisciplinary education. Numerous colleges, programs and departments around the world claim to promote interdisciplinarity through collaborative teaching and research endeavors across disciplines. My research evaluates the process of ‘achieving interdisciplinarity’ by examining the core challenges and opportunities confronting participants. I have co-authored a paper (in Bioscience) examining the specific challenges and opportunities for graduate students participating in interdisciplinary programs on the environment. I have also co-authored a paper (in review Journal of Experiential Education) evaluating interdisciplinarity from a decidedly field-based perspective. This paper argues that although much has been written about the benefits of field settings for natural and social-science based studies, benefits derived from integrating cultural and historical environmental studies are less clear.
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Gregory Simon