Current & Past Scholars
Rachel Carson Visiting Scholars are experts in six areas central to the mission of Chatham University’s Falk School:
natural systems, including environmental science and natural resource conservation
sustainable built systems, including green buildings and renewable energy
equitable community development
sustainable business practices
food studies
environmentally-inspired writing and communication
Rachel Carson Visiting Scholars take an intersectional approach to exploring the root causes of social and ecological crises; they broaden our understanding of possibilities and pathways towards a regenerative, climate-positive future.
Rachel Carson Scholars are leaders in their fields – whether they come from academia, business, government, or community organizations.
And they are proudly hosted at Chatham University as it stewards the legacy of its powerful alumna and advances a vision of equitable progress within a vital, living Earth.
Exchanging Ideas
Hear from Zygmunt J. B. Plater, inaugural Rachel Carson Visiting Scholar, and Lou Leonard, dean of the Falk School of Sustainability & Environment and Eden Hall Campus on what makes the program remarkable.
Current Scholar: Taylor Brorby
Taylor Brorby is the author of Boys and Oil: Growing Up Gay in a Fractured Land, Crude: Poems, Coming Alive: Action and Civil Disobedience, and co-editor of Fracture: Essays, Poems, and Stories on Fracking in America.
His work has appeared in The New York Times, The Nation, The Huffington Post, and Orion Magazine and has been supported by the National Book Critics Circle, the MacDowell Colony, and the Stone Barns Center for Food and Agriculture. He serves on the editorial boards of Hub City Press and Terrain.org and is a contributing editor at North American Review. He teaches nonfiction writing in the MFA Program in Creative Writing at the University of Alabama.
Past Scholars
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Hanna Garth
Assistant Professor of Anthropology at Princeton University
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Heather Valentino
Assistant Director of Energy Management at Case Western Reserve University
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Joseph Sarkis
Professor at Worcester Polytechnic Institute’s (WPI) Business School
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Kelly Kay
Associate Professor of Geography at the University of California, Los Angeles
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Farha Ternikar
Professor of Sociology and Director of Gender, Women & Sexuality Studies at Le Moyne College
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Zygmunt J. B. Plater
Professor at Boston College Law School
