Hoch Cunningham Environmental Lectures

Dr. Fern Thompsett is an environmental anthropologist and a postdoctoral fellow with the University Ecologies project at Tufts University. She earned her PhD from Columbia University in 2025. Her research focuses on contemporary responses to climate change; specifically, she works with members of the Anti-Civilization Movement in the U.S. Pacific Northwest, whose politics revolve around an anti-colonial critique of mass agriculture. Dr. Thompsett is interested in the ways in which these political orientations motivate people to build alternative worlds based on more just and mutualistic relationships between humans and nonhuman beings, and what these worlds look like in daily practice. Previously, she co-founded the Brisbane Free University—an open, community-based learning project—and researched non-hierarchical pedagogies with 25 free universities across Canada, Mexico, and the United States. She is a co-author of 'Transforming Universities in the Midst of Global Crisis,' published by Routledge in 2021. In her pre-academic lives, she was a radio host, musician, and community organizer.

Donna Hazard leads Vital Ocean Ventures (VOV), an investor in early stage bluetech companies with high potential for financial returns and a positive impact on ocean health. VOV connects individual investors, family offices, funds and impact organizations to channel philanthropic and private capital into promising ventures. Prior to VOV, Donna was a board member and managing director of investments at bluetech innovation hub SeaAhead, where she led the company’s angel investor group, the Blue Angels, which has invested in 40 companies. As a member of the executive team, she also led the grant-funded UpSwell program to attract additional capital to the blue economy; the company’s engagement in the growing macro-algae industry; and several strategic partnerships. Before this, Donna served as Board Chair and Interim President & CEO at the New England Aquarium, where she led efforts to better integrate conservation and education programs, exceed the organization’s fundraising goal, and generate an operating surplus. Donna started her career with 15 years in the biotech industry, culminating in co-founding and serving as Vice President of Business Development for venture-backed biotech diagnostics company Exact Sciences (NASDAQ: EXAS), which reached a market cap of $26 B and is currently being acquired by Abbott Labs for $21 B. She was also a consultant at Bain & Company. Donna holds an AB in Biology from Princeton University, an MBA from Harvard Business School, and a Masters in Sustainability from Harvard Extension. 

Henry Puza, Campus Service Manager, has been a part of the Tufts Community since 2021. Henry joined the Campus Services team as a Union Groundskeeper in March of 2021, was then promoted to Grounds Manager in November 2021, and recently promoted to Campus Services Manager in January 2025. Henry has been part of the grounds and landscape field since the age of 14 working summers as a full-time landscaper for a local outfit in his hometown of Westfield, Massachusetts. He studied Landscape Contracting at the Stockbridge School of Agriculture. After earning his associate degree, he transferred to UMASS Amherst and received a bachelor's degree in landscape architecture. After college, he moved to Nantucket working grounds for a private tennis club, first mate and caretaker on a private yacht, and finally General Manager for one of the larger landscape design build companies on the island. After six years on the island, he moved to Somerville and served as a maintenance account manager for a large landscape design/build firm in Woburn. Seeking an opportunity to work in higher ed, Henry applied to Tufts and has been extremely grateful for the opportunities Tufts has and continues to award him. He loves to be a part of the Tufts community and to see the campus grow and evolve over the months, seasons, and years.

Dr. Erica Smithwick, A95, is a Distinguished Professor of Geography and Director of the Earth and Environmental Systems Institute at Penn State University. She is also an Associate Director of the Institute of Energy and the Environment. Smithwick leads the Penn State Climate Consortium that aims to bring together interdisciplinary researchers in partnership with society to innovate climate solutions. Trained as a landscape and ecosystem ecologist, her work aims to support sustainable land management decision-making under climate change, with particular focus on forest resilience to wildfire and natural carbon sequestration strategies. She has worked extensively across the U.S., including in the Mid-Atlantic, the Rocky Mountains, the Pacific Northwest and Alaska, and has many past or ongoing research projects in Africa. She also served as a U.S. Fulbright Scholar in South Africa. An overarching thread of this research is the use of transdisciplinary partnerships to identify solutions to complex environmental challenges. Dr. Smithwick is currently on sabbatical as a Bullard Fellow at Harvard Forest Research Station.

Dr. Vahedifard is a professor and Louis Berger Chair in the Department of Civil and Environmental Engineering at Tufts University. Further, he serves as the Lead, Resilient and Equitable Infrastructure at the United Nations University Institute for Water, Environment and Health (UNU-INWEH), Canada. His research efforts primarily encompass the areas of civil and geotechnical engineering, interfacing with the grand challenges of Climate Change, Resilient Infrastructure, and Environmental Justice. His interdisciplinary work has centered around studying the resilience and adaptation of infrastructure in the face of extreme events (e.g., droughts, floods, wildfires, and cascading hazards) in a changing climate. He has led several transdisciplinary research initiatives focused on emerging issues that relate to climate-resilient communities and infrastructure systems, aging infrastructure, extreme events, cascading hazards, inclusive adaptation, and environmental justice. He is a Fellow of the American Society of Civil Engineers (ASCE) and the recipient of several awards, including the Norman Medal, MSU Annual Research Award, MS ASCE Engineer of the Year Award, the Best Paper award from the ASTM Geotechnical Testing Journal, and the Federal Laboratory Consortium Interagency Partnership award.

Dr. Hilary Palevsky is an Assistant Professor in the Boston College Department of Earth and Environmental Sciences, where she leads the Marine Biogeochemistry research group. Her research team conducts fieldwork at sea to deploy and calibrate autonomous biogeochemical sensors, measures samples from the field back in the laboratory, and analyzes data from sensors deployed in the field, often together with complementary datasets such as from satellite remote sensing and global climate model simulations. Her work spans marine environments from the subpolar North Atlantic Ocean to tidal salt marshes in coastal New Jersey. Additional information about her research is available on her profile.

Dr. Brian Codding is professor at the University of California, Santa Barbara where he is jointly appointed in the Environmental Studies Program and Department of Geography and is affiliated with the American Indian and Indigenous Studies initiative. He is also affiliated with the Department of Anthropology at the University of Utah, where he is a faculty fellow with the Responsible Artificial Intelligence initiative. He earned a PhD and master’s degree in anthropology from Stanford University, and an interdisciplinary bachelor’s degree from Cal Poly San Luis Obispo. His research examines interactions between humans and environments across space and time. Current projects focus on collaborative, transdisciplinary partnerships with American Indian communities to help document, sustain, and restore Indigenous social and environmental systems. His work also explores general features of human-environment dynamics to better understand environmental and social challenges we face today.

Dr. Colleen Lanier-Christensen is a Burke Climate and Health Fellow with the Harvard Global Health Institute and Salata Institute for Climate and Sustainability, and a Postdoctoral Fellow with Harvard University’s Department of the History of Science, where she earned her PhD. She works at the intersection of history of science and public health, focusing on the governance of environmental and health risks, including air pollution, chemical products, and medical technologies. Colleen also holds an MPH from the Department of Sociomedical Sciences at Columbia University’s Mailman School of Public Health, with a certificate in Environmental Health Policy.

Hannah Sobel is the Program Manager overseeing the PVGrows Investment Fund and Massachusetts Food Trust programs at Franklin County Community Development Corporation (FCCDC). In that role, she works with farms and retail food businesses to secure funding and technical assistance to strengthen local agricultural economies and increase healthy food access in low-income communities. Prior to joining FCCDC in 2023, Hannah worked throughout the food system, from farming and urban agriculture to municipal food truck policy and non-profit meals programs. She has an MA in Urban and Environmental Policy and Planning and an MS in Food Policy and Applied Nutrition from Tufts University.

Dr. Everose “Eve” Schlüter is the Acting Director of the Massachusetts Division of Fisheries and Wildlife (MassWildlife), a position she assumed in January 2026. She previously served as Deputy Director, becoming the first woman to hold that role, and brings nearly two decades of experience with the agency. Eve joined MassWildlife in 2007 and advanced through several leadership positions, including Chief of Regulatory Review and Assistant Director of the Natural Heritage and Endangered Species Program (NHESP). In that role, she oversaw statewide efforts in rare species conservation, habitat management, ecological research, data management, and regulatory review under the Massachusetts Endangered Species Act. Her leadership supported major initiatives such as the expansion of BioMap, the Commonwealth’s online conservation planning tool, and cross-agency collaboration on complex issues including offshore wind development, mosquito control, and landscape-scale wildlife conservation. Most recently, launched by Governor Healey’s Executive Order 618, Eve has been part of a team that developed a 25-year plan setting nation-leading biodiversity conservation goals for 2030, 2040, and 2050.

Eve also brings experience from the Executive Office of Energy and Environmental Affairs, where she served as Assistant Director of the Massachusetts Environmental Policy Act Office, strengthening coordination between science, policy, and environmental review. She holds a PhD in Biology and a Certificate in Community Environmental Studies from Tufts University. Eve lives in Maynard with her family and is committed to advancing wildlife conservation and equitable access to nature across Massachusetts.

Dr. Hanna Garth is a sociocultural and medical anthropologist who studies food access and the global food system. Her recent work is focused on the connections between distribution systems, structural inequalities, health, and wellbeing. Specifically, she studies the ways in which changes in the global food system, and shifts in local food distribution systems impact communities, families, and individuals. She draws on this ethnographic research to understand issues related to justice and equity in multiracial communities. She studies these questions in Latin America and the Caribbean, and among Black and Latinx communities in the United States. She is Assistant Professor of Anthropology at Princeton University. Based on long term research in eastern Cuba, she published the book Food in Cuba: The Pursuit of a Decent Meal. Drawing on 15 years studying the food justice movement in South Central Los Angeles, her second book Food Justice Undone: Lessons for Building a Better Movement is forthcoming with the University of California Press. Out of that research she also published the co-edited the volume Black Food Matters: Food Justice in the Wake of Racial Justice. She has also published several articles in top journals in her field and won a wide variety of awards for her research and service.

Tessa Farmer is an Associate Professor in the Department of Anthropology and the Global Studies Program at the University of Virginia. Her first book, Well-Connected: Everyday Water Practices in Cairo (2023), focuses on water and wastewater in Cairo, Egypt. She has a second book manuscript and digital project underway on charitable water fountains (sabils) that are an important part of the built environment and moral ecology of Cairo, and an ongoing research collaboration with the Athar Lina Initiative on water reuse and urban agriculture in the al-Khalifa neighborhood of Cairo. Her research has been supported by the Fulbright Hayes and Fulbright Scholar awards, the Social Science Research Council’s DPDF and IRDF awards, the PEO, the University of Texas at Austin, Whitter College, and the University of Virginia. Tessa’s work appeared in the Middle East Law and Governance Journal, Human Organization, the Journal of Sustainability Education, Anthropology News, MERIP, the edited volume Challenging Global Development: Towards Decoloniality and Justice, and she co-guest edited a special issue on the Environment in the Middle East in the International Journal of Middle East Studies with Jessica Barnes. For more information, visit the website.

Emily Vogler is a landscape architect, environmental planner and artist whose research, design and teaching investigate social-ecological systems surrounding water, sense of place and climate uncertainty. She has ongoing research projects looking at the irrigation ditches in New Mexico, aging dam infrastructure in New England and coastal adaptation strategies in Narragansett Bay. Through her research and design practice, she investigates how the restoration and design of rivers and coastlines can help build climate resilience, improve habitat, expand public access, and strengthen community identity and stewardship. Emily is an associate professor at the Rhode Island School of Design where she teaches seminars and design studios on hydrological systems, urban ecology, landscape commons, community engagement strategies, and material and site-based strategies to restoration. She is also the founder and principle of Commonplace Landscape and Planning. From 2017–2019, Vogler served as Department Head of Landscape Architecture at RISD. Before joining the faculty, she was a Senior Project Manager at Michael Van Valkenburgh Associates and was recognized as the 2010 National Olmsted Scholar.