Brandon Whitney, MESc.

Program Coordinator

Curriculum Vitae (pdf) | Contact

Brandon’s experience with environmental and community development issues is eclectic—based in the natural sciences, social sciences and humanities—and has been formational in his understanding of and passion for interdisciplinary approaches to human-environment relations. He has been engaged with projects in rural and urban contexts in the US and abroad, including West Africa and Latin America. He comes to the Center from the Earth Institute at Columbia University, where he worked to develop collaborative research programs and foster inter-institutional partnerships to address major global challenges such as climate change and extreme poverty.

Brandon spent his undergraduate years trying to understand the notion of sustainability from the perspective of the ecological and social sciences, and notably, in a capstone project focused on the ethics of sustainability. His graduate research, grounded in the field of political ecology, explored the nature of conservation alliances between US foundations, scientists, indigenous leaders and their communities in the Amazon, with a view to understand power, identity, representation and interdependence across scales. Brandon has been fortunate to have a variety of professional experiences spanning academia, non-profits, and community organizations, including, among others: landscape ecology of corridors and edge effects; GIS-based conservation mapping of rare ecosystems; ethnobotanical studies of medicinal plants; urban community-based forestry in public parks; indigenous land rights to tropical forests; and international policy negotiation at the United Nations.

Over the past several years, Brandon has also been working with the Center for Excellence in Curricular Engagement at NC State University—where he is a Research Associate—on scholarship aimed at adapting the service-learning pedagogy to a variety of contexts including curricular development, international education and civic engagement in higher education. His service-learning background has engendered a deep appreciation for critical and systemic thinking and for new notions of engaged scholarship that center on civic responsibility and citizenship.

Born in Arizona and raised in coastal North Carolina, Brandon’s childhood memories are of the Sonoran Desert and the pine forests and creeks of the North Carolina coastal plain. He holds undergraduate degrees in Biology and Political Science from NC State University and a Master of Environmental Science from Yale University.

Contact:

Brandon C. Whitney
Program Coordinator
Center for Humans and Nature
109 W. 77th Street, Suite 2
New York, NY 10024
212-362-7170; 212-362-9592 fax
brandonwhitney@humansandnature.org