The Colby Summer Institute in Environmental Humanities (SIEH) gathers scholars from around the globe to collectively explore how the Environmental Humanities contribute to the theorization, imagination, and practice of socially just and ecologically hopeful futures for humans and nonhumans. For each iteration of the Summer Institute, we select some of the most respected scholars in environmental humanities to present lectures on their current research, lead seminars on the most important questions facing the discipline, and guide works-in-progress workshops where the research of every participant is critiqued and polished by their peers. The week-long timeline allows new friendships and professional relationships to develop, creating an enduring network of Institute Alumni Fellows.
If you are an academic, artist, activist, or independent scholar with a passion for the environmental humanities, we invite you to join us from July 18 – July 25, 2027, at the University of California, Los Angeles for a week of seminars, lectures, workshops, field trips, and other events.
The eighth annual Summer Institute seminar leaders will be Dina Gilio-Whitaker, lecturer of American Indian Studies at California State University, San Marcos; Alesia Montgomery, Assistant Professor of African American Studies, University of California, Los Angeles; Julie Sze, Professor of American Studies, University of California, Davis; and Priscilla Ybarra, Professor and Mellichamp Chair in Racial Environmental Justice, University of California, Los Angeles.
The application period for the 2027 iteration of the SIEH has not yet opened. If you have further questions about the SIEH, please email Program Coordinator Portia Hardy at [email protected].
For FAQs, please see this page.
Dina Gilio-Whitaker (Colville Confederated Tribes descendant) is a lecturer of American Indian Studies at California State University San Marcos and independent educator/advisor on Indigenous environmental issues. She is a sought-after speaker and has addressed and advised a wide array of academic disciplines and organizations in the realms of conservation, law, science, government, outdoor sports, and more. As a freelance journalist, her work has appeared in Indian Country Today, Los Angeles Times, High Country News, Sierra Magazine, Time.com, Slate, History.com, Bioneers, Truthout, the Pacifica Network, Grist, CSPAN Booktalk, The Boston Globe, and many more. She has won numerous awards for her writing, including awards from the Native American Journalists Association. Her research interests focus on Indigenous self-determination, environmental justice, and education. She also works within the academic field of critical sports studies, examining the intersections of indigeneity and the sport of surfing, and her public-facing, community-based work connects tribal communities with the professional surf world and ocean conservation groups and initiatives. Dina helped author AB 1782 in 2018, a bill to make surfing California’s state sport. In 2016 she published her first book along with coauthor Roxanne Dunbar-Ortiz,“All the Real Indians Died Off” and 20 Other Myths About Native Americans (Beacon Press). Her most recent book is the critically acclaimed and award-winning As Long as Grass Grows: The Indigenous Fight for Environmental Justice from Colonization to Standing Rock (Beacon Press, 2019).
Alesia Montgomery is an Assistant Professor in UCLA’s Department of African American Studies and at UCLA’s Institute of Environment and Sustainability (IoES). An ethnographer, Montgomery studies the social and environmental justice concerns of low-income, racialized communities. Her book, Greening the Black Urban Regime: The Culture and Commerce of Sustainability in Detroit, focuses on battles over the aims and strategies of green redevelopment. Her publications also include articles in the International Journal of Urban & Regional Research, City & Community, Ethnography, Antipode, Sociological Perspectives, and Global Networks.
Currently, Montgomery is studying (1) the politics and consequences of water insecurity in low-income, racialized communities and (2) constructions of political, cultural, and research bridges across communities to evaluate, re-imagine, and rebuild connections with water. Montgomery’s areas of research and teaching expertise span urban studies, environmental sociology, sociology of technology, race/class/gender/sexuality, social theory, and qualitative methods. She is involved in collaborations across institutions to develop new methods and tools for gathering, analyzing, preserving, and sharing qualitative data about environmental problems, in ways that further the rigor of research and its accessibility to communities. As part of this work, she serves on the Research Advisory Board for the Qualitative Data Repository (QDR) at Syracuse University.
Julie Sze is Professor of American Studies at UC Davis. She has written 3 books, most recently Environmental Justice in a Moment of Danger (2020, UC press), edited Sustainability and Social Justice (2018, NYU Press) and written over 60 articles and book chapters, on environmental justice, the environmental humanities, geography, and public policy. She collaborates with environmental scientists, engineers, social scientists and community-based organizers in California and New York.
Her interests include:
Ybarra’s book Writing the Goodlife: Mexican American Literature and the Environment (University of Arizona, 2016) is the first literary history of Mexican American environmental writing. Environmental journalist Yvette Cabrera engages with Writing the Goodlife in this 2020 article on Grist, “Planting Seeds: When It Comes to Sustainability, the Path Forward Might Mean Looking Back.” Ybarra is also co-editor of Latinx Environmentalisms: Place, Justice, and the Decolonial (Temple University Press, 2019), a collection of innovative scholarly essays and groundbreaking interviews with Latinx writers. Latinx Environmentalisms was awarded the 2022 Modern Language Association Prize for an Edited Collection, and the award committee called the book “a must for scholars interested in environmental studies, ecocriticism, and decolonization.”
She is Founder and Director of the Audacious Creativity for Climate Justice workshop and retreat. ACCJ is a gathering of Indigenous women and women of color who write and organize toward climate justice. The inaugural retreat took place in May/June 2025 with 13 participants, including two facilitators and a production assistant, at The Acreage, a retreat center in Osceola, Wisconsin. All 13 participants are writers and organizers. The retreat is made possible by support from the Kalliopeia Foundation, the McKnight Foundation, the Indigenous People’s Task Force, and The Acreage.
The seventh annual Summer Institute hosted a creative group of scholars and artists for an energizing week of dialogue while fostering lasting connections. The seventh annual Summer Institute seminar leaders were Mishuana Goeman, Professor and Chair of Indigenous Studies, University at Buffalo; Macarena Gómez-Barris, Professor of Modern Culture and Media and Director of the Center for Environmental Humanities, Brown University; Nicole Seymour, Professor of English and Graduate Advisor for Environmental Studies, California State University at Fullerton; and Nicole Starosielski, Professor of Film & Media, University of University of California, Berkeley.
The sixth annual Summer Institute hosted a creative group of scholars and artists for an exciting week of discussions and community building. Themes around intentional methodologies, smell-scapes, and recreational pleasurescapes were explored by participants. The sixth annual Summer Institute seminar leaders were Allison Carruth, Professor in the Program in American Studies and High Meadows Environmental Institute, Princeton University; Hi’ilei Hobart, Assistant Professor of Ethnicity, Race, and Migration, Yale University; Hsuan L. Hsu, Professor of English, UC Davis; and Max Liboiron, Associate Professor of Geography, Memorial University of Newfoundland.
The fifth annual Summer Institute welcomed a dynamic group of scholars and artists for a week of discussions that explored new dimensions of environmental thought. Participants engaged with themes as diverse as community knowledge sharing, non-human animal rights, and global environmental justice and the intersections of culture, gender, and sustainability. The 2024 seminar leaders were Marisol de la Cadena, Associate Professor of Anthropology at the University of California, Davis; Cajetan Iheka, Professor of English and Director of the Whitney Humanities Center at Yale; Jason W. Moore, Professor of Sociology at Binghamton University; and Astrida Neimanis, Associate Professor of English and Cultural Studies, Gender, Women, and Sexuality Studies at the University of British Columbia.
The fourth annual summer institute of 2023 brought together a diverse set of scholars and artists working at the intersections of race and the environment, Native studies in environmental visual cultures, environmental philosophy beyond the United States, and much more. The 2023 seminar leaders were Brian Burkhart, Associate Professor of Philosophy and Interim Director of the Native Nations Center at the University of Oklahoma; Ursula K. Heise, Professor of English and Marcia H. Howard Chair in Literary Studies at the University of California, Los Angeles; Barbara Muraca, Associate Professor of Philosophy and Environmental Studies at the University of Oregon; and Craig Santos Perez, Associate Professor of English at the University of Hawaiʻi, Mānoa.
In 2022, we returned to a full in-person experience for a week of exciting events and thought-provoking conversations. The 2022 seminar leaders were Sunil Amrith, Professor of History at Yale University; Mel Chen, Associate Professor of Gender & Women’s Studies and Director of the Center for the Study of Sexual Culture at the University of California, Berkeley; Elizabeth DeLoughrey, Professor of English at the University of California; and Kathryn Yusoff, Professor of Inhuman Geography at Queen Mary University of London.
As has been the case with so many academic events, the 2021 Summer Institute in the Environmental Humanities was modified by the pandemic, adopting a hybrid format to support the safest possible experience for all participants. The 2021 guest lecturers were Stacy Alaimo, Professor of English and Core Faculty Member in Environmental Studies at the University of Oregon; Bishnupriya Ghosh, Professor of English and Global Studies at the University of California, Santa Barbara; and Imre Szeman, Professor of Communication Arts at the University of Waterloo. There was also a spotlight lecture by Krushil Watene, Associate Professor of Humanities Media and Creative Communications at Massey University in New Zealand.
