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About our Experts

The Carolina environmental expert listing consists of all researchers at UNC-Chapel Hill engaged in educational, research and/or community engagement activities related to environmental science and studies. They collectively make up the interdisciplinary community of environmental scholars on campus, providing a group to which students, faculty, administrators and outside organizations can turn to for expertise in environmental education, research and/or community engagement. Learn more about Carolina’s Environmental Programs.

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Amanda Northcross

amandaln@email.unc.edu

Director of Undergraduate Studies
Department of Environmental Sciences and Engineering

Associate Professor
Department of Environmental Sciences and Engineering

Expertise:

environmental exposures to understand their impacts on the health of communities

Janet Nye

jnye@email.unc.edu

Associate Professor
Institute of Marine Sciences

Expertise:

quantitative fisheries ecology

Leena Nylander-French

leena_french@unc.edu

Director
Occupational Exposure Science and Industrial Hygiene Program

Director
NC Occupational Safety and Health Education and Research Center

Professor
Department of Environmental Sciences and Engineering

Expertise:

human exposure to toxic substances, inhalation and skin exposure, xenobiotics

Caela O’Connell

caela@email.unc.edu

Assistant Professor
Department of Anthropology

Expertise:

environmental anthropology, human-environment relationships, socio-ecological interdependencies, risk, crisis, change, anthropologies of water, economics, disaster, and engagement, interdisciplinary and mixed research methodologies, food and agricultural studies, rural and agrarian communities, the Caribbean and the Americas

Andrew Olshan

andy_olshan@unc.edu

Associate Director, Population Sciences
UNC Lineberger Comprehensive Cancer Center

Adjunct Professor
Department of Otolaryngology/Head and Neck Surgery

Barbara Sorenson Hulka Distinguished Professor in Cancer Epidemiology
Department of Epidemiology

Expertise:

cancer and reproductive, perinatal, and pediatric epidemiology, including examination of environmental, social, and genetic risk factors

Betsy Olson

eaolson@email.unc.edu

Professor
Department of Geography and Environment

Expertise:

geography, ethics, environment and health, aging

David Owens

owens@sog.unc.edu

Gladys Hall Coates Professor of Public Law and Government
School of Government

Expertise:

land-use law and planning, coastal management, urban growth management, planning legislation

Hans Paerl

hans_paerl@unc.edu

Professor
Department of Earth Marine and Environmental Sciences

Professor
Department of Environmental Sciences and Engineering

W.R. Kenan, Jr. Distinguished Professor
Institute for Marine Sciences

Expertise:

freshwater and marine microbial ecology, nutrient cycling, water quality, algal bloom dynamics, atmospheric nitrogen deposition as a new nitrogen source supporting estuarine and coastal eutrophication, modeling, phytoplankton

John Papanikolas

john_papanikolas@unc.edu

Professor
Department of Chemistry

Expertise:

ultrafast spectroscopy, ultrafast microscopy, solar energy conversion

Tamlin Pavelsky

pavelsky@unc.edu

Professor
Department of Earth, Marine and Environmental Sciences

Expertise:

research, teaching, service, hydrology, climate, remote sensing

David Peden

david_peden@med.unc.edu

Medical Director
Center for Environmental Medicine, Asthma and Lung Biology

Senior Associate Dean for Translational Research
School of Medicine

Harry S. Andrews Distinguished Professor
Department of Pediatrics

Expertise:

air pollutants, respiratory disease

Robert Peet

peet@unc.edu

Research Professor
Department of Biology

Expertise:

plant community and population ecology, biogeography, ecoinformatics, vegetation classification, vegetation of the Carolinas

Shane Peterson

shrpeter@unc.edu

Teaching Assistant Professor
Department of English and Comparative Literature

Expertise:

environmental studies

Karin Pfennig

kpfennig@unc.edu

Professor
Department of Biology

Expertise:

research, ecology, evolution, behavior, biodiversity

David Pfennig

dpfennig@unc.edu

Professor
Department of Biology

Expertise:

evolution, ecology, development

John Pickles

Earl N. Phillips Distinguished Professor
Department of Geography and Environment

Expertise:

global production networks, European economic and social spaces particularly post-socialist transformations in Central Europe and Euro-Med Neighborhood policies in Southern Europe, cultural economies of maps and mapping, counter-mapping, and the use of maps in social movements, science, nature, society, technology of representation