University of Colorado DenverCollege of Liberal Arts and SciencesUniversity of Colorado Denver

Gregory Simon

Assistant Professor
Ph.D., University of Washingon, 2007

Office: NC 3621-B
Phone: 303.556.6393
E-mail: gregory.simon@ucdenver.edu
Curriculum Vita

Areas of Interest:

Environmental policy and planning, political ecology, science studies, urban ecology, political economy of development, environmental history, interdisciplinary education, India, and US West

Teaching

  • Introduction to Environment and Society
  • Science, Policy and the Environment

Research

I am interested in environmental governance, particularly amongst interest groups at the development-conservation and science-policy interface.  My research centers on how environmental resources are planned, managed and experienced by policy makers, community interests and natural resource managers amidst profound scientific instability (i.e., accounting for the myriad social and political forces shaping scientific discovery and its use in policy) and conditions of economic growth (i.e., urban development, market expansion and economic reforms). For my students and I, this requires not just describing the environmental issues we face today but also detailing how and why economic, political and cultural forces come to produce these outcomes and mediate the way we understand and respond to them.  My research examines the complexities of governing environmental policy in India and the American West.

Current research projects include:

  • Assessing how household cooking technologies in Western India are mobilized by individuals and institutions to advance economic reform and climate change policy. This research illustrates the important role of intermediaries in actualizing institutional objectives and argues for increased attention to indoor environments as active political ecological spaces.
  • Why have cities in the US West historically sprawled into fire prone areas? Using historical and spatial data this project analyzes the production of vulnerable places and populations to urban/wildland interface wildfires around the West.  Research focuses on how institutional use of scientific knowledge, ecological management practices and urban growth policies converge to produce vulnerability.
  • Determining the role of scientific uncertainty in urban/rural water reclamation projects in the US West.  How do wastewater recycling programs at the urban periphery deal with the presence of emerging contaminants that are not formally recognized in state and federal policy? This study examines the social, ecological and institutional factors associated with testing for the presence of such contaminants in recycled water.
  • What happens when abstract ecological boundaries are used to inform environmental policy? This project examines the implications for farmers of using the 100th meridian in USDA conservation policy and illustrates how such boundaries transition from socially constructed lines to lines actively constructing society.
  • Evaluating interdisciplinary studies as a method for understanding complex environmental policies, histories and geographies. Specifically, how best can individual disciplines and disciplined individuals integrate into cross-disciplinary ventures?

Select Publications

G. Simon. 2010. “The 100th Meridian, Ecological Boundaries and the Problem of Reification.” Society and Natural Resources (Forthcoming)

G. Simon. 2009. “Geographies of Mediation: Market Development and the Rural Broker in Maharashtra, India.” Political Geography 28:3 pp. 197-207

G. Simon and P. Alagona. 2009. “Beyond ‘Leave no Trace’” Ethics, Place and Environment 12:1 pp. 17-34

S. Dooling, G. Simon, K. Yocom. 2006.  “Place-Based Urban Ecology: A Century of Park Planning in Seattle.” Urban Ecosystems 9:4 pp. 299-321

J. Graybill, S. Dooling, A. Greve, V. Shandas, J. Withey, G. Simon. 2006.  “A Rough Guide to Interdisciplinarity: Graduate Student Perspectives.” Bioscience 56: 9 pp. 757-763