About Me

Professor and Associate Dean for Education, School of Sustainability ; Professor, School of Human Evolution & Social Change, Arizona State University

Affilate Faculty, School of Public Affairs, ASU

Affiliate Faculty, School of Geographical Sciences and Urban Planning, ASU

** On sabbatical leave July 30, 2012 to June 30, 2013

Contact

cgboone@asu.edu, School of Sustainability, P.O. Box 875502, Tempe, AZ 85287-5502, 480.965.2976 OR School of Human Evolution & Social Change, P.O. Box 872402, Tempe, AZ 85287-2402, 480.727.6017

Education

Ph.D., University of Toronto, 1994
M.A., University of Toronto, 1989
B.A, Queen’s University (Canada), 1987

Post-Doctoral Fellow, McGill University, 1993-95

Research

My research expertise falls under the themes of urban sustainability, environmental justice, vulnerability, urban socio-ecological systems, global environmental change, human-environment interaction, GIS, public health.

My research program is sponsored by a number of successful proposals that address sustainability, environmental justice, vulnerability, global environmental change, and public health concerns. I am the principal investigator for a NSF-sponsored Urban Long Term Research Area project that is investigating the role of ecosystem services and preferences in land management of open spaces on the rapidly growing fringe areas of Phoenix, Albuquerque, and Las Cruces (abstract). I am a co-investigator on another Urban Long Term Research Area exploratory grant, Dynamics of Urban Ecosystem Services and Their Relationship to Ecohydrology in the Los Angeles Area, also funded by the National Science Foundation. The study, which is led by Dr. Stephanie Pincetl at UCLA, investigates the linkages between water and vegetation management in Los Angeles from a biophysical and institutional perspective. I am a senior scientist for another ULTRA award, led by Dr. Ali Whitmer, Senior Associate Dean at Georgetown University, that is examining land use dynamics along the Baltimore-Washington corridor and the implications for social and environmental well-being in that megapolitan region. In 2010, the National Center for Ecological Analysis and Synthesis sponsored our working group proposal (I am pi) that examines the environmental justice implications of present and planned tree canopy cover in multiple metropolitan regions in the United States.

Over the past decade I have devoted a considerable amount of my time on research with the Baltimore Ecosystem Study (http://beslter.org), an Urban Long Term Ecological Research site. Since arriving at ASU in 2005, I have also undertaken research for the Central Arizona Phoenix LTER, the only other urban LTER site in the country (http://caplter.asu.edu/). I am a co-PI for both of the LTER projects and sit on the executive board for the CAP-LTER.  In 2006, I was awarded a NSF Human and Social Dynamics grant to investigate the longitudinal dynamics of environmental equity patterns and processes in Baltimore through a long term analysis (1880-2000) of population characteristics in relation to environmental amenities and disamenities (see abstract).  I am on a team of ASU investigators that was awarded a NSF-HSD grant to assess the impact of immigration reform on the health and economic well-being of Latino communities in Phoenix. This and other grants support my research on the social and built-environment determinants of health disparities, especially obesity, in Phoenix.

I serve as the Associate Dean for Education in the School of Sustainability. I also sit on the executive committees of the School of Sustainability and the Global Institute of Sustainability. In 2009, I chaired a provost’s committee to develop a new university-wide minor in sustainability. In SHESC, I am on the executive committees of the Environmental Social Sciences Ph.D. program and the Ph.D. concentration in Urbanism. In that school I also serve on the supervisory board for the Social Sciences and Health and Global Health programs.

I have been an active participant on a number of committees and initiatives within the LTER network. In April 2010, I was appointed to the Scientific Steering Committee of the Urbanization and Global Environmental Change programme (http://www.ugec.org). Recently I was appointed to the Steering Committee of the Workshop on Climate Change in U.S. Cities in Support of the National Climate Assessment. I presently sit on the editorial boards of the International Journal of Sustainable Urban Development and the journal Environmental Justice. For the nature-society section of the new journal, Current Research on Cities, I am an Associate Editor.

Based on a successful proposal to Cambridge University Press, I am a co-editor (with Norm Yoffee) of a new book series, New Directions in Sustainability and Society. We intend to use the excellent facilities at the Amerind Foundation to bring together leading thinkers and practitioners to address  fundamental sustainability issues. Each seminar is intended to lead to a monograph published in the series by CUP.

At ASU, I have taught courses on urban sustainability, environmental justice, urban environmental health, and research methods in sustainability science. I also teach Perspectives on Sustainability, a required course for all incoming SOS graduate students.

I will be on sabbatical leave from July 30, 2012 until June 30, 2013. During that time, I will be a visiting professor at Georgetown University.