Visit the Leadership for the Ecozoic Webpage.

Peter G. Brown, Principal Investigator (McGill)

Peter G. Brown is a Professor at McGill University where he holds appointments at the School of Environment, and the Departments of Geography and Natural Resource Sciences.  He holds a BA from Haverford College; an MA from Columbia University and Union Theological Seminary in the philosophy of religion; and a PhD from Columbia University in philosophy.  His career has concentrated on the practical uses of philosophy to think critically about the goals of society.  Since the 1980s this work has centered on the deterioration of Earth’s life support capacity and the thought systems that facilitate and legitimate this decline.

He is the author of Restoring the Public Trust: A Fresh Vision for Progressive Government in America, and The Commonwealth of Life: Economics for a Flourishing Earth.  He is a co-author of a book on macro-economics and global governance entitled Right Relationship: Building a Whole Earth Economy; and co-edited/authored Water Ethics: Foundational Readings for Students and Professionals. His Ethics for Economics in the Anthropocene is in the Teilhard Series.  He has co-editor/authored Ecological Economics for the Anthropocene: An Emerging Paradigm. He has edited numerous books, written many articles and chapters; and is a frequent speaker. Before coming to McGill he taught at St. John’s College, the University of Maryland (where he founded the Institute for Philosophy and Public Policy, the School of Public Policy, and the School’s Environmental Program), and Princeton University.

He is currently the Principal Investigator of Economics for the Anthropocene: Re-grounding the human/Earth relationship, a partnership between McGill, the University of Vermont, and York University in Toronto.  With a budget of over five million dollars it aims to educate up to 60 PhDs in the foundations of ecological economics. It offers critical perspectives on the foundations of neo-classical economics, finance, law, governance and ethics; and first hand experiences in responding the pressing issues relating to water, energy, and climate justice. Professor Brown is Project Director of E4A’s follow-on project, Leadership for the Ecozoic.

He is involved in tree farming and conservation efforts in Maryland, Maine, and Quebec–in all three locations his land is under permanent conservation easements (“servitudes”); totally nearly 1000 acres.  He is a Certified Quebec Forest Producer; was named “Tree Farmer of the Year” in Garrett County, Maryland; has served as the “Steward” of Walker Pond in Hancock County, Maine; and helped to found major conservation initiatives in Maryland and Quebec. In 2012 he established a brook trout sanctuary on a threatened stretch of the upper Savage River in the mountains in Maryland, in cooperation with Trout Unlimited and the Maryland Department of Natural Resources.   His property in Quebec contains healthy examples of species at risk such as elm, butternut, and American beech; and offers protection to four rare species of salamanders.

He is a dual Citizen of Canada and the United States; a member of the Religious Society of Friends (Quakers), the Club of Rome, and a Facilitator for the discipline of Ecological Economics for the Harmony with Nature Initiative of the Secretary General of the United Nations.

E-mail: peter.g.brown@mcgill.ca

Jon Erickson (UVM)

Jon Erickson is Professor in the Rubenstein School of Environment and Natural Resources and Fellow of the Gund Institute for Ecological Economics at the University of Vermont (UVM). He has published widely on energy & climate change policy, land conservation, watershed planning, environmental public health, and the theory and practice of ecological economics. His books include The Great Experiment in Conservation: Voices from the Adirondack Park (2009), Frontiers in Ecological Economic Theory and Application (2007), Ecological Economics of Sustainable Watershed Management (2007), and Ecological Economics: a Workbook for Problem-Based Learning (2005). Jon is also an Emmy award-winning producer of films such as the four-part PBS series Bloom on sources and solutions to nutrient pollution in Lake Champlain. He was the Managing Director of UVM’s Gund Institute for Ecological Economics from 2009-2012 and is past President of the U.S. Society for Ecological Economics, past editor of the Adirondack Journal of Environmental Studies, and serves on the board or advisory committee of numerous nongovernmental organizations. He has been a Fulbright Scholar at the Sokoine University of Agriculture in Tanzania; Visiting Professor at the University of Iceland, Pontificia Universidad Católica Madre y Maestra in the Dominican Republic, and Slovak University of Agriculture in Nitra; and was on the economics faculty at Rensselaer Polytechnic Institute before joining the University of Vermont in 2002. Jon completed his Ph.D. at Cornell University in Natural Resource Economics in 1997.

E-mail: Jon.Erickson@uvm.edu

Joshua Farley (UVM)

Joshua Farley is an ecological economist and Professor in Community Development & Applied Economics and Public Administration. He has previously served as program director at the School for Field Studies, Centre for Rainforest Studies, as Executive Director of the University of Maryland International Institute for Ecological Economics, and as adjunct faculty and licensed examiner at the University of the West Indies, Cave Hill.  He recently returned from a Fulbright fellowship in Brazil, where he served as visiting professor at the Federal Universities of Santa Catarina (UFSC) and Bahia (UFBA).

His research focuses on mechanisms for allocating resources under local control and national sovereignty that generate global public goods, developing transdisciplinary case study approaches to environmental problem solving as an educational tool, ecological restoration of rainforest ecosystems, economic globalization, and the valuation and finance of restoring natural capital.

                                     E-mail: Joshua.Farley@uvm.edu

Ellie Perkins (York)

Dr. Ellie Perkins is an economist concerned with the relationship between international trade, the environment, and local economies. She is interested in globalization, and how local economies may grow as an antidote to international trade. She also looks at international means of controlling air pollution in the Arctic, and at the metals and minerals resource industries.

Ellie has been involved in ongoing work with the South Riverdale Community Health Centre related to lead pollution in downtown Toronto. At York, she teaches courses in Environmental Economics, Ecological Economics, and Community Economic Development. Ellie often works with students pursuing research themes related to community economic development, trade and the environment, and feminist economics. Ellie is currently editing a book on feminist ecological economics.
E-mail: esperk@yorku.ca

Dina Spigelski, Associate Project Director (McGill)

Dina’s research and teaching focus is in nutrition, foodsystems and Indigenous Peoples. She was Project Coordinator of the “Indigenous Peoples’ Food Systems for Health” program at the Centre for Indigenous Peoples’ Nutrition and Environment (CINE) at McGill University. She co-edited two books that described project results and were published by the Food and Agriculture Organization of the UN (see here and here).

Dina taught in the Department of Human Nutrition at St. Francis Xavier University, where she continued to focus on themes of food / climate justice and foodsystems. Her degrees include Bachelor of Nutritional Sciences (Dietetics) and Master of Nutritional Sciences.
E-mail: dina.spigelski@mcgill.ca

Geoffrey Garver, L4E Research Fellow (McGill)

Dr. Geoffrey Garver teaches environmental courses at McGill University and Concordia University in Montreal and coordinates law and governance research for the Leadership for the Ecozoic program (http://www.l4ecozoic.org), formerly the Economics for the Anthropocene Partnership (e4a-net.org). He is on the Steering Committee of the Ecological Law and Governance Association (elgaworld.org) and is active in the international degrowth movement.  Geoff completed his PhD (Geography) at McGill in 2016, and has a B.S. (Chemical Engineering) from Cornell University (1982), a  J.D. from Michigan law School (1987) and an LL.M. from McGill (2011). From 2000-2007, he was Director of Submission on Enforcement Matters at the Commission for Environmental Cooperation (www.cec.org), following 13 years of public service with the U.S. Department of Justice, the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency and a federal District Court judge in Maine. Geoff co-authored Right Relationship: Building a Whole Earth Economy (2009) and many articles and book chapters.  His book Ecological Law and the Planetary Crisis is coming out in October 2020.  Geoff grew up in a Quaker family in Western New York and is on the Board of Trustees of the Quaker Institute for the Future.
E-mail: geoffrey.garver@mcgill.ca

Ursula Georgeoglou, L4E Research Assistant and Coordinator (UVM)

Ursula Georgeoglou is a research assistant and coordinator for the Leadership for the Ecozoic (L4E) project at UVM. She has a background in tropical forest ecology and holds a Bachelor’s degree in Biology, and a Master’s degree in Botany, with a specialization in Ecology. Her thesis research focused on the ecology and forest dynamics of the Atlantic Forest in Brazil. Her past experiences include working with the Agroecology and Livelihoods Collaborative at UVM, where she co-authored two book chapters and a guide. She has taught at the college level courses in Ecology, Scientific Research Methodology and Spanish. She has experience coordinating academic events and fundraising events. She is especially interested in the process of paradigm change, specifically the way humans see themselves in the environment and their interpretation of the living world.
E-mail: mgeorgeo@uvm.edu

Leah Temper, L4E Research Associate (McGill)

Katie Kish, E4A Research Fellow (McGill)

Deissy Perilla, E4A & L4E Research Assistant (McGill)

Deissy Perilla is a Doctor in Social Anthropology from the Universidade Federal do Rio Grande do Sul (Brazil). She has a background in ethnographic methods, cultural heritage studies, theories of social movements and activism, and peacebuilding strategies in Colombia. Her research focuses on peace movements and political transitions, grassroots activism, and popular education in post-conflict societies. She has held positions as field archaeologist in Bogota and the Caribbean coast in Colombia, and coordinator of the ethnographic and material culture collection at the National Museum of Colombia. Deissy has also worked as a teacher assistant for several Colombian and Brazilian universities. She loves sports – from running and swimming to scuba-diving – and also working while listening to music – her other big passion! Dei, as her friends call her, joined a 50 day-long encampment demanding the peace of Colombia after more than 60 years of conflict. Her research interests speak to this standing commitment.
E-mail: deissy.perilladaza@mcgill.ca

Student Representatives

Sam Bliss (UVM), Laura Gilbert (McGill), David Mallery (York).