Get to Know Environment, Resources and Energy Policy
Colorado School of Mines
Who we are at Environment, Resources and Energy Policy
OUR STUDENTS
Our students come from all over the world, joining us from variety of academic backgrounds and at different points along their career paths. Some have recently received an undergraduate degree in engineering or the physical sciences and want to expand their skillsets to work in or around policy. Others found their social science or humanities undergraduate to be a strong career foundation, but want more specific tools for the workplace. And still others are early-career or mid-career professionals who want to pivot or advance in their careers.
OUR FACULTY
We are an interdisciplinary team that asks the big questions about policy. To us, policy is not just a thing – words written down in a government document somewhere. Policy is a process and a site of struggle, as well as an avenue for imagining and building the future. Policy influences human relationships and social structures. Policy partly determines who gets access to what, where, and when. Policy elevates certain logics and narratives, and inscribes them on the world. Policy-making is a struggle over what kinds of knowledge matter and who gets to be an expert. No single discipline can prepare you to engage with all these complexities.
Questions regarding the Environment, Resources and Energy Policy program options?
Reach out to program director, Dr. Derrick Hudson at dkhudson@mines.edu
Program Faculty
- Hussein Amery
- Linda Battalora
- Lucas Bessire
- Paula Farca
- Tina Gianquitto
- Kathleen Hancock
- Cortney Holles
- Joseph Horan
- Derrick Hudson
- Ali Kerr
- Adrianne Kroepsch
- Angeline Letourneau
- Jon Leydens
- Shannon Mancus
- Kenneth Osgood
- Nicole Smith
- Jay Straker
- Sandy Woodson
- All HASS Departmental Faculty
Dr. Hussein Amery specializes in water politics and policy in the Middle East and North Africa, with a focus on threats to water and food security in the Arab World.
Dr. Linda Battalora is an active member of the Society of Petroleum Engineers (SPE) Health, Safety, Security, Environment and Social Responsibility (HSSE-SR) Advisory Committee and the Sustainable Development Technical Section Steering Committee.
Lucas Bessire is an American writer, filmmaker and anthropologist. Drawing on extensive field research in the Gran Chaco, the Arctic and the High Plains, his writing explores the lived experience of contemporary environmental and social changes and seeks ways to communicate his findings to wider publics.
Paula Farca’s research and teaching focus on three main areas: 1. Environmental Humanities, 2. Contemporary and Indigenous Literature, and 3. Women’s Fiction and Gender Studies
Dr. Tina Gianquitto is interested in examining the intellectual and aesthetic experience of nature for women in nineteenth-century America and investigating the linguistic, perceptual, and scientific systems that were available to women to describe those experiences.
Dr. Kathleen Hancock specializes in politics of renewable energy, African energy, and Russia and Eurasia.
Cortney Holles directed the Nature and Human Values class for several years and developed new courses for HASS in science communication and service learning
Dr. Joseph Horan specializes in the Environmental History of Europe and the Atlantic World, with an emphasis on the Napoleonic era.
Dr. Derrick Hudson specializes in African natural resources and development, renewable energy strategies in Africa, and social justice issues and development in Africa.
Dr. Ali Kerr’s research interests include training development and evaluation as explored across a variety of academic disciplines and organizational settings.
Dr. Adrianne Kroepsch studies environmental governance in the American West and has active research projects on water, unconventional oil and gas, and wildfire.
Dr. Angeline Letourneau’s work examines the affective influence of identities under threat in the age of environmental and climate crisis and the contribution of these identity processes to widening cultural divisions and political polarization.
Dr. Jon Leydens specializes in engineering education research that looks at how stakeholders leverage communication and social justice to transform and challenge educational practices and the engineering profession.
Dr. Shannon Mancus’s expertise revolves around environmental communication and the performance of environmentalist identities in popular culture.
Dr. Kenneth Osgood specializes in U.S. political and diplomatic history, as well as the history of intelligence and propaganda.
Dr. Nicole Smith specializes in artisanal and small-scale mining, sustainable development and energy and extractive industries, corporate social responsibility, and engineering education.
Dr. Jay Straker specializes in changing experiences and representations of youth in West Africa.
Sandy Woodson serves as the Department Head for Humanities, Arts, & Social Sciences. She is Director of the Ethics Across Campus Program, and she coaches the Mines Ethics Bowl Team.
Congrats to Majok Deng on his Spring 2025 graduation, along with numerous collegiate basketball awards, including Rocky Mountain Athletic Academic Honor Roll and RMAC Conference Player of the Year!
Dr. Angeline Letourneau participates in the Environmental Futures Panel at the 2025 Young Environmental Symposium at the Colorado School of Mines, alongside indigenous environmental leaders Dr. Robin Wall Kimmerer, Erica Nelson of The Awkward Angler, and Ryan Reed of FireGen Collaborative.
