Organizers

Barbara EcksteinProfessor Barbara Eckstein, from the Department of English, pursues the historical relationship between humans and mosquitoes in the Upper Mississippi River Basin, further developing her research into the relationship between story and sustainability available, e.g., in Sustaining New Orleans (Routledge 2005), Geohumanities (Routledge 2011), and American Literary History (2012). From the ancient site at Cahokia (IL) to the Civil War prison at Alton (IL) to the prairie bogs confronting surveyors of the Iowa Territory, what stories have been told about this insect that is the subject of much contemporary debate as climate change alters the geography of mosquito-borne human diseases?


Professor Bradley Cramer, from the Department of Earth and Environmental Sciences, works on Earth System Science, deep-time Earth history, stable and radiogenic isotope geochemistry, chemostratigraphy, biostratigraphy, stratigraphic nomenclature, history of geology, geochronology, and the Geologic Time Scale. His work explores the major biotic, chemical, and physical events that punctuate the history of our planet by throwing every tool and proxy at the problem as is possible. Currently, he is the project leader for the International Geoscience Programme (IGCP) Project 591 – The Early to Middle Paleozoic Revolution.


Ty PriestProfessor Tyler Priest came to the University of Iowa in 2012 after eight years as Director of Global Studies at the C.T. Bauer College of Business, University of Houston. His primary interests are in the fields of energy, environmental, global, business, and public history. He has a joint appointment in the Departments of History and Geographical and Sustainability Sciences, where he teaches a course on U.S. Energy Policy and assists in overseeing the Environmental Policy and Planning program. His most recent book is The Offshore Imperative: Shell Oil’s Search for Petroleum in the Postwar United States.