HELLO
And welcome to the fourth edition of the Society for Human Ecology Newsletter! We are excited to land in your inbox this month with updates on the next SHE Conference, the start of our new SHE Seminar Series, and several new publications and announcements from our community.
Happy reading!
SHE Conference 2027
The SHE Conference Planning Committee is thrilled to announce that the Society for Human Ecology will return to the Philippines for SHE XXVII, taking place 13 - 17 June 2027.
We are especially delighted to be partnering once again with the College of Human Ecology at the University of the Philippines Los Baños, which hosted us in 2017. UPLB remains a vibrant center of human ecological scholarship, innovation, and leadership, making it an ideal home for our next global gathering.
Planning is currently underway with our colleagues in the Philippines and the SHE leadership team to create an inspiring venue for learning, integration, and collaboration across the full spectrum of human ecology.
More updates will be shared soon.
Sincerely,
Kenneth E Hill, PhD
SHE Executive Director
Vice President of Academic Innovation and Global Outreach at College of the Atlantic
Academic work & articles from our community
Developing a novel instrument to assess human nature-relational values
Dr. Kimberly Post
Read here
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Relational sonic pedagogies for ocean engagement
Dr. Kimberly Post
Read here
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Decision-analysis framework for school garden investments
Whitney C, Luu TTG, Kopton J, Luedeling E.
Read here
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School food environment policies in Vietnam
Phuong PTM, Bich NN, Toan LQ, et al.
Read here
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Agroforestry adaptation by farm households
Do H, Nguyen HTX, Whitney C, Nguyen LTT, La N, Luedeling E.
Read here
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A review of wood energy in Southern Katanga
Martin T. Mpinda, Alain Tshibungu
Read here
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SHE Seminar Series
We are very excited to announce our new Human Ecology Seminar series, which will showcase members of our community as they discuss their current research or topic of their choice.
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Terrils, or How Power Relations Shape Subjectivities
An exploration into Wallonia's Ruins of Capitalism
Jeremy Lienhart PhD
OPTION 1
Date: Tuesday, 22 September
Time: 08:00 AM GMT
REGISTER HERE
OPTION 2
Date: Tuesday, 29 September
Time: 3:00 PM GMT
REGISTER HERE
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When the World Won't Fit
Anomalous Experience and Human Ecology's Future
Michael Kimball, PhD
Date: Tuesday, 4 November
Time: 10.30 PM GMT
REGISTER HERE
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If you would like to register your interest to give a talk, please fill out THIS FORM. Please note that talks will be scheduled on a first come, first served basis.
SHE Spotlight
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Human Ecology Review
Volume 29, Issue 2
The Human Ecology Review is available online as early access for our community.
Read the latest issue here.
For information on how to submit your manuscript, see instructions here.
To participate as a reviewer for the journal, please email humanecologyreviewjournal@gmail.com
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Zena Daysh: An Extraordinary Woman
Margaret Evans and Ian Douglas
The Commonwealth Human Ecology Council (CHEC) is proud to announce the publication of Zena Daysh: An Extraordinary Woman, a biography celebrating the life, work, and enduring legacy of CHEC's visionary founder. Written by HEF Trustee Margaret Evans and CHEC Honorary Patron and HEF Trustee Ian Douglas, the book is available here on the CHEC website at with an eBook edition available on both Kindle Unlimited and Kindle for a small fee.
All proceeds from the book will go toward future CHEC projects! A paperback copy will also be available later this summer.
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What is a Human Ecological Approach to Learning?
Ken Hill
College of the Atlantic
Read here.
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Teaching Human Ecology
An invitation to witness hope in the world
Katherine L. Barrett
Holy Cross College
Read here.
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Student Corner
Agroforestry for Food System Diversification, Yvonne Tamba
Yvonne participated in the SHE XXVI conference last year for the first time and appreciated the depth of discussion when giving a poster presentation on "Understanding agroforestry household diversity and the microclimate effect in a semi-arid zone of Tanzania ". This winter semester, she will be joining the Institute of Crop Science and Resource Conservation at the University of Bonn as a doctoral candidate, working on Agroforestry as a diversification strategy for food systems in Ghana and Germany. This project is funded by the German Research Foundation (DFG) as part of the Collaborative Research Centre on Food System Diversification for Sustainable Nutrition, hosted at the Centre of Development Research in Bonn. She looks forward to engaging with stakeholders in both countries to investigate the impacts of agroforestry in context, investigate barriers to adoption and identify suitable policy instruments.
To collaborate with Yvonne, email tambayvonne@gmail.com
Seeking students for collaboration, co-supervision and connection, Dr. Cory Whitney
PD Dr. Cory Whitney has recently completed his habilitation and been awarded PD (Privatdozent) at the University of Bonn. He serves as a group leader at the Institute of Crop Science and Resource Conservation (INRES - Gartenbauwissenschaft), and was the first COA graduate to be sent as an ambassador to the Witzenhausen Sustainable International Agriculture (SIA) Master program.
Dr. Whitney is currently supervising several exciting graduate theses and dissertations in the areas of human ecology, sustainable agriculture, and decision-making under uncertainty. He is seeking to connect with students in the SHE community who are working on related topics—whether for collaboration, co-supervision, or simply to serve as a sounding board for their senior projects.
If you are a student with alignment across these topics, or if you are an academic who knows of a student that may be a good fit, please reach out to Cory at:
PD Dr. Cory W. Whitney
Institute of Crop Science and Resource Conservation, Horticultural Sciences (INRES - Gartenbauwissenschaft), University of Bonn
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Auf dem Hügel 6 (room no. 1.002), D-53121 Bonn, Germany
phone: 49 228 73 + 4643 / email: cory.whitney@uni-bonn.de
ORCID: 0000-0003-4988-4583
Job Board
College of the Atlantic is currently seeking to fill three faculty positions.
Faculty Member in Agroecology We seek a practicing agroecologist with a strong foundation in plant and soil sciences, interdisciplinary research interests, and a strong commitment to teaching and mentoring students within COA’s single undergraduate degree in human ecology.
Faculty Member in Chemistry We seek a colleague who is actively interested in teaching and collaborating across disciplinary boundaries. The new faculty member will have curricular and creative control over the design of foundational and topical chemistry instruction for students at a variety of skill levels.
Faculty Member in Field Ecology We seek an ecologist with both strong natural history knowledge and quantitative skills, and who is excited about teaching and mentoring students at a small college that offers a single undergraduate degree in human ecology, an interdisciplinary inquiry into the human relationship with the environment.
Announcements
Malaysian Human Ecology International Conference II
The University of Putra Malaysia
The University of Putra Malaysia Faculty of Human Ecology will host the second Human Ecology International Conference (HEIC II) with the theme Sustaining Human Wellbeing 10th to 12th August 2026, at the Tenera Hotel, Bangi, Malaysia. This conference series aims to build on momentum for Human Ecology research and scholarship across the Southeast Asian region.
Conference objectives are:
a) Provide a platform for presenting research findings, innovative ideas, and best practices aimed at advancing the sustainability of human ecology.
b) Create a forum for intelligent discussion and collaboration among stakeholders—including universities, government, industry, NGOs, and communities—to foster high-impact partnerships in promoting human well-being.
c) Strengthen the Faculty of Human Ecology (FEM) by highlighting its role as a pioneer in shaping human ecology discourse towards enhancing human well-being
For further information and to register interest, please see https://conference.upm.edu.my/HEIC2026
Have you had an experience that challenged what you thought was possible?
Dr Michael Kimball
Dr. Michael Kimball invites SHE members to take part in a brief, anonymous survey on anomalous experiences encountered through field-based research, applied practice, or other professional work — experiences that challenged ordinary assumptions about perception, causality, selfhood, or what's possible in the world.
Across the environmental and social sciences, people doing field-based or applied work sometimes encounter things that don't fit into their ontological frameworks, yet there has been little systematic, anonymous research into how common these experiences are, what forms they take, or how people navigate them professionally. This study is already underway with members of the American Anthropological Association and is now extending to SHE's interdisciplinary membership, to see whether the patterns found there hold more broadly across fields.
The survey, titled the “Anomalous Experience Survey,” takes about 20 minutes, give or take. It asks about your own experience; every respondent, regardless of personal experience, is also asked to read and react to four short accounts drawn from the published anthropological literature. Responses are completely anonymous: no identifying information is collected, participation is voluntary, and any question can be skipped. The study has been reviewed and approved by the University of Northern Colorado's Institutional Review Board.
Whether you've had a field or professional experience that unsettled your sense of how perception, causality, or selfhood work — or even if you haven't, and you're simply curious what the four accounts are about! — your participation would be welcome and useful on a topic that's rarely studied this directly.
Anonymous Qualtrics Survey Link
https://unco.co1.qualtrics.com/jfe/form/SV_0lmIhJ4JmBBAgbI
Michael Kimball, PhD
Department of Anthropology
University of Northern Colorado USA
SHE Board member; 2023-25 President
A Call from Long Lan: Revisiting Wisdom, Seeking Partners
Tran Thi Lanh, Cory Whitney
Twenty-seven years ago, I began working with my community in Long Lan, Luang Prabang, to document and defend the traditional local knowledge and the forest. In 2016, our efforts, rooted in customary law, were recognized by the President of Lao PDR. We had protected over 11,000 hectares of tropical rainforest, not through external intervention but through local self-governance.
Now, Long Lan faces new pressures: a proposed road, a shifting market economy, and a changing climate. My colleague PD Dr. Cory Whitney and I are preparing to return to Long Lan to update our work (Whitney et al., 2013, 2014). But we cannot do this alone.
We are seeking small grants and partners to support a focused, community-led research project. We need funding for: community workshops and knowledge documentation; field knowledge collection (biodiversity, governance); travel and local support for researchers.
We offer a living laboratory of human ecology, a community that has successfully managed its landscape for generations, holding knowledge that is increasingly urgent to document and apply. We aim to model local knowledge and decision-making in ways that scientists can measure, and activists can use.
This is human ecology in practice: confronting climate change, infrastructure development, and market pressures while asking how communities can adapt without losing their traditions and connection to the local environment that they have preserved for generations. We want to help generate collaborative models of infrastructure development options to inform decision-making regarding the health of forests and communities, the integrity of customary law, and the resilience of self-reliant people.
We invite curious researchers, students, and practitioners to open the gate with us. Come learn. Come collaborate.
To get involved, contact Cory Whitney cory.whitney@uni-bonn.de
Human Ecology Heritage Foundation Established
Prof. Dr. Dieter Steiner and Dr. Wolfgang H. Serbser
The founders and current owners of the nonprofit European College of Human Ecology, Dieter Steiner and Wolfgang Serbser, wish to ensure the protection of the human ecological heritage. To this end, they took the initiative in July 2026 and established the nonprofit Human Ecology Heritage Foundation as a registered foundation in Kassel, Hesse, Germany.
The Human Ecology Heritage Foundation has set itself the goal of preserving and protecting the literature on human ecology; to this end, it has transferred the holdings of its academic libraries to the foundation and endowed it with additional assets. The aim is to preserve publications—particularly in the field of human ecology and related disciplines—in their original form as much as possible. It should remain possible in the future to consult printed works in this field, thereby keeping the originals verifiably available to the scientific community.
Furthermore, the Foundation will acquire a majority stake in the non-profit European College of Human Ecology in order to secure the future of this field as well. In this way, the Foundation will continue to promote and support the study of human ecology and students in human ecology to the best of its ability.
We know that our project represents a tremendous undertaking for everyone involved, and that the assets we are able to contribute to the foundation may seem relatively modest in comparison. Nevertheless, we hope to set an example and encourage others to support the foundation with their legacies as well.
Step by step, this will allow us to build an independent institution that preserves and protects our commitment to human ecology and the global efforts of all human ecologists for future generations.
For inquiries and information, please contact board@coh-europe.de.
Kassel, Hesse, Germany in July 2026
Prof. Dr. Dieter Steiner
Dr. Wolfgang H. Serbser
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Next Call for Content
As a reminder, this is a quarterly newsletter, and the next call for content will be in October. Please note that we receive a high number of submissions, and if you send your submission via email, we cannot guarantee that it will be included in the next newsletter. Please use the submission form provided when the next call goes out.
If you have questions, please reach out to:kira.west@humanecology.earth.
Thank you to everyone who contributed!
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