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Environmental Studies Program

Sarah Harris.jpg

Sarah Harris

Affiliation Faculty
Title Assistant Professor
Office Barney-Davis Hall G00
Email harriss@denison.edu
Phone 740-587-5490

I completed my undergraduate degree, a double major in Archaeology and Classics, at the College of Wooster. I had entered Wooster fully expecting to major in Chemistry and Physics, but the broad, interdisciplinary questions which could be asked and answered in Archaeology, combined with my interest in Latin and the Mediterranean, drew me away from my initial plans.

After Wooster I was accepted into a PhD Classics program at the University of Cincinnati, and while there I was introduced to GIS and Remote Sensing within the context of archaeology. I gradually realized that my interests in human-environment interactions were broader than the ancient world, and I decided that they would fit best into the structure of the PhD program of the Department of Geography and the Environment at the University of Texas. My research at UT was focused on the island of Cyprus, and I conducted several years of fieldwork there, including a year as a Fulbright IIE fellow. This research formed the basis of my dissertation entitled “Colonial Forestry and Environmental History: British Policies in Cyprus, 1878-1960.”

I will be continuing to investigate facets of the general topic of human-environment interaction in my future work. Some of these wide-ranging research aspects include similarities between past and present policies within the context of EU and FAO activities, especially in formerly colonial countries; the ability of environmental policies to shape community and regional development while at the same time emphasize socially constructed norms; the effect of rural to urban population movement on the environmental landscape; and the role of environment in conflict and conflict resolution. Although my current studies focus upon Cyprus, the general research questions I study and methods I utilize can be applied universally. I would be happy to help any students with similar interests formulate their own research questions for the area of the world in which they are most interested.

Dr. Harris teaches the following classes in Environmental Studies:  Science & the Environment, Introduction to Environmental Mapping and Advanced Geographic Information Systems Analysis.