Rachel Carson Center (LMU RCC) - HD Rachel Carson Center (RCC)

How have humans changed rivers throughout history, and what issues of social and environmental justice shape human interaction with rivers and, more generally, water? These questions shape the research of Carson Fellow Melinda Laituri, who is engaged in a comparative study between the Danube and the Colorado River. By using remotely sensed data, Laituri tracks changes in the development of the river; Laituri’s research also examines the human right to water. Melinda Laituri is currently based in the Department of Forest, Rangeland, and Watershed Stewardship at Colorado State University. Her research focuses on the role of the internet and geospatial technologies of disaster management and cross-cultural environmental histories of river basin management.

Carson Fellow Martin Schmid discusses his work on writing the first environmental history of the Danube river; Schmid’s research is part of a larger project on the Danube at the Alpen-Adria-University in Vienna. The Danube has been substantially transformed since 1800 and is, according to Schmid, the most important river in Europe. In order to provide a better understanding of both the development and the importance of the Danube, Schmid begins his history in the 1500s. Martin Schmid is an assistant professor for environmental history and interdisciplinary communications at Alpen-AdriaUniversity Klagenfurt-Graz-Wien in Austria. A historian by profession, Martin is fascinated with environmental history as an interdisciplinary field, crossing the "great divide" between humanities and natural sciences.

Climate had a key role in shaping the settlement and development of the West in the United States, according to Carson Fellow Lawrence Culver. By using historical sources, including government land surveys and travel accounts from settlers, Culver demonstrates the important role climate played for both survival and profit in the westward expansion process. Lawrence Culver is an associate professor in the Department of History at Utah State University, where his areas of research and teaching include the cultural, environmental, and urban history of the USA.

The transition from socialism to post-socialism has affected many aspects of life in Eastern Europe. By using anthropological participant-observer methodologies, Carson Fellow Stefan Dorondel looks at how this shift impacted land use in these regions; he considers both how people change in relation to the landscape and vice versa. Stefan Dorondel is an anthropologist interested in post-socialist land tenure systems and in land use change.

The intersection between neuroscience and history frames Carson Fellow Edmund P. Russell’s research project. Russell looks as the role of functional magnetic resonance imagining (FMRI) in historical research, especially with regard to its effect on human understanding of different types of environments. Edmund P. Russell is an associate professor at the Department of Science, Technology, and Society and the Department of History at the University of Virginia. His research focuses on environmental history and the history of technology.

In a unique approach to exploring transformations in land use, Carson Fellow Anne Milne uses poetry from the laboring class in eighteenth century Britain to understand different perceptions of nature during this era. These poets were often described as “natural geniuses.” Milne considers how nature figured in the representation of these poets as individuals; her work also aims to track changes in land use. Anne Milne is an ecocritic who specializes in restoration and eighteenth-century British literature. She currently teaches in the Bachelor of Arts and Sciences Program at the University of Guelph, Canada.