Environmental Studies is an interdisciplinary program that encompasses faculty and courses from all parts of the university. The program is administered by the Tishman Environment and Design Center through Eugene Lang College The New School for Liberal Arts and Parsons The New School for Design. The leadership of the center and the faculty associated with the program are featured on this page.
Cameron Tonkinwise
For more than a decade, my research and professional activities have brought together the philosophies of design and sustainability. My work centers on the belief that current societal unsustainability has much to do with a widespread misunderstanding of the nature of design. We need to create strong links so that people understand the impact they have on the environment. We can then more fully understand our predicament and facilitate the radical social changes needed to rectify it. My research has focused on the design of commercial and non-market systems of shared product use, exploring how the emerging discipline of service design might enable the development of less-material dependant economies. My current research is both more historical and more conceptual, exploring variability in perceptions of convenience and autonomy when shifting from “ownership” to "usership."
Prior to joining The New School faculty, I was the education director and executive officer of the EcoDesign Foundation, a not-for-profit consultancy and research organization based in Sydney, Australia. I teach a range of courses in design theory, design research, and sustainable design.
Courses taught:
Thinking and Designing Sustainable Futures University Lecture Course
Sustainable Lifestyles Senior Seminar
Contact Information:
T: 212.229.5100
E: tonkinwc@newschool.edu
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Nevin Cohen
For 20 years, my scholarly and professional research has explored the process of involving citizens in urban environmental decision-making. Building on that work, my current research focuses on the urban food system. I am studying innovative approaches to integrating food production into the urban environment and conducting research on how citizens can be engaged in sustainable food production. I teach courses on environmental planning, food and sustainability, urban environmental policy, and environmental activism.
Prior to joining The New School, I founded Topology, LLC, an environmental planning and development firm. I also served as managing principal for GreenOrder, Inc., a consulting firm specializing in sustainable business practices, where I advised companies such as GE, Office Depot, Pfizer, and Pitney Bowes on methods to improve their environmental performance. I have held senior research positions at Rutgers University's Center for Environmental Communication, Environmental Defense, the World Resources Institute, Tellus Institute, and INFORM. I was also responsible for developing landmark municipal recycling, water conservation, and clean fuel laws in New York City as an analyst for the City Council and Manhattan Borough President.
Courses taught:
Urban Environmental Issues
Garbage: The political Economy and Ecology of New York City
Planning Sustainable Cities
Designing the Sustainable Food System
Urban Environmental Policy
Grassroots Environmentalism
Contact Information:
T: 212.229.5100 x2271
E: cohenn@newschool.edu
Rob Buchanan
I’m a lifelong magazine feature writer with an interest in travel, adventure, and alternative sports. I started at Sports Illustrated in 1981, worked for Rolling Stone, Details, and a host of other magazines, and am now a contributing editor at Outside and a regular contributor at Men’s Journal. I write a lot about sailing, climbing and mountaineering, environmental politics, and the effects of tourism and development.
At Eugene Lang College, I teach journalism and writing and am the faculty advisor to the New School Free Press, a biweekly student newspaper distributed on campus and around the Village. I also help manage Lang Outdoors, a set of courses that takes students off campus and out into the “urban environment.” In my own Lang Outdoors course, the students build 26-foot Whitehall gigs—replicas of 19th-century rowing boats that were the water taxis of their day—and use them to explore the harbor and the estuary. Old-school environmentalists sometimes decry “recreationals” for getting in the way of serious conservation, but I’m convinced that active use is the key to genuine stewardship.
Courses taught:
The City and the Natural World (introductory journalism focused on local and environmental topics)
Wilderness and the American Mind (American nature writing and the birth of the conservation movement)
Lang on the Hudson (boat-building, rowing, and the history and politics of New York Harbor)
Contact Information:
T: 212.229.5100 x2244
E: buchanar@newschool.edu
Bhawani Venkataraman
As a chemist and educator, I am interested in helping students appreciate the role of chemistry and the sciences in addressing issues of societal concerns, in particular the role of the chemical sciences in understanding environmental issues. Many policies dealing with the environment such as water and air pollution, stratospheric ozone depletion, and climate change have used results from chemical research. I use these policies as case studies to demonstrate the importance of a chemical perspective. My work also includes assessing the effectiveness of teaching through contextual, active learning approaches. My current work at Lang is supported by a National Science Foundation grant. More recently I have begun working with local environmental justice organizations on assessing and monitoring air and soil quality.
Prior to joining the faculty of Eugene Lang College, I was a research scientist at Columbia University where I led educational initiatives at the undergraduate, graduate, and K-12 levels. At Columbia I was a lead investigator on National Science Foundation grants supporting undergraduate research experiences, the development of an undergraduate chemistry curricula, and a program that supported graduate students in the sciences working with K-12 science teachers.
Courses taught:
Chemistry of Life
Chemistry of the Environment
Science and Environmental Policy
Nanotechnology
Contact Information:
T: 212.229.5100 x2233
E: venkatab@newschool.edu
Joel Towers
In 1991, as a young architect recently out of graduate school, I had the opportunity to work for William McDonough Architects. Among other responsibilities at WMA, I was the project director of a commission to help the city of Hannover, Germany think through the environmental design of their EXPO 2000. The project led to a book called The Hannover Principles: Design for Sustainability. Writing this book together with Bill McDonough, Michael Braungart, and David Rothenberg, allowed me to frame an emergent relationship between design practice, research, and environmental issues, and provided me with an expansive context for my work as an architect and educator over the past two decades.
After completing the Hannover work, I co-founded Sislian Rothstein and Towers Architects with Karla Rothstein. At SR+T my focus is on ecological issues and their relationship to both design conceptualization and construction methodology.
At the New School I am the dean of the School of Design Strategies [SDS] and associate professor of Architecture and Sustainable Design at Parsons the New School for Design. SDS houses Parsons’ programs in Design and Management, Foundation, Integrated Design, as well as new initiatives in environmental and sustainable design, urban design, and transdisciplinary design. This cluster of programs and initiatives connects directly to the university-wide program in Environmental Studies. Prior to my current appointment, I was the first director of the Tishman Environment and Design Center and the associate provost for Environmental Studies at The New School. I first came to Parsons in 2002 as the director of Sustainable Design and Urban Ecology.
Courses taught:
Critical Ecologies
Senior Seminar: Designer’s Ethos
Core Colloquium: Home Turf
Senior Seminar: Design, Ethics and Environment
Laboratory 1
Laboratory 2
The Chase Community Design Competition [team-taught]
Contact Information:
T: 212.229.8947 x4134
E: towersj@newschool.edu
P. Timon McPhearson
Over more than 10 years,
my academic and professional research has been an attempt to understand how
ecological systems work and how to conserve biodiversity and restore
damaged ecosystems and their associated functions. My research,
teaching, and activism centers on the premise that humans are integrated
components of ecosystems and therefore must recognize and take responsibility
for the intimate role they play in the structuring and functioning of
all ecosystems. This is nowhere more apparent than in urban areas. Cities
are home to more than 50 percent of humanity. Hence, most people’s
experience of nature is urban. This requires that cities become models
of highly sustainable human ecosystems. Therefore, my current research
efforts are focused on better understanding urban socio-ecologies and
specifically on protecting and restoring ecological functions and services
in the urban forests of New York City.
Prior to joining The New
School, I spent three years as a Columbia University Science Fellow
teaching environmental and ecological science and conducting research
at Columbia’s Earth Institute. I have also worked as an ecologist
at the American Museum of Natural History’s Center for Biodiversity
and Conservation, am a former National Science Foundation Fellow, and
continue to work with local policymakers, planners, and designers on
urban sustainability research and education.
Courses taught:
Environment and Society
Principles of Ecology
Urban Ecosystems
Ecologies of the Urban:
A LAB
Architecture and Social
Practice: The Tree
Contact Information:
T: 212.229.5321
x4
E: mcphearp@newschool.edu