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Andrew Stuhl is a Ph.D student at the University of Wisconsin-Madison in the Department of History of Science.  My major professional goal is to teach environmental and historical issues-based courses at the university level, using the surrounding local environment as a classroom, case study, and opportunity for community engagement.

My interest in blogging is part of a much broader passion for connecting with people–and hearing their unique and inspirational stories.

The trajectory of my life has been guided by three commitments: service, stewardship, and living deeply. After graduating college in 2003, I spent two years working for an environmental NGO on an island in the Chesapeake Bay. In the process, I learned as much about myself as I did about the particulars of outdoor and environmental education.

In 2005, I moved to Madison, WI to enroll in a Master’s program in Environmental Studies. I completed my thesis in 2007, but not without spending a year and a half working directly with the Director of the institute on international capacity building projects in Norway and Sweden, as well as redesigning the institute’s core curriculum. I gained valuable experience with facilitation, conflict resolution, team-building, and project management.

In 2007, I took perhaps the biggest risk in my life: I moved to the Canadian Arctic to volunteer for a year. I had just completed a professional degree and I decided to forsake a job abroad to give my time to a small community–with no compensation. It was the best decision I’ve ever made and has opened more doors for me than I could have ever imagined. I moved back to Wisconsin in 2008 to begin my Ph.D on the environmental history of the Arctic, with plans to return to the Northwest Territories of Canada in 2010.

Fields of interest: North American environmental history, history of science, natural and cultural resource management, marine environmental history, ecology, use of history in decision-making, leadership studies, environmental and outdoor education, online social media.

Random interests: Old-Bay seasoning, good music, making a difference, and this guy

Current projects: Beginning a dissertation project on the environmental and cultural history of resource extraction in the Western Arctic (Canada’s Beaufort Sea-Mackenzie River Delta Region). This research will analyze encounters between Inuvialuit natives and non-native whalers, traders, trappers, and oil developers over the last two centuries to better understand land-use change, knowledge production, cultural conflict in the area.

Completed Projects: “Considering the Oyster: An Environmental History of Oyster Management in Virginia,” an MA thesis in the UW Madison’s Nelson Institute for Environmental Studies which examined the ways disease outbreaks in oysters and people during the 20th century shaped relationships among scientists, resource managers, oystermen, and the oystering landscape in southern Chesapeake Bay.