People
Center Team
Hillary Angelo, co-founder and inaugural director
Hillary Angelo is an Associate Professor of Sociology at UCSC and was a Member of the School of Social Sciences at the Institute for Advanced Study in Princeton during the 2022-2023 year. Her work investigates understandings of the environment in relationship to large-scale spatial and social transformations, through historical and contemporary research on urban greening, sustainability planning and policy, infrastructure, and climate change. Her first book, How Green Became Good: Urbanized Nature and the Making of Cities and Citizens, was published in 2021 by the University of Chicago Press, and she is currently working on a book about the United States’ 610 million acres of public lands, which are key sites for climate adaptation and flashpoints of polarized political conflict. Read more about Hillary and her work here.
Miriam Greenberg, co-founder and assistant director
Miriam Greenberg is Professor of Sociology at UCSC. Her work lies at the intersection of cultural, environmental, and critical urban studies, with particular focus on the temporality and politics of crisis. Her books include Branding New York: How a City in Crisis was Sold to the World (Routledge, 2008); Crisis Cities: Disaster and Redevelopment in New York and New Orleans (Oxford, 2014); and The City is the Factory: New Solidarities and Spatial Tactics in an Urban Age (Cornell 2017). In recent years she has undertaken a series of collaborative research and writing projects exploring urban and environmental justice issues in California. These include: Critical Sustainabilities, on competing discourses of sustainable urbanism in California; No Place Like Home, on the experience of the affordable housing crisis in Santa Cruz County; and between 2023-2025, WUI Research for Resilience, which traces relationships between California’s urban housing crisis, the growth of its “wildlands urban interface,” and concomitant impacts on climate, conservation and indigenous land stewardship (supported by UC Office of the President Climate Action Research Initiative.) Read more about Miriam and her work here.
Colleen Stone, administrative coordinator Colleen Stone is the department assistant for Sociology, supporting faculty and staff driven research and provides administrative support to the Center for Critical Urban and Environmental Studies, its Wildland Urban Interface (WUI) Research for Resilience project, and the UCSC Black Geographies Lab. Additionally, Colleen manages all public relations and administrative aspects of the Science & Justice Research Center, its projects and grants, curriculum, training and visitor programs.
Kyle Galindez, graduate student research assistant
Kyle Galindez is a PhD candidate in the Department of Sociology at UCSC. His dissertation research examines urbanization, nature, and imperialism on the island of Guåhan. The project draws on urban political ecology, theories of imperialism, indigenous studies, and Oceania studies to highlight the enduring significance of imperialism for critical urban studies and frameworks of socionatural transformation. His recent work includes Planetary Urbanization and Imperialism: A View from Guåhan/Guam, published in the International Journal of Urban and Regional Research.
Affiliated Faculty
Alison Alkon
- Title
- Teaching Professor of Community Studies
- Department
- Community Studies Program
- Website
Mijin Cha
- Title
- Assistant Professor
- Department
- Environmental Studies Department
- Website
Lindsey L Dillon
- Title
- Associate Professor of Sociology and Sociology Undergraduate Education Chair
- Department
- Sociology Department
Madeleine P Fairbairn
- Title
- Associate Professor
- Department
- Environmental Studies Department
- Website
Julie H Guthman
- Title
- Distinguished Professor Emerita
- Department
- Community Studies Program
- Website
Camilla A Hawthorne
- Title
- Associate Professor of Sociology
- Department
- Sociology Department
- Website
Flora E Lu
- Title
- Professor, Environmental Studies
- Department
- Environmental Studies Department
- Website
Katharyne W Mitchell
- Title
- Distinguished Professor
- Department
- Sociology Department
- Website
Emily Murai
- Title
- Lecturer in Environmental Studies
- Department
- Environmental Studies Department
Eric Porter
- Title
- Distinguished Professor
- Department
- History Department
Matthew B Sparke
- Title
- Distinguished Professor of Politics
- Department
- Politics Department
- Website
Affiliated Graduate Students
Mirella Guadalupe Deniz-Zaragoza
- Title
- Graduate Student
- Department
- Sociology Department
Carrie Hamilton
- Title
- PhD Student
- Department
- Sociology Department
Elena Losada
- Title
- PhD Student
- Department
- Sociology Department
Esaac Eyob Mazengia
- Title
- PhD Student
- Department
- Environmental Studies Department
Henry McLaughlin
- Title
- Ph.D. Candidate
- Department
- Politics Department
Will Parrish
- Title
- PhD Candidate
- Department
- History of Consciousness Department
Muhammad Riaz
- Title
- Muhammad Riaz
- Department
- Politics Department
Ankit Sharma
- Title
- Graduate Student
- Department
- Sociology Department
Dylan Robert Tarleton
- Title
- Graduate Student
- Department
- Sociology Department
Alma Esperanza Villa Loma
- Title
- Graduate Student
- Department
- Sociology Department
Former Graduate Students
Adrian Drummond-Cole, Kyle Galindez, Aida Mukharesh, James Sirigotis, Gregory Woolston, Erica Zurawski.
Affiliated Centers
Center for Political Ecology
The Center for Political Ecology is an independent 501(c)3 nonprofit based in Santa Cruz, California. Incorporated in 1989 with an endowment from its founder, economist and social theorist James O’Connor, the Center produced newsletters, discussion papers, books and the journal Capitalism, Nature, Socialism (CNS) with input from an international editorial board; editorial groups in Toronto, New York, Boston and Santa Cruz; and collaboration with sister journals in Italy, Spain and France.
UCSC Black Geographies Lab
The UCSC Black Geographies Lab is a space for ongoing, collective study and practice at the intersection of Black Studies and Critical Human Geographies that encompasses reading groups, writing workshops, symposia, and poetic modes of embodied and artistic inquiry. It undertakes rigorous, interdisciplinary, and transnational inquiry about the spatialities of Blackness, always oriented toward collective liberation for all beings.