Professor, School for Environment and Sustainability and Program in the Environment, University of Michigan
Director, Urban Sustainability Research Group
Founding Director, Global Supply Chain Intelligence Institute
2008 Ph.D., Geography (Urban Ecology Certificate), University of Washington
2003 M.A., Geography, University of Washington
1991 B.A., History, Brown University
[email protected] · Curriculum vitae (2026) · Google Scholar · ORCID · SEAS Profile
Biography
He founded the Urban Sustainability Research Group in 2010 and directs it today. In 2026 he became founding director of the Global Supply Chain Intelligence Institute, a multi-unit University of Michigan institute integrating artificial intelligence and supply chain science. He served as co-director of the Center for Sustainable Systems from 2023 to 2024 and co-directed the university-wide Ideas Lab from 2024 to 2026.
He has built a sponsored research portfolio of $22,077,926 across 47 awards, with support from the National Science Foundation, NASA, the Office of Naval Research, the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration, the U.S. Department of Agriculture, and philanthropic and corporate partners. He has published 66 refereed journal articles and two books.
Before entering academia he spent nearly a decade in the environmental NGO sector in Japan and Russia, including six years as programme director for Friends of the Earth Japan in Tokyo and Vladivostok, where he led policy engagement with multilateral banks and industry and represented the organization at the Kyoto Climate Conference.
Honors and awards
- Clarivate Highly Cited Researcher, 2025. Top one percent of scientists globally by citation impact.
- Outstanding Paper Awards. Land, 2024. Landscape and Urban Planning (Weddle Prize), 2017.
- Fellowships. U.S. Fulbright Global Scholar Award, 2017 to 2018. Regensburg Fellowship, Germany, 2020. Invited Scholar Fellowship, Research Institute for Humanity and Nature, Kyoto, 2016.
- Golden Apple Award finalist, 2013 to 2014. The University of Michigan’s only student-nominated teaching award.
Research impact
- 1,011 news stories
- 19,347 citations, June 2026
- 45 h-index
- 379+ policy citations
More than 1,000 news stories across 38 countries, with coverage in The New York Times, The Washington Post, Bloomberg, Reuters, NPR, BBC News, National Geographic, TIME, CNN, Scientific American, and The Guardian. Twelve publications carry Altmetric scores above 100.
More than 379 policy citations, including the Sixth Assessment Report of the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change, and adoption by the World Bank, the Asian Development Bank, the European Union, the United Nations Environment Programme, the Food and Agriculture Organization, the OECD, and the State of California.
Teaching
He teaches Sustainability and Supply Chains at the graduate level and Sustainability and Society, the foundational course for the University of Michigan’s Sustainability Minor, which he co-founded in 2012. Courses
Mentorship
He has chaired seven completed doctorates and supervised five postdoctoral scholars and research scientists, with seven alumni now in tenure-track faculty positions. Alumni and placements
University affiliations
- Center for Sustainable Systems, core faculty
- Erb Institute
- Graham Sustainability Institute
- Michigan Institute for Data and AI in Society
- Institute for Global Change Biology
- Center for Russian, East European, and Eurasian Studies
- Center for Japanese Studies
- Global Supply Chain Intelligence Institute, founding director
Professional service
Chair, Human Dimensions of Global Change Specialty Group, American Association of Geographers. Founding board member, Life Cycle Sustainability Assessment Section, International Society for Industrial Ecology. Guest editor, special issues of Environmental Research Letters and Geoforum. Editorial board member, International Review for Spatial Planning and Sustainable Development.