Biographical Note

David Sonnenfeld is currently Professor and Chair, Department of Environmental Studies, State University of New York College of Environmental Science and Forestry (ESF), in Syracuse, New York. Previously, he was Associate Professor of Community and Environmental Studies at Washington State University. He is also a Research Associate and periodic Guest Professor with the Environmental Policy Group at Wageningen University, in the Netherlands. He joined ESF in September 2007.

David obtained his Ph.D. in Sociology in 1996 from the University of California, Santa Cruz, where his graduate studies focused on Environmental Sociology, the Sociology of Development (Southeast Asia), and Historical and Field Research Methods. A series of serendipitous events led him to his dissertation, a comparative study of social movements' influence on the adoption of new, environmental technologies in the pulp and paper industries of Australia, Indonesia, Malaysia and Thailand. In the 1970s, after completing his undergraduate degree as a highly regarded Independent Scholar in the Honors College at the University of Oregon, David chose to explore first-hand some aspects of life which had been largely unknown to him as a young, fast-tracked scholar. He worked for several years as a laborer/ machine operator, including in Oregon's forest products industry. This experience not only was "expanding" at the time, but also gave him valuable insights in later research. Forest policy issues -- logging of "old growth" redwoods -- remained highly controversial in California as David resumed academic pursuits in the late 1980s, providing further impetus for forest-industry related research. As an Intercampus Exchange Student at the University of California, Berkeley in 1991, David was fortunate to link up with a network of scholars studying Indonesian forestry issues, beginning his foray into the study of social and environmental transformation in Southeast Asia and elsewhere. Upon selecting a focus for his doctoral research, David was very successful raising funds to carry it out. Support for his dissertation research was received from the Fulbright Program, the UC Institute on Global Conflict and Cooperation, and the Switzer Foundation Environmental Program. In 1993-94, he was a Visiting Research Fellow at the Centre for Resource and Environmental Studies at the Australian National University in Canberra, from where he based his field research on the adoption of environmental technologies in the pulp and paper industries of Australia, Indonesia, Malaysia, and Thailand.

David finds collaborative, multi-disciplinary research rewarding and productive -- all features of the rich, interdisciplinary & collegial culture at ESF/ Syracuse University. He enjoys sharing results and observations with people in the field, and believes that social scientists from advanced industrial countries, who are privileged in their access to information and other resources, have a responsibility to share knowledge with people around the world. David returned to the University of California at Berkeley, in 1998-2000, as S. V. Ciriacy-Wantrup Visiting Scholar. While there, he was a Research Fellow at the Institute of International Studies and a Visiting Professor with Berkeley's Energy and Resources Group. During the 2003-04 academic year, David was Guest Professor and WIMEK Fellow with the Environmental Policy Group at Wageningen University, in the Netherlands; he continues to collaborate actively with that group of scholars renowned for their work in Ecological Modernization Theory and Practice. He has returned to the Netherlands regularly since to continue engagement with colleagues and graduate students. He continues to work actively with colleagues also in Malaysia, China, Thailand, Vietnam, and elsewhere, and is a founder and International Advisory Board member of the Environmental Research Network Asia (ERNAsia). In addition to his international collaborations and activities, David tries to stay abreast of important social and environmental dynamics in his home community and region. In the Pacific Northwest, these included the Hanford nuclear site, politics of salmon, rivers and dams, and the area's diverse ethno-cultural communities. In the Northeast, this includes social and economic as well as environmental dimensions of sustainability, the deterioration and necessary 'greening' of social infrastructure, conservation and preservation of the natural environment, transboundary and interethnic environmental issues, and more.

Even with his ambitious administrative and scholarly agenda, David finds time to experience the out-of-doors. In Washington state, this included the shores of the Columbia River, where he briefly joined the local Audubon chapter to learn about local birds and their habitats. At times, he has been known to bring along his camera, which he enjoys using in landscape, portrait, and industrial photography and as a documentary tool in his work. As a youth, David played bassoon in the Newark, Delaware, community orchestra. Today, he appreciates an ever-changing variety of music; current favorites include world music, alternative and acoustic rock, classic blues and jazz. A dual US and Canadian citizen, David has enjoyed many summers over his liftime with extended family on the Gatineau River, in Quebec, Canada, north of Ottawa, the national capital. He swims regularly (though more often  in a chlorinated pool than in open water), enjoys walks in the woods, canoeing, bicycling (a joy rediscovered in the Netherlands), and gardening.

David's partner, stream ecologist Kathleen McGrath, is Adjunct Assistant Professor in residence at ESF's Dept. of Environmental and Forestry Biology. Alongside her research efforts, she is representing ESF at meetings of the Onondaga Lake Partnership's Project Committee. Their son, Nathan [8], is having a blast discovering the world. David's oldest son, Raphael [26], is an Informatics graduate of the University of Washington, in Seattle. In his first job out of UW's iSchool, Raphael worked with Global Market Insite, a venture-capital funded, online marketing survey/ software firm based in the Seattle area; he was laid off in February 2009 and has been looking for work since. Number two son, Joshua [24], graduated with a B.A. in Feminist Studies from the University of California, Santa Cruz, in 2007. In his initial job out of college, he worked as a community organizer for the UNITE-HERE service workers' union in northern California; more recently, he worked for the Working Assets Foundation as a poll-watcher in the 2008 presidential elections. He has been unemployed since, but is hoping to get called soon for work as a substitute teacher in the San Francisco Bay area. When they have a chance, David and his family enjoy fun activities in central New York, the Adirondacks, eastern Canada, and elsewhere around the world.

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