Gund Graduate Fellow, Rubenstein School of Environment and Natural Resources

Nina is happily nerding out in the RSENR Ph.D. program as a member of the Leadership for the Ecozoic (L4E) project, for the d~eco~l* cultures: co-creating psychological, ecological, economic, and social conditions that support thriving life, by way of transforming human power differentials.
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After receiving her bachelor’s degree, Nina followed her curiosity in all things sustainability, holding various roles in social justice and environmental organizations.

She has lived, loved, and worked at two intentional communities in Western Massachusetts, practicing sustainable living in embedded relationship with the land and all their peoples. As a result of these experiences, she was inspired to investigate community-building in a self-designed graduate program, completing a master’s thesis on conflict transformation in intentional community.
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When not all up in this funky jazz, or playing ecoartsy tetris with space and time, she can usually be found dancing, doodling poetry, relationing, gardening, singing to plants et al., and napping in the wild flowers by the water, likely after a swim or paddle.

Advisor: Jon Erickson

Working Dissertation Title: Towards D~eco~l* Cultures: Re/embedding Community and Critical Psychology into Theories of Change 

Publications

  • Farley, J., Melgar, R. E. M., Hasan Ansari, D., Burke, M. J., Danielsen, J., Egler, M., Makombore, L., Neira, J., Poudel, S., Sellers, S., Smolyar, N. L., Sterlin, J., Taylor, J., & Vargas Roncancio, I. D. (2024). Rethinking Ecosystem Services from the anthropocene to the Ecozoic: Nature’s benefits to the biotic community. Ecosystem Services, 67, 101624. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.ecoser.2024.101624
  • Smolyar, N.L. (2023). Social Justice. (p. 492.) Dictionary of Ecological Economics: Terms for the New Millennium, Haddad, B.M. & Solomon, B. D. (eds.). Edward Elgar Publishing Limited.
  • Smolyar, N.L. & Schaffartzik, A. (2023). Political ecology. (pp. 408-409). Dictionary of Ecological Economics: Terms for the New Millennium, Haddad, B.M. & Solomon, B. D. (eds.). Edward Elgar Publishing Limited.
  • Burke, M.J., Smolyar, N.L. (2022). Demilitarize for a just transition. In: Dunlap, A., Brock, A. (eds) Enforcing Ecocide: Power, Policing, and Planetary Militarization. Palgrave Macmillan, Cham.
  • Kish, K., Mallery, D., Yahya Haage, G., Melgar-Melgar, R., Burke, M., Orr, C., Smolyar, N. L., Sanniti, S., & Larson, J. (2021). Fostering critical pluralism with systems theory, methods, and heuristics. Ecological Economics, 189, 107171.
  • Smolyar, N. L. (June 19, 2020). A moment, a lifetime, for walking the tightrope. Leadership for the Ecozoic online blog.
  • Smolyar, N. L. (2019). El Cambalache and inter-Change: Co-creating decolonial, Feminist, Solidarity Economies. Pp. 84-85. Women and Environments International Magazine: Celebrating Economies of Change: Brave Visions for Inclusive Futures.  No.100 – 101, pp. 84-85.
  • Vargas Roncancio, I., Temper, L., Sterlin, J., Smolyar, N. L., Sellers, S., Moore, M., Melgar-Melgar, R., Larson, J., Horner, C., Erickson, J. D., Egler, M., Brown, P. G., Boulot, E., Beigi, T., & Babcock, M. (2019). From the Anthropocene to mutual thriving: An agenda for higher education in the ecozoic. Sustainability, 11(12), 3312.

Areas of Expertise and/or Research

Decolonization, degrowth, ecological and behavioral economics, demilitarization and economic conversion, land-power relations, Indigenous resurgence and sovereignty, transformation of higher education, environmental humanities, slow scholarship, administrative ethics, post-activism, and participatory action research methods

Education

  • MA, Sustainable Business and Communities, Goddard College
  • BA, Economics and Political Science, University of Pennsylvania

Contact

Email:

nina.smolyar@uvm.edu