Director:
Dr. Sophia Perdikaris
Codirectors:
Dr. Thomas McGovern
Dr. Andrew Dugmore
Dr. Reg Murphy
The Human Ecodynamics Research Center (HERC) at the CUNY Graduate Center is coordinating the effort of scholars in a formal research collaborative addressing crucial issues of sustainability, resilience, and the future of humans on earth. HERC focuses on the past and present global interactions of humans and the natural world, using fields of inquiry and methods of investigation from anthropology, archaeology, sociology, geosciences, climatology, biological sciences, art, history, and political science.
Following initiatives by the National Science Foundation (NSF) the study of human ecodynamics is used to emphasize collective and cross-disciplinary ways of understanding:
- constant and often discontinuous change
- the ubiquity of human impact past and present
- the potential for rapid threshold crossing climate change
- complex conjuncture of “fast” and “slow” variables in time and space
- the increased role of geospatial perspectives and newly dynamic modeling in driving interdisciplinary investigations and synthesis
The team at the Human Ecodynamics Research Center (HERC) has been specifically tasked by the NSF Office of Polar Programs to develop an international and interdisciplinary research forum called the Global Human Ecodynamics Alliance (GHEA, www.gheahome.org).
View Human Ecodynamics Research Center