Christine Biermann, PhD

• Critical physical geography
• Human-environment interactions
• Tree rings and climate
• Socioecological forest dynamics
• Biodiversity conservation
• Political ecology

• PhD, Geography, Ohio State University, 2014
• MS, Geography, University of Tennessee, 2009
• BA, Geography, SUNY Geneseo, 2007

• Environmental Systems: Climate and Vegetation (GES 1000)
• Forest Geographies (GES 4700)
• Global Climate and Environmental Change (GES 4700)

• Biermann, C., and J. Baginski. 2020. From tailwaters to urban waters: Angling and conservation on Colorado’s South Platte River. Denver and the Rocky Mountain West (ed. M. Keables). American Association of Geographers.
• Wilmking, M., M. van der Maaten-Theunissen, E. van der Maaten, T. Scharnweber, A. Buras, C. Biermann, M. Gurskaya, M. Hallinger, J. Lange, R. Shetti, M. Smiljanic, and M. Trouillier. 2020 Global assessment of relationships between climate and tree growth. Global Change Biology 26(6): 3212-3220.
• Lave, R., C. Biermann, and S. Lane. 2018. Handbook of Critical Physical Geography. London: Palgrave Macmillan.
• Biermann, Christine, and H. Grissino-Mayer. 2018. Shifting climate sensitivities, shifting paradigms: tree-ring science in a dynamic world. In R. Lave, C. Biermann, and S. Lane (Eds.), Handbook of Critical Physical Geography (pp. 201-222). London: Palgrave Macmillan.
• Biermann, Christine, and R. Anderson. 2017. Conservation, biopolitics, and the governance of life and death. Geography Compass, 11(10): 1-13.
• Biermann, Christine. 2016. Securing forests from the scourge of blight: the biopolitics of nature and nation. Geoforum, 75: 210-219.
• Wang, H., D. Liu, D. Munroe, K. Cao, and C. Biermann. 2016. Selecting sensitive environmental variables for species distribution modeling. Annals of GIS, 22(1): 57-69.
• Mansfield, B., C. Biermann, K. McSweeney, J. Law, C. Gallemore, L. Horner, and D. Munroe. 2015. Environmental politics after nature: conflicting socioecological futures. Annals of the Association of American Geographers, 105(2): 284-293.
• Lave, R., M. Wilson, E. Barron, C. Biermann, M. Carey, C. Duvall, L. Johnson, K. Lave, N. McClintock, D. Munroe, R. Pain, J. Proctor, B. Rhoads, M. Robertson, J. Rossi, N. Sayre, G. Simon, M. Tadaki, and C. VanDyke. 2014. Intervention: Critical physical geography. The Canadian Geographer, 58(1): 1-10.
• Biermann, Christine, and B. Mansfield. 2014. Biodiversity, purity, and death: conservation biology as biopolitics. Environment and Planning D: Society and Space, 32: 257-273.

• National Science Foundation Research Grant, “Wild Trout: Conservation, Restoration, and the Molecular Turn,” Co-PI, with PI David Havlick ($208,988)
• 2017-2018 University of Washington Royalty Research Fund Scholar
• 2013 E. Willard and Ruby S. Miller Fellowship, Ohio State University
• National Science Foundation Graduate Research Fellowship

• Group leader, North American Dendroecological Fieldweek (2016)
• Associate Editor, Conservation and Society

What do you value and care about outside of your professional duties?

I love getting to know different places and landscapes, and if I can do it while hiking or biking or running or swimming or skiing, all the better. As a parent, I spend a lot of my time and energy trying to raise decent humans. And as digital technologies become more and more central to our lives, I see so much value in disconnecting to better connect with each other.

What encouraged you to go into (and stay in) higher education?

My own educational experience as an undergraduate was really wonderful. I studied at a public liberal arts college where I was introduced to new-to-me ideas, disciplines (geography!), and ways of thinking. So much of the work I did in undergrad - course projects, research, etc. - was rooted in the local community, and I developed an appreciation for the ways in which higher education can help foster a sense of place and serve the broader community. And what has encouraged me to stay in higher education are the variety of things I get to do and the many different people I get to interact with as part of my job.

What are your own professional goals and aspirations?

One thing that comes to mind that I haven't done yet but would like to is teach an international field course!

What is your favorite place? 

I visited the Swiss Alps a year or two ago, and I worry that may have ruined all other places for me. But now that I think about it, I've also spent some time in two "Switzerlands of America" (Ouray, CO and Jim Thorpe, PA) and they are both pretty cool too.