Dylan M. Harris, PhD

• Nature-Society Relations
• Climate Change
• Political Ecology
• Storytelling
• Environmental / Climate Justice
• Cultural Geography
• Experimental Research Methods
• Critical Physical Geography
• Environmental Humanities
• Environmental Philosophy
• Critical Theory

• PhD, Geography, Clark University, 2020
• MSc, Geography: Environment & Development, The London School of Economics, 2014
• BA, Political Science & Religious Studies, The University of Southern Mississippi, 2012

• Introduction to Environmental Studies & Sustainability (GES 1500)
• World Regional Geography (GES 1980)
• Nature & Society (GES 3500)
• Global Climate & Environmental Change (GES 4700)
• Energy (GES 4700)

• Harris, D. M. and J. Mullenite 2024. Ruins and Ruination in Political Ecology – An Introduction to the Special Issue. Capitalism Nature Socialism. https://doi.org/10.1080/10455752.2024.2309628.
• Baker, R. and D. M. Harris. 2024. Socioecological Topologies of Student Debt in the United States. Human Geography. https://doi.org/10.1177/1942778623121444.
• Harris, D. M. 2023. Millions Owe Trillions: Pathways for Geographic Research on the Student Debt Crisis in the U.S. ACME: An International Journal of Critical Geographies. https://acme- journal.org/index.php/acme/article/view/2276.
• Harris, D.M. 2023. Understanding and Knowing Climate Change: Teaching Climate Science, Justice, and Storytelling. The Geography Teacher. https://doi.org/10.1080/19338341.2023.2262488.
• Harris D. M. & McCarthy, J. 2023. A Just Transition to What, for Whom, and by What Means? Transition Technology, Carbon Markets, and an Appalachian Coal Mine. Energy Research and Social Science. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.erss.2023.103307.
• Harris, D.M. and D. Santos. 2023. A Case for Speculative and Experimental Political Ecologies. Submitted to the Journal of Political Ecology. https://doi.org/10.2458/jpe.5589.
• Harris, D. M. 2023. Storytelling, Crisis, and Meaning-Making: Stories as a Terrain of Cultural and Political Struggle. cultural geographies.
• Harris, D. M. (2022) Intervention – Geographies of Student Debt: A Call for Research and Action. Antipode Online. https://antipodeonline.org/2022/07/25/geographies-of-student-debt/.
• Harris, D.M. 2022. Climate Storytelling. EBSCO Pathways to Research – Sustainability. https://www.pathways2research.com/pts/Climate%20Storytelling.
• Harris, D.M. 2022.  Energy Justice. EBSCO Pathways to Research – Sustainability. https://www.pathways2research.com/pts/Energy%20Justice.
• Harris, D.M. 2022. The Trouble with Modeling the Human into the Future Climate. GeoHumanities. https://doi.org/10.1080/2373566X.2022.2043764.
• Moulton, A., S. Velednitsky, D. M. Harris, C. B. Cook., and B. Wheeler. 2021. Unsettling Political Ecology: Toward More Honest Dialogues on the Legacies of Trauma in Political Ecology. Journal of Political Ecology. 28: 1, 677-695. https://doi.org/10.2458/jpe.3051.
• Harris, D. M. 2021. Realizing Where I Should Be: Notes on Reflexivity and Positionality in Fieldwork. The Geographical Bulletin. https://www.gammathetaupsilon.org/the-geographical-bulletin/2020s/volume62-2/A/article6.pdf
• Harris, D. M. 2021. Storying Climate Change: Notes on Experimental Political Ecology. Geoforum. 126, 331-339. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.geoforum.2021.08.011.
• Pettibone, L. and D. M. Harris. 2021. Kollaboratives Utopisieren für ein klimaneutrales 2030. Ökologisches Wirschaften. https://doi.org/10.14512/OEW360324.
• Harris, D. M. & McCarthy, J. 2020. Revisiting Power and Powerlessness: Speculating West Virginia’s Energy Future and the Externalities of the Socioecologial Fix. Environment and Planning E: Nature and Space. https://doi.org/10.1177/2514848620935751.
• Harris, D. M. 2020. Expanding Climate Futures: Using Science Fiction’s Worldbuilding to Imagine a Climate-Changed Southwestern U.S. Otherwise. Literary Geographies. 6:1, 59-76.
• Harris, D. M. 2019. Telling stories about climate change. The Professional Geographer. https://doi.org/10.1080/00330124.2019.1686996.
• Harris, D. M. 2017. Telling the Story of Climate Change: Geologic Imagination, Praxis, and Policy. Energy Research and Social Science. 31, 179-183.
• Harris, D. M. 2017. Mountain-Bodies, Experiential Wisdom: The Kallawaya Cosmovisíon and Climate Change Adaptation. Third World Thematics. 2: 2-3, 376-390. 

• University of Colorado Colorado Springs, Green Action Fund Research Seed Grant, 2022
• University of Colorado Colorado Springs Office of Research, Committee on Research and Creative Works (CRCW) Seed Grant, 2021
• National Science Foundation, Geography and Spatial Sciences Doctoral Dissertation Research Improvement Award (Award# 1853036), 2019
• The Robert and Patricia Switzer Foundation,  Environmental Leadership Fellowship, 2018
• Edna Bailey Sussman Fund, Environmental Fellowship 2018
• Pruser Dissertation Enhancement Award (Clark University), 2017
• Denis E. Cosgrove Research Grant (Cultural Geography Specialty Group of the AAG), 2016
• Albert, Norma and Howard Geller ’77 Endowed Research Award (George Perkins Marsh Institute, Clark University), 2016
• Wallace Atwood Fellowship (Clark University Graduate School of Geography), 2015
• Phi Kappa Phi Fellowship, 2013

• Social Sciences Symposium Series (S4) Committee
• Green Action Fund (GAF) Faculty Advisor
• Committee on Research and Creative Works (CRCW) (Grant Reviewer)
• FAC Assembly - Social Science Representative
• UCCS PRIDE
• FRC Advisory Committee
• Campus Sustainability Committee

Dylan Harris CV

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

Something that is important to me outside of (but certainly adjacent to) my 'work' is finding ways to make meaningful contributions to communities where I feel a mutual sense of embeddedness and support. In some ways, this can be summed up as making sure I am finding ways to fill my cup outside of work, but, in others, this also means finding ways to fill others' cups. That reciprocity is important to me. I can offer two examples. First, I value my association with The Chinook Center, a nonprofit community-based organizing and advocacy organization working hard to address issues ranging from food insecurity to affordable housing through mutual aid in Colorado Springs. Second, I love music (and art/storytelling broadly), and I am drawn to its ability to contribute to genuine social change. For the past few years, I have been working to organize a speaker series and library project at a queer music festival, the Honcho Campout, where I am able to bring together different thinkers and activists to support ongoing work within the queer community in the US and around the world. Being able to help with this project, in return, helps me feel fulfilled... and, like my 'work' extends beyond the university.

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

I can answer this in two ways. First, I have always been driven by questions, and throughout my undergraduate and graduate programs I was fortunate to follow what felt important to me. That being said, I never had a clear intention to work in higher education. I took time off between my undergraduate and masters degrees to work, but I found myself gravitating back to education because I kept having questions. When I graduated with my masters degree, I applied to several jobs and PhD programs, and I happened to get into my priority PhD program with full funding. As a 25-year-old, I began that program less with the idea that I would be a professor someday and more from the perspective that I had an income - to do what I wanted - for 5 years. Towards the end of my PhD program, I was fortunate to get this job at UCCS, and I am grateful to be here! It was never, however, an expectation that I would work in higher education. That being said, the second way to answer this question is to realize, in retrospect, that this is where I feel like I belong. I feel like my contributions - what I think I am good at - fits within higher education. Also, as an undergraduate student, I remember looking up to mentors and wondering how I could live their lives. I am sure that had something to do with it all as well.

What are your own professional goals and aspirations?

If you were to ask me what I want to be when I grow up, I'd say a writer. I enjoy writing, and I have always been drawn to writing as an avid reader and as someone who feels that writing is important. That said, my goal is to continue writing and sharing knowledge and experiences with others. I think of the other elements of my work - teaching and service - as integral to my research and writing. For me, they deeply inform one another. Teaching makes me a better writer. Writing makes me a better teacher. Service, as noted above, ties all this together by helping me feel grounded and connected to communities that matter to me. My goal is to continue writing and research. I am working on a book project at the moment that is very near and dear, and personal, and it is my hope that it answers important questions - about the 'Just Transition' - but also connects with readers on a personal level. Increasingly, I am thinking about writing in a way that reminds us, society at large, that human writing about human issues is still important in an age of AI writing. I am not necessarily a luddite and anti-AI, but I also think it is critical that we find ways to continue building connection between real people, sustaining real communities, especially in the face of multiple and nested crises like climate change.

What is your favorite place? 

I'd characterize my favorite place as the place that comes to mind when I close my eyes and imagine myself somewhere else, a place I want to be always. To me, that place is a specific trail, called the Low Road, on the property of an organization called Experience Learning near Spruce Knob Mountain in Northeastern West Virginia. When I close my eyes, I think of my dog running around off leash. I think of the tunnel of wild grasses and trees that frame the trail. I think of how warm the ground feels from baking in the sun. I think of the long views of rolling green mountains. I think of butterflies floating around us, and I think about picking wild raspberries and blueberries. It's a very specific place where I feel completely at peace.