Lindsay Campbell

Title: Research Community Planner
Unit: People and Their Environments: Social Science Supporting Natural Resource Management and Policy
Previous Unit: Integrating Social and Biophysical Sciences for Natural Resource Management
Address: Northern Research Station
c/o EPA Region 2, 290 Broadway, 26th Floor
New York, NY 10007
Phone: 212-637-4175
E-mail: Contact Lindsay Campbell

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Education

Massachusetts Institute of Technology, Department of Urban Studies and Planning

• Masters of City Planning degree recipient, 2006
• Masters Thesis: "Civil Society Strategies on Urban Waterways: Stewardship, Contention and Coalition Building"

Princeton University, Woodrow Wilson School of Public Policy with Environmental Studies Certificate

• AB degree recipient, 2002
• Senior Thesis: "Natural Resource Management and Tourism Policy in Namibia: A Sustainable Development Paradigm"

Civic & Professional Affiliations

Urban Ecology Collaborative Steering Committee and Research Committee

Current Research

My current research explores the dynamics of urban stewardship on a variety of different site types, with a particular emphasis on issues of social justice:

• The Living Memorials Project treats September 11 as a case study of a disturbance to which people respond, including through acts of stewardship.
• My graduate thesis research focuses on the formation of organizational strategies in the restoration of urban waterways.
• I am working to develop STEW-MAP (the Stewardship Mapping and Assessment Project) for New York City along with Erika Svendsen and Morgan Grove of the Northern Research Station, Dana Fisher of Columbia University, and Jarlath O`Neil-Dunne of the University of Vermont. This citywide assessment will analyze the spatial locations and network relationships of over 5,000 stewardship groups.

Why is This Important

• The Living Memorials research explores the ways in which natural resources aid human recovery not as passive design elements, but as catalysts for collective action. Stewardship allows for expression of collective values, including collective memories.
• My Urban Waterways Stewardship research finds that civil society groups select from "insider" strategies based on cooperation with government, "outsider" strategies that depend upon advocacy and pressure tactics directed towards either government or the private sector, and "independent" strategies like stewardship, education, and environmental monitoring that engage with the resource, regardless of the political and policy context.
• By exploring the networks among stewards and the social, organizational, informational and funding nodes that link them, STEW-MAP examines the ways that civil society stewards connect, compete with and compliment the goals of government agencies and the private business sector in the management of the urban ecosystem. This project seeks to understand and map the ways citizens serve as stewards by conserving, managing, monitoring, advocating for, and educating the public about their local environments (including water, land, air, waste, toxics, and energy issues).

Future Research

We intend to replicate the STEW-MAP research in other cities throughout the northeast, nationwide, and globally. I am also developing a number of other applied research projects for the New York City Urban Field Station with the New York City Department of Parks and Recreation and other local partners - on issues ranging from urban tree mortality, to ecological literacy, to urban forestry on public housing grounds.

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