Gary Handwerk, new director of the UW Program on the Environment.
Gary Handwerk, new director of the UW Program on the Environment.

The UW College of the Environment is pleased to announce that Gary Handwerk has been named director of the Program on the Environment (PoE), effective March 16, 2019.

Gary is a scholar and teacher of the environmental humanities, working in the branch of literary and cultural studies known as “ecocriticism,” which aims to understand the effects of representations of nature. He has extensive experience in departmental administration, serving as chair of both Comparative Literature, and of English, over the last two decades. Gary’s ability to bring faculty from diverse programs and disciplines together is evident in his leadership role in creating the environmental humanities (EnviroHum) group at the UW, his participation as a founding faculty member in the newly created academic unit Comparative History of Ideas (CHiD), his leadership of the Study Abroad program in Paris, and his long involvement with the Program on the Environment including serving on the newly reconstituted Faculty Advisory Board.

The College also wants to thank Kristi Straus for her exceptional service as acting director. “Kristi has been a passionate and tireless advocate for Program on the Environment.” Lisa Graumlich, dean and Mary Laird Wood Professor at the College of the Environment said. “I am particularly appreciative of her ability to skillfully and positively bring together exceptional faculty from across the college and the campus to serve on the PoE Faculty Advisory Board, and to guide the unit forward in discussions of how the goals and structure of the unit should support each other.”

Finally, thanks are also due to the advisory search committee for their energy, enthusiasm and thoughtfulness, including Chris Anderson (search committee chair and associate professor, School of Aquatic and Fishery Sciences),  Juliet Crider (associate professor, Department of Earth and Space Sciences), P. Sean McDonald (lecturer, Program on the Environment), and Richard Watts (associate professor and chair, Department of French & Italian Studies.)

“I want to take this opportunity to thank students, staff and faculty from the unit and more broadly throughout the college who participated in the search process.” Graumlich said. “In particular, I would like to publicly acknowledge the work of the Advisory Search Committee. This service to the college requires care, patience and commitment, and when well done—as is certainly the case here—results in the recruitment of an exceptional colleague into our midst.”

Please join us in welcoming Gary to the College!