Associate Fellow, former Postdoctoral Researcher
Water Sustainability and Climate Project
Department of Forest and Wildlife Ecology

226 Russell Laboratories, 1630 Linden Drive
University of Wisconsin – Madison
Madison, Wisconsin  53706-1598
Email: sgillon@wisc.edu | Curriculum Vitae

Research
My primary research and teaching interests are in environmental policy, politics and governance, human and environmental geography, agrifood system studies, and social science research methodologies in environmental studies. Topically, I focus on cooperation and conflict in agricultural, food, energy, water and conservation issues. I conduct interdisciplinary and problem-driven research aiming toward equitable improvement in policy and practice. To this end, I often adopt a political ecological approach to analyze how nature-society relations and problems are defined and addressed. My current, primary post is as Assistant Professor of Food Systems and Society at Marylhurst University in Portland, Oregon.

Water Sustainability and Climate Project 
I continue to conduct research with UW-Madison’s interdisciplinary Water Sustainability and Climate Project after completing a Postdoctoral Fellowship on the project (2011-2013). This National Science Foundation-funded project connects biophysical modeling, scenario building, and social science research on environmental politics and policy, institutions, and socio-ecological outcomes in the Madison area Yahara River watershed. The project asks:  How can regional governance systems for water and land use be made more resilient and adaptive to meet diverse human needs in the context of changes in policy priorities, the agricultural sector, climate and ecological conditions, and urbanization? More here.

I taught Approaches to Socio-ecological Analysis with Adena Rissman. This UW-Madison graduate seminar contrasted research analyzing social and ecological phenomena. A class-based research project asks:  How does variation in research methodology, system boundary definition, characterization of drivers of change (e.g. social relations, economy, climate), and ontological and epistemological orientation condition understandings of socio-ecological systems? 

Other Research
I earned a Ph.D. in Environmental Studies from the University of California, Santa Cruz in September 2011. My dissertation research, funded in part by the National Science Foundation, addressed: geographies emerging as energy and agricultural sectors become closely tied through markets, policies, and new investments; the political ecology of conservation and agroecological change under new bio-energy policy; and mobilizations of scientific knowledge and policy debate associated with the development of biofuel production for greenhouse gas emissions reductions. This work is based on over three years of fieldwork in Iowa farming communities, as well as policy and document analysis. I used qualitative methods including participant observation, interviews with public officials, farmers and rural residents, and policy and document analysis. I also quantitatively analyzed land use change and ethanol industry structure, mapping them with GIS.

Raised in Iowa, I developed an interest in food and agricultural systems and the opportunities and challenges presented by contrasting models. I have managed small farming operations, conducted research for community food and agricultural groups, written on organic food regulation, and worked as a produce buyer.
 I am a founding member of the New Roots Institute for the Study of Food Systems, an organization working to develop innovative interdisciplinary and experiential approaches to agrifood system education (learn more here), and I am a Director of MESA (Multinational Exchange for Sustainable Agriculture; more here)

Courses Taught

Approaches to Social-Ecological Analysis (with Adena Rissman)

Sustainable Food Systems (University of California, Santa Cruz)

The Principles of Sustainable Agriculture (University of California, Santa Cruz) 

Selected Publications
 
Gillon, S., E. Booth, and A. Rissman. In Review. Shifting drivers and static baselines in environmental governance: Challenges improving and proving water quality outcomes.

Hilimire, K., S. Gillon, B. McLaughlin, K. Monsen and B. Dowd-Uribe. In Review. Food for
thought: Developing curricula for sustainable food systems education. Journal of
Agroecology and Sustainable Food Systems.

Gillon, S. In Press. Science in carbon economies: Debating what counts in US biofuel governance. Environment and Planning A 45.

Stuart, D. and S. Gillon. 2013. Scaling up to address new challenges for conservation on US farmland.  Land Use Policy 31: 223-236. PDF

Gillon, S. 2012. US Biofuel Production as Climate Policy:  Tensions between greenhouse gas governance, agricultural economies, and agroecological practice. Norteamérica 7: 129-164.

Gillon, S. 2012. Critical geographies of meat? Antipode Foundation. http://antipodefoundation.org/2012/05/30/critical-geographies-of-meat/

Gillon, S. 2012. Security, scarcity and the political pipeline. Antipode Foundation. http://antipodefoundation.org/2012/01/18/security-scarcity-and-the-political-pipeline/

Gillon, S. 2010. Fields of dreams:  Negotiating an ethanol agenda in the Midwest United States.  The Journal of Peasant Studies: Critical Perspectives on Rural Politics and Development. 37(4): 723-748. PDF

Gillon, S. 2010. Appropriationism.  In P. Robbins, D. Mulvaney and J.G. Golson (Eds.). Green Food Reference. London: Sage.

Gillon, S. 2010. Substitutionism. In P. Robbins, D. Mulvaney and J.G. Golson (Eds.). Green Food Reference. London: Sage.

DuPuis, E.M. and S. Gillon. 2009. Alternative modes of governance: Organic as civic engagement.  Agriculture and Human Values 26(1-2): 43-56. PDF