Melanie McDermott has conducted applied research on the relationships among community, environment, and social difference in various contexts, among them: the role of local governments in advancing environmental (in)justice and sustainability, the political ecology of natural resource management, with an emphasis on community forestry; and coastal resilience and the social and environmental determinants of health in New Jersey. With degrees in interdisciplinary social science (B.A., Harvard; Ph.D., UC Berkeley) and forestry (M.Sc., Oxford), she has three decades of research experience in the U.S., Southeast Asia, Southern Africa, and the Caribbean.
As Senior Researcher at the Sustainability Institute of The College of New Jersey, Melanie McDermott conducts applied research supporting the Sustainable Jersey municipal and school certification program. Also serving as visiting assistant professor in the Human Ecology department and associate member of the graduate faculty in Geography at Rutgers, she previously served as research faculty and Associate Director of the Climate and Society Initiative at Rutgers University.
Selected publications:
McDermott, M. H. 2021. “A Municipal Guide to a Lead-safe Community.” Sustainable Jersey. https://www.sustainablejersey.com/fileadmin/media/Actions_and_Certification/Actions/Health_and_Wellness/Lead_Poisoning_guidebook.pdf
McDermott, M. H. 2020. “Advancing Social Equity through the Sustainable Jersey Program: Analysis and Potenal.”Sustainable Jersey. https://www.sustainablejersey.com/resources/publications/research-reports/
McDermott, M. H. and R. Solomon. 2019. “The 2018 New Jersey Sustainable State of the State Report. Volume I:Summary Reportand Volume II Technical Report.” Sustainable Jersey.
Leichenko R, M. McDermott, and E. Bezborodko. 2018. “Barriers, Limits and Limitations to Resilience.” In Heidkamp, C. and Morrisey, J. (eds.), Towards Coastal Resilience and Sustainability. London and New York: Routledge. 10.4324/9780429463723-3.
McDermott, M.H., Mahanty, S. and Schreckenberg, K. 2013. “Examining Equity: a multidimensional framework forassessing equity in payments for ecosystem services.” Environmental Science and Policy 33: 416-427.http://dx.doi.org/10.1016/j.envsci.2012.10.006.
