Dorceta Taylor Popular Books

Dorceta Taylor Biography & Facts

Dorceta E. Taylor is an American environmental sociologist known for her work on both environmental justice and racism in the environmental movement. She is the senior associate dean of diversity, equity, and inclusion at Yale School of the Environment, as well as a professor of environmental justice. Prior to this, she was the director of diversity, equity, and inclusion at the University of Michigan's School of Environment and Sustainability (SEAS), where she also served as the James E. Crowfoot Collegiate Professor of Environmental Justice. Taylor's research has ranged over environmental history, environmental justice, environmental policy, leisure and recreation, gender and development, urban affairs, race relations, collective action and social movements, green jobs, diversity in the environmental field, food insecurity, and urban agriculture. A scholar of environmental justice, Taylor's work has garnered numerous awards. Her 2009 book, The Environment and the People in American Cities: 1600s-1900s, was the first history of environmental injustice in America. Her 2014 book Toxic Communities has been hailed as a "standard-bearer" for environmental justice scholarship. Her book, The Rise of the American Conservation Movement is a "sweeping social history" that challenges narrative of environmental history and inspires readers to "reconsider nearly everything". Early life and education Taylor was born and raised in rural Jamaica. She earned a bachelor's of arts in Environmental Studies and Biology (with honors) from Northeastern Illinois University in Chicago in 1983. She obtained a master's of forest science from Yale University in 1985. She followed with a master's of art and a master's of philosophy in 1988. She received a joint doctoral degree in sociology and forestry and environmental studies from the School of Forestry and the Department of Sociology at Yale University 1991. She was the first African American woman to earn a doctoral degree from Yale School of Forestry & Environmental Studies. Academic career Taylor received a National Science Foundation Minority Post-doctoral Fellowship in 1991 to study ethnic minority environmental activism in Britain. She affiliated with the University College of London's Department of Geography while she conducted her research. In 1992 she obtained a Ford Foundation/Rockefeller Foundation Poverty and the Underclass Post-doctoral Fellowship at the University of Michigan. The appointment was jointly held between the Ford School of Public Policy and the School of Social Work. In 2010, she won the Allan Schnaiberg Outstanding Publication Award for the book, Environment and the People in American Cities, 1600s-1900s: Disorder, Inequality, and Social Change (Duke University Press, 2009). Taylor was the chair of the Environment and Technology Section of the American Sociological Association from 2012 to 2013. In 2012 Taylor became the principal investigator of a five-year United States Department of Agriculture grant to study racial and class disparities in food access in the state of Michigan. In 2014, she was celebrated by the city of San Francisco as one of 29 black environmentalists who have made "real and lasting change". In 2015, Taylor became the James E. Crowfoot Collegiate Professor of Environmental Justice and the Director of Diversity, Equity, and Inclusion at the University of Michigan's School for Environment and Sustainability (SEAS). In 2018, she was celebrated by a wide range of the world's most prominent environmental organizations. She was awarded the Women in Conservation Rachel Carson Award from the National Audubon Society, the Freudenburg Lifetime Achievement Award from the Association of Environmental Science and Studies, the National Science Foundation's Presidential Award for Excellence in Science, Mathematics & Engineering, Mentoring (PAESMEM), the University of Michigan Distinguished Faculty Achievement Award, and the President's Award from the Detroit Audubon Society. In 2021, Taylor became the first Senior Associate Dean of Diversity, Equity, and Inclusion at Yale School of the Environment. Work on diversity in environmental organizations Taylor's work on racial exclusion in the environmental movement began in 1989, with her article "Blacks and the Environment: Toward an Explanation of the Concern and Action Gap between Blacks and Whites", and she authored numerous articles on the subject in the early 1990s. In 2014, Taylor authored a groundbreaking report on diversity in environmental organizations. The report's findings, that environmental organizations were failing to represent the diverse American population in their leadership, aroused a firestorm of controversy. The report was commissioned by the Green 2.0 diversity initiative, which continues to track diversity data for the 40 largest environmental organization. To expand on this work, in 2018, Taylor published an updated report that examined the status of diversity in over 2,000 American environmental nonprofits and the extent to which they report their demographic characteristics and diversity activities on the GuideStar reporting system. In 2019, Taylor published new research on the lack of diversity reporting in environmental organizations. Minority Environmental Leadership Development Initiative (MELDI) With funding from the Joyce Foundation, Taylor founded the Multicultural Environmental Leadership Development Initiative (MELDI) in 2003. In 2005 she organized a national conference and in 2007 an international one for the purpose of assessing the status of diversity in the environmental field and to plan for enhancing diversity in the future. Several papers presented at the 2007 conference were published in the book, Environment and Social Justice: An International Perspective. Taylor also conducted four studies of diversity, funded by the Joyce Foundation, the Ford Foundation, and the National Science Foundation, and published in BioScience, Journal of Environmental Education, Research in Social Problems and Public Policy, and Environmental Practice. Environmental Fellows Program (EFP) In 2015, Taylor launched the Environmental Fellows Program (EFP) in partnership with the Environmental Grantmakers Association. The Environmental Fellows Program (EFP) is a national program that seeks to diversify the environmental and conservation philanthropic field through 12-week paid summer internships for graduate students at partner foundations and nonprofit organizations. Funders of the program include C.S. Mott, Island Foundation, New York Community Trust, Pisces Foundation, and more. The program aims to reduce barriers to entry for mid-level and senior-level jobs in environmental organizations and foundations for professionals from underrepresented backgrounds by connecting them to mentors and giving them experience in the field. Doris Duke Conservation Scholars Program (DDCSP YSE) Also in 2015, Taylor began the Yale.... Discover the Dorceta Taylor popular books. Find the top 100 most popular Dorceta Taylor books.