David N. Pellow is Distinguished Professor and Dehlsen Chair of Environmental Studies at the University of California, Santa Barbara, where he teaches courses on environmental justice and climate justice, human-animal conflicts, sustainability, and social change movements. He has volunteered for and served on the Boards of Directors of several community-based, national, and international organizations that are dedicated to improving the living and working environments for people of color, immigrants, Indigenous peoples, and working class communities, including the Global Action Research Center, the Center for Urban Transformation, the Santa Clara Center for Occupational Safety and Health, Global Response, Greenpeace USA, International Rivers, the Community Environmental Council, the Central Coast Climate Justice Network, the Fund for Santa Barbara and the McCune Foundation.
Research
Pellow’s research has included:
- Developing a Green New Deal framework for California's Central Coast region in collaboration with the Central Coast Climate Justice Network. See this link for the Green New Deal reports for Santa Barbara County and Ventura County.
- A study of how environmental privilege and environmental racism shape the local ecology and life chances of native born and immigrant residents of Aspen, Colorado and Colorado’s Roaring Fork Valley.
- A study of radical environmental and animal rights movements’ goals, successes, and failures, and the impact of government repression on these activists who are frequently labeled “eco-terrorists.”
- A study of conflicts over the disproportionate location of garbage dumps and incinerators in communities of color in Chicago from the 1880s to the 2000s.
- A study of immigrant and working-class laborers and environmental justice activists who pushed Silicon Valley companies to become more attentive to demands for sustainability, environmental justice, and occupational safety and health.
- A book that introduces a new framework for analyzing environmental justice conflicts, particularly key issues that we might not usually associate with environmental concerns, including racist police violence, mass incarceration, and the Israel/Palestine struggle.
- Research on mutual aid movements as a way of addressing the impacts of climate change and environmental injustice on vulnerable communities.
Education
- Ph.D., Sociology, Northwestern University
- M.A., Sociology, Northwestern University
- B.A., Sociology, summa cum laude, University of Tennessee, Knoxville
Courses Taught
- ENV S 3: Introduction to the Social and Cultural Environment
- ENV S 116: Sustainable Communities
- ENV S 146: Animals in Human Society: Ethical Issues of Animal Use
- ENV S 180: Global Environmental Movements
- ENV S 181: Power, Justice, and the Environment