Jennifer Brewer is a Professor in the Department of Geography and a faculty member in the Master of Public Policy program and Natural Resources and Earth Systems Science doctoral program. As a political ecologist, her research focuses on human-environment relations and environmental governance. Her research asks how decision processes can simultaneously sustain natural resources and strengthen democracy under conditions of environmental change. Her projects in marine fisheries, climate change, and coastal management and urbanization have spanned policymaking from local to international scales, including community- and market-based resource co-management models. She especially enjoys working with interdisciplinary and international research teams that integrate field data collection with qualitative and quantitative analysis and strengthen the interface between science and civic participation.
Jennifer holds a doctorate in Human Geography from Clark Graduate School of Geography, a Master of Science in Marine Policy from the University of Maine School of Marine Sciences, and a Bachelor of Arts from the University of Michigan School of Liberal Arts and Sciences. She previously held a joint appointment at East Carolina University in the Department of Geography and Institute for Coastal Science and Policy. She has also worked at the National Academy of Sciences, US House of Representatives, Alaska Department of Fish and Game, and in the non-profit sector.