Gigi Berardi
About
Gigi Berardi received her BA in biology with high honors from John Muir College, University of California San Diego and her MS and PhD in Resources, Policy, and Planning from Cornell University. She holds a MA in dance (now, World Arts and Cultures) from UCLA. She taught at The Evergreen State College, Olympia, Washington, from 1994-1995, and is now professor at College of the Environment, Western Washington University, where she focuses on community vulnerabilities and cultural ecology. Her research and writing includes study and review of Food and Farm Systems, Native American Studies and Tribal Education, and Performing Arts.
For three years, Gigi Berardi served as interim director of the Institute for Global and Community Resilience (titled, the Resilience Institute) at College of the Environment and currently serves as Resilient Farms Project director, working closely with staff and community members in identifying vulnerabilities in food systems and ways forward in increasing resilience and thus, prosperity. Gigi's books include FoodWISE (2020) and Bianca's Cure (2026).
Education
Research Interests
Since coming to Western, she has continued her research and writing in both environmental studies and arts but also has extended her career-long interests to increasingly blend the two fields. In her research into historical consolidation of communities that exist beyond economic or environmental carrying capacities in remote sub-arctic areas, she integrates natural resources and cultural geography with traditional music and dance. In addition to having served as a core faculty member in the Tribal Environmental and Natural Resources Management (TENRM) program, she completed work on a special issue on Alaska natural resources and Native land claims for Journal of Land, Resources, & Environmental Law. Her work on Native dance and arts as subsistence resources has appeared in publications such as Dance Magazine and The Anchorage Daily News.
Publications
Research Articles
2026 Bianca’s Cure. Berkeley, CA: She Writes Press/Simon and Schuster.
2025 “Alles ist Blatt” – Goethean-driven social science and qualitative inquiry” in Elemente Der Naturwissenschaft/Elements of Natural Science. In press.
2021 Invited contributor, “Early Organic Systems Research.” Organic Food and Farming. Shauna McIntyre, ed. In Contemporary World Issues series, ABC-CLIO books.
2019 “Anthroposophy’s Double Gesture: Dan McKanan’s Eco-Alchemy and its Meaning for Goethean Science.” Elemente Der Naturwissenschaft/Elements of Natural Science 110: 99-125.
2015 “Do global food systems have an Achilles heel? The potential for regional food systems to support resilience in regional disasters.” With Rebekah Green. Journal of Environmental Studies and Sciences 5(4): 685–698.
2020 FoodWISE. San Francisco: North Atlantic Books/Penguin Random House.
Research Papers Presented
Oct. 2025 “Phenomenology and action research.” Paper presented at the Evolving Science conference of the Section of Natural Sciences, Goetheanum. Dornach, Switzerland.
Oct. 2024 “Goethean-driven social science: Qualitative inquiry.” Paper presented at the Evolving Science conference of the Section of Natural Sciences, Goetheanum. Dornach, Switzerland.
Apr. 2024 “Considerations in selection of participatory research methodologies for studies of women conservation groups as exemplified in coastal Kenya.” Poster-paper presented at Association of American Geographers Annual Meetings, Honolulu, HI.
Feb. 2024 “Can village-level participatory research be quantitative?” Presentation to University of Nairobi faculty, Nairobi, Kenya.
Mar. 2023 “Reducing gender, economic, and environmental vulnerabilities in Andhra Pradesh: The case of the Timbaktu Collective.” Poster-paper presented at Association of American Geographers Annual Meetings, Denver, CO.
Feature Articles and Reviews (in the Arts)