Gigi Berardi

Professor

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. The work is funded with a USDA/NIFA grant for extreme event-based scenario planning.

Education

PhD Natural Resources, Policy and Planning and MS Natural Resources Conservation, Cornell University; BA Biology, University of California, San Diego

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

Recent Research Articles (Food Systems)

"Do Global Food Systems Have an Achilles Heel? The Potential for Regional Food Systems to Support Resilience in Regional Disasters." With Rebekah Paci-Green. Journal of Environmental Studies and Sciences 5(4), 685-698, 2015.

"Resilience in Agriculture: Small- and Medium-sized Farms in Northwest Washington State." With Rebekah Green and Bryant Hammond. Journal of Sustainable Agriculture 37(3), 316-339. 2013.

Recent Research Papers Presented (Food Systems)

Apr. 2017 "Food Resilience Strategies: Food Security and Local Foods in Washington State." Poster-paper presented at Association of American Geographers Annual Meetings, Boston. With Rebekah Paci-Green.

March. 2016 ""Localism" in Disasters: The Potential for Local Foods to Support Resilience in Local Disasters." Paper presented at Association of American Geographers Annual Meetings, San Francisco.  With Rebekah Paci-Green and Jason Cornell.

Nov. 2015 "Geographical Terroir and the Microecology of Traditional Fermented Foods." Paper presented at "Wise Traditions," Weston A. Price Foundation annual meetings. Anaheim, CA.

Research Articles (Alaska Native and Native American Studies and Tribal Education)

See https://scholar.google.com/scholar?start=0&q=Gigi+berardi+tribal&hl=en&as_sdt=0,48

Feature Articles and Reviews (in the Arts)

See https://scholar.google.com/scholar?hl=en&q=Gigi+berardi+and+dance&btnG=&as_sdt=1%2C48&as_sdtp=

Field Work

2016-present  Guanojuano State, Mexico. Fluoride and arsenic contamination case studies.

2012-2015 Dornach, Switzerland; Central Italy (in 2015, Les Caves du Pré Normand, St. Haon le Châtel, France). Developed case studies of biological and biodynamic farming, integrated food processing for current book projects.