Employing methodologies from across the humanities, biophysical sciences, and social sciences–including stakeholder interviews, oral narratives, participant observation, geomorphic surveys, archival research, and media analyses–our funded research takes an expansive, transdisciplinary approach to understanding freshwater ecosystems.
- Bridging Native and Settler Stories of Maple Island to Envision Its Future. In collaboration with Encompass Socio-ecological Consulting, the Muskegon River Watershed Assembly (MRWA), the Little River Band of Ottawa Indians (LRBOI), the Grand Rapids Public Museum (GRPM), and Native curator and media archivist Matt Schultz, we are working to support the Maple River Restoration Project, an effort to bring social, cultural, ecological, and economic benefits to the community by restoring a 4.6-mile section of the Maple River: a major historic channel of the iconic Muskegon River (Michigan) that was blocked and drained by logging companies in the late 1800s. We are recording oral narratives with area residents and LRBOI community members about long connections to the Maple River, interests in and concerns about the proposed restoration effort, and hopes for the future in order to complement ongoing hydrologic and economic studies, and have produced a set of interactive educational materials, including this Maple River StoryMap to support restoration efforts. Portions of this project are funded by an ACLS Digital Justice Development Grant, an Ice Mountain Environmental Stewardship Fund Grant from the Fremont Area Community Foundation, and a Bridging Michigan Grant from Michigan Humanities.
- Learning to Make Running Water Walk. Commissioned by the Coon Creek Community Watershed Council (CCCWC), this oral narrative effort is aimed at gathering community stories about the long history of conservation practice in the home of the nation’s first watershed demonstration project, personal connections to the land, reflections about watershed change, and hopes for the future. Sixty narratives will be shared publicly through the UW-La Crosse Oral History Program and used to inform the future direction of the CCCWC.
- Stories from the Flood. Viroqua, Wisconsin’s Driftless Writing Center created the Stories from the Flood project in early 2019, in response to catastrophic flooding in southwestern Wisconsin in August and September 2018. With the support of students from UW-Madison and UW-La Crosse, the project has gathered over 100 community stories of flooding in hopes of supporting community healing and serving as a resource for future conversations about flood recovery and resilience. The stories are shared publicly through the Oral History Program at UW-La Crosse, and have been featured in a an interactive StoryMap, a pair of podcasts (Wisconsin Humanities, Edge Effects) and several articles, including “Storying the Floods: Experiments in Feminist Flood Futures.“
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Whose Land Was “Granted” to the Land Grant? Teaching Indigenous Dispossession in Wisconsin and Beyond. 2023-2025. This National Endowment for the Humanities-funded project, supported through their Humanities Initiatives in Colleges and Universities program, brought together Native and non-Native faculty at UW-Madison to create linked educational modules about the dispossession of Indigenous lands in what is now called Wisconsin. This project centers on the transfer of 1,337,895 acres of land across Wisconsin taken through treaties with the Menominee, Ojibwe, Dakota, and Ho-Chunk and redistributed to 30 land grant universities through the Morrill Act of 1862. All educational modules are now available through the University of Wisconsin-Madison’s Rebecca M. Blank Center for Campus History to be incorporated into classes across the campus and across the country.
- Interactive Dynamics of Stream Restoration and Flood Resilience in a Changing Climate. 2021-2024. Working with local partners in the Kickapoo and Coon Creek watersheds (WI), this National Science Foundation CNH2-funded project leveraged interviews and online surveys with local decision-makers, land and water managers, and agricultural landowners to learn about changing attitudes towards stream restoration. Interviews and surveys inform the development of new flood models that will be refined through a series of interactive workshops, to contribute to local resilience planning and offer a model for other communities faced with persistent flooding.
- Wisconsin Idea Collaboration Grant. 2023-2024. This grant funded a collaboration between the Coon Creek Community Watershed Council (CCCWC), UW-Madison’s Division of Extension, Extension Lakes at UW-Stevens Point, and UW-Madison faculty to leverage Coon Creek’s historic legacy of conservation leadership to build CCCWC’s organizational capacity in the present; position CCCWC as a leader among area watershed councils; serve as proof of concept to grow Extension’s support for cross-sector watershed organizations; and contribute to the development of a toolkit to support community-led groups working on critical community issues.
Headwaters Lab 