Dr. Laura J. Stroup, assistant professor of geography at Texas State University, San Marcos, has been named Assistant Professor of Environmental Studies at Saint Michael's College, starting with the fall 2011 semester. Dr. Stroup is the first professor in the college’s newly developed, cross-disciplinary major in Environmental Studies.
With extensive experience in exploring the changing impact of the human environment on water resources, Dr. Stroup is pleased to have many collaborators amongst the Saint Michael’s science, geography and economics faculty.
Dr. Stroup earned her bachelor’s degree magna cum laude in Environmental Management from Franklin and Marshall College in 2002, with a minor in Geosciences. She was inducted into Phi Beta Kappa there in 2002. She earned a master’s degree in geography with concentration on physical/environmental geography from the Universityof South Carolina in 2004, with a thesis on “Getting the Structure Right: Adaptive Management for the Everglades Restoration.” And she earned a doctorate in geography in 2008 from the University of South Carolina with a dissertation on “Climate Change Effects on U.S. Water Resources Management.”
Dr. Stroup will be teaching Environmental Studies 101 and 102 in the fall, as well as the capstone senior seminar, which will focus on water. “Of course we want a beautiful, clean Lake Champlain,” she said. “But water touches everything; water is the sink for everything.”
“I’m very excited about expanding the inter-disciplinary program in Environmental Studies at Saint Michael’s with a focus on sustainability,” she said. “I’m also interested in incorporating field experiences into the classroom, and may create an Everglades field study over winter break sometime in the future.”
“I’ve learned about the excellent Saint Michael's College Wilderness Program and hope to develop a collaborative Environmental Studies project with that program,” she added.
Dr. Stroup was at Texas State from 2008 to 2011, where she taught graduate courses in Geographical Analysis, Geographic Aspects of Water, Water’s Role in Environmental and Ecosystem Restoration, Applied Water Resources, and undergraduate courses in Introduction to Physical Geography, and Water Resources. She team-taught Regional Field Studies: Physical Geography and Geology of the U.S. Southwest. She also advised a number of dissertations at Texas State. She taught geography at the University of South Carolina, and served as a laboratory and research assistant in master’s and doctoral programs there, from 2002 to 2008.
Dr. Stroup received several grants, including one in 2009 with a colleague, from the Texas State University Research Enhancement Program called, “Change, Complexity and Central Texas Water Utilities: Strategies for Resilient Water Management in the 21st Century,” for $10,100. She and a colleague received a National Science Foundation grant in 2007 for a project titled, “Climate Change Effects on U.S. Water Resources Management,” for $9,520.
She has published refereed journal articles in Society & Natural Resources and The Journal of Geography. And she has articles in review at City, Culture and Society, and The Professional Geographer, and a book chapter titled “Towards Effective Risk Decision-making and Engagement under Global Environmental Change.” She also has an extensive record of reports and conference proceedings publications, and of invited lectures and conference presentations, many focused on climate change and water resources.
Dr. Stroup and her husband Joseph Baird reside in Winooski. Her husband is certified to teach middle and high school and has a position at Mansfield Academy in Underhill, an alternative public school.