#  Roxanne Willis 

Beagle Environmental Fellow: 2006-2008

PhD American Studies, Yale University

Current Position: Freelance Writer, Editor, and Public Speaker

 

 

 



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 Roxanne is a scholar of environmental history and literature who used her scholarship to write *Alaska’s Place in the West: From the Last Frontier to the Last Great Wilderness* (University Press of Kansas, 2010). The book chronicles previously unexplored debates about land and resource use in America’s largest state.

 Roxanne received her AB in Anthropology from Harvard College (summa cum laude) in 1997, and her PhD in American Studies from Yale University in 2006. Her article, “A New Game in the North: Alaska Native Reindeer Herding, 1890-1940,” published in the *Western Historical Quarterly* (Autumn 2006), won best article awards from the Western Historical Association, the Agricultural History Society, and the Forest History Society. Before entering graduate school, Roxanne worked for The Green Group in Washington, DC, coordinating and participating in the lobbying activities of the CEOs of the country’s 30 most powerful environmental organizations.

 As a fellow, Roxanne worked with Professor Lawrence Buell in the Department of English and American Literature and Language to turn her dissertation into a publishable book. Since her fellowship, she has trained and worked with Al Gore’s Environmental Reality Project, giving presentations on climate change in and around Chicago. She authors, ghostwrites, and edits books and articles on the environment, as well as other social, political, and historical topics. Roxanne received an MSW from Aurora University in 2020 and is working on a research project that examines how climate change affects the mental health of young Americans.

##  Faculty Host

 [Lawrence Buell](/people/lawrence-buell), English



 

 

 





 

 

- ## Alphabetical by Last Name
    
     [U-Z](/alphabetical-last-name/u-z)
- ## Fellows Status
    
     [Former](/fellows-status/former)
- ## Research Areas
    
     [Arts & Humanities](/research-areas/arts-and-humanities)
- ## Role
    
     [Fellows](/role/fellows)
- ## School
    
     [Faculty of Arts and Sciences](/school/faculty-arts-and-sciences)