Alum
Alum
Future Faculty Postdoctoral Fellow, Northeastern University
Ph.D. in Environmental Science, Policy & Management, UC Berkeley
BA in Sociology & Anthropology, Environmental Studies & Science Minor, Spelman College
Environmental, Energy, and Climate Justice; Black Feminist Ecologies; Resilience, Sustainability, and Climate Adaptation; Feminist Environmentalism(s); Digital Media and Digital Activism; Community Geography; Blue-Green Infrastructure; Black Feminist and Environmental Anthropology; Gender and Climate Policy; Indigeneity; Feminist Political Ecology; Ecowomanism; Critical Ethnobotany; Mixed Methods; Community-Based Participatory Action Research; Environmental Communication; Civic Engagement and Environmental Activism
I am the great-granddaughter of field hands who toiled in tobacco and cotton fields in North Carolina, factory workers produced by the Great Migration in New Jersey, and former sharecroppers who still live in Georgia. I am a product of enslaved Africans, Indigenous folk, plantation owners, and immigrants from various countries. I am a Black woman and woman of color who grew up in Section 8 housing and homeless shelters in Arlington, Virginia. I am a proud graduate of Spelman College and a first-generation Ph.D. in Society & Environment. I am, most importantly, a descendant of environmental justice geographies including Carolina hog and chicken farms, northern chemical industries, and southern junkyards.
I am also a feminist political ecologist. Pedagogically and methodologically, I am partial to multidisciplinary research teams, feminist activist research, and mixed methods. My dissertation focuses on Gulf Coast women of color's climate justice solutions and strategies to resist environmental violence while navigating contradictory relationships with energy and petrochemical industries. I hope to use my scholarship to contribute to efforts to democratize environmental governance and diversify leadership within environmental and climate policy. Ultimately I ask: how might policymakers and natural resource managers use insights from political ecology, STS, and critical theories of race and gender to make better informed environmental decisions? How might we bring about a feminist vision of a 'Global Green New Deal'? How do pleasure and the erotic (see Audre Lorde) inform the ways in which frontline communities organize around the violence of toxicity, displacement, disaster capitalism, land loss, health disparities, and other gendered/racialized inequalities? What is ecowomanist (auto)ethnography and why are feminist methods necessary when conducting scholar-activist research in plantation geographies dominated by oil and gas?
Dissertation
Roberts-Gregory, Frances B. “Ecowomanist (auto)ethnography (EWAE) as methodological intervention: BIWOC everyday resistance to Louisiana state-corporate crime, anti-resilient climate justice, and emergent feminist abolition ecologies.” Ph.D. dissertation, University of California, Berkeley, 2021.
Peer-Reviewed Manuscripts
Roberts-Gregory, F. 2021. “Climate Justice in the Wild n’ Dirty South: An Autoethnographic Reflection on Ecowomanism as Engaged Scholar-Activist Praxis before and during COVID-19.” Pp. 125-146 in Mapping Gendered Ecologies: Engaging with and Beyond Ecowomanism and Ecofeminism. K Melchor Quick Hall and Gwyn Kirk (Eds). Lanham: Lexington Books.
Roberts-Gregory, F. and Hawthorne, T.L. 2016. “Transforming Green Walls into Green Places: Black middle class boundary work, fractured communication and greenspace accessibility in southwest Atlanta.” Geoforum 77: 17-27.
Contributor
Chiles Canfield, F., Henderson, M., Leon, R. and Roberts-Gregory, F. 2017. “Changing Tides: Environmental Grantmaking in a New Political Context,” in Tracking the Field: Volume 6, Analyzing Trends in Environmental Grantmaking, Environmental Grantmakers Association.
ESPM Graduate Diversity Council. 2017. "The Right to Protest Violence". The Berkeley Graduate Op-Ed
Holly Doremus (moderator), Denis P. Galvin, George Miller and Frances Roberts-Gregory. 2017. "Strategic Conversation: Mission and Relevance of National Parks" in Science, Conservation and National Parks. Steven R. Beissinger, David D. Ackerly, Holly Doremus and Gary E. Machlis (Eds). Chicago: University of Chicago Press.
C.N.E. Corbin, Guillermo R. Douglass-Jaimes, Jesse Williamson, Ashton Wesner, Margot Higgins, and Jenny L. Palomino, Contributors: Melina Packer and Frances Roberts-Gregory. 2015. "(Re)Thinking the Tenure Process by Embracing Diversity in Scholars and Scholarship." The University of California Student Association Graduate Policy Journal 1: 4-9.
Blogs, Magazines and Other Publications
Roberts-Gregory, F. 2020. "My Petrochemical Love." Anthropology News website, April 22, 2020. DOI: 10.1111/AN.1387
Roberts-Gregory, F. 2020. "On Being the (Only) Black Feminist Environmental Ethnographer in Gulf Coast Louisiana." Edge Effects
Roberts-Gregory, F. 2020. “Reflections on Organic Agriculture, Climate Resiliency, and Black Farmers from the Southern SAWG Conference.” Berkeley Food Institute: News from the Field
Roberts-Gregory, F. 2019. “I do not drive in the South….And here’s why.” ViaNolaVie
Williams, M. and F. Roberts-Gregory. 2019. “Meet the Deep South Center for Environmental Justice (DSCEJ).” Students Rebuild
Roberts-Gregory, F. 2017. "Supporting Women and Climate Justice". EGA 30th Anniversary Journal: 1987-2017 30: 33.
Roberts-Gregory, F. 2017. "Diversity and Environmental Grantmakers: A Summer Love Story." EGA Blog
Unpublished SOARS Manuscript
Roberts-Gregory, F. 2010. “A modeling study on ozone formation in the upper troposphere in relation to thunderstorms”. SOARS
Interviews
Holtz, Sarah. 2020. "Ways to Mitigate Climate Anxiety." Peace Talks Radio
Dolan, Mara. 2019. "At COP25, Women’s Rights and Climate Activists Advocate a Feminist Green New Deal." Women’s Environment and Development Organization
Nguyen, Cindy and Ki'Amber Thompson. 2019. "Women, youth and climate justice." The Ocean Conservancy
Summer 2018 (6/12/18), "EJ Communities", New Orleans Alliance for Affordable Energy: People's Power Hour at WHIV FM 102.3, Radio Interview
Gray, Jenna. 2017. "These youth of color are organizing to address climate change." PBS Newhour, 5 Aug 2017
Women’s Earth Alliance and Sierra Club U.S. Grassroots Accelerator for Women Environmental Leaders
Wenner Gren Collaborative Ecologies Research Stipend and Workshop
University of California/League of Women Voters UNFCCC Observer Organization Accreditation for COP26
Feminist Agenda for a Green New Deal UNFCCC COP25 Travel Award
Association for Feminist Anthropology Zora Neale Hurston Travel Award
New Orleans Center for Gulf South Monroe Fellows Research Grant
National Women's Studies Association Women of Color Leadership Project
Sigma Xi Grants-In-Aid of Research Award
Spelman College Democratizing Knowledge Summer Institute Participant
NC State Building Future Faculty Program Participant
University of Michigan & Environmental Grantmakers Association (EGA) Environmental Fellow
National Science Foundation (NSF) GRFP Fellow
Ford Foundation Predoctoral Fellow
Significant Opportunities in Atmospheric Research and Science (SOARS) Protege
Spring 2021, "Feminist Approaches to Environmental, Energy, & Climate Justice", University for Peace, Visiting Professor
Spring 2019, "Climate justice, digital media and civic engagement in New Orleans", Bard Early College New Orleans (BECNO), Adjunct Professor
Fall 2018-Spring 2019, "Climate Justice, Digital Activism and Gender in Louisiana", Tulane University, Adjunct Professor
Fall 2018, "Environmental Racism Matters", Bard Early College New Orleans (BECNO), Adjunct Professor
Spring 2015, “Mapping agro-biodiversity hotspots and cultural foods in the urban food desert: fostering community food security, biocultural diversity, and health”, Sponsored Projects for Undergraduates Research Program (SPUR) and Undergraduate Research Apprentice Program (URAP), PI: Jennifer Sowerwine, UCB Assistant Cooperative Extension Specialist, Urban Ethnobotany Graduate Mentor and Instructor
Spring 2015, “‘The Road to Hell Is Paved with Good Intentions’ Urban Agriculture, Ethnobotany & Social Theory: Strengthening Interdisciplinary Methodology, Ethics & Praxis”, ESPM 117: Urban Garden Ecosystems, Lecture
Social Media
Twitter: @BlacknGreenPhD
Facebook: @BlacknGreenPhD
IG: @BlacknGreenPhD
Consulting
2019-2020, Workshop Facilitator/Resource Developer for New Orleans Women4Climate Mentorship Program
2019, Project Manager for Gulf Equity Water Corps Project at the Deep South Center for Environmental Justice
Non-Campus Organizations
Campus Organizations
ESPM Graduate Diversity Council (GDC)
Black Graduate Student Association at UCB (BGSA)
Media Appearances, Speeches and Workshops
Winter 2021, "Accelerating a Feminist Agenda for a Green New Deal." United Nations Framework Convention on Climate Change (COP26: Glasgow), Invited Speaker
Winter 2019, "Feminist Agenda for a Green New Deal Press Conference." United Nations Framework Convention on Climate Change (COP25: Madrid), Invited Speaker
Spring 2018, “The War on Climate Science: Combatting Misinformation and Attack Politics.” Tulane University Climate Action Day, Invited Panelist
Spring 2017, Berkeley March for Science, Invited Speaker
Spring 2016, “Women of Color in STEM: Demystifying Science while Broadening the Scientific Community” UCB 31st Annual Empowering Women of Color Conference (EWOCC), Workshop Leader
2015 Science for Parks, Parks for Science Strategic Conversation: Mission of the National Park Service and its Relevancy Today (1:05:39)
2012 Slow Food USA Terra Madre and Salone del Gusto Delegate
