Carissa Aoki is an applied ecologist working at the intersection of landscapes, disturbance and risk. She is particularly interested in bringing anti-racist principles to the teaching of science, including the use of interdisciplinary stories to bring non-traditional content into the curriculum.

Carissa Aoki is an applied ecologist working at the intersection of landscapes and natural and human disturbances. She is particularly interested in teaching science through an interdisciplinary lens and social justice core, with an emphasis on science through storytelling.

As the Area Head for the Ecosystems, Sustainability, and Justice major, Carissa oversees curriculum development in the major and cross-disciplinary cooperation with studio and liberal arts faculty across campus. She also develops and sustains partnerships with community organizations in Baltimore to facilitate experiential learning. Her scientific research has included work on wildland fire ecology, insect outbreaks, and urban agroecology. She is a current participant in TUBA (teaching undergraduate biology through urban agriculture), a National Science Foundation research coordination network.

A B.A. in Gender Studies and a Ph.D. in Ecology, Evolution, Ecosystems, and Society drive Carissa’s interests in interdisciplinary work, and engage her in stakeholder-driven projects that translate research into usable tools for natural resource managers and the general public. She has collaborated on several such projects with the Digital Applied Learning and Innovation (DALI) Lab at Dartmouth, where she has played the role of both PI, and as boundary spanner among stakeholders. One of her projects provides annual online predictions of southern pine beetle outbreaks to state and federal forest managers across a dozen southeastern states.