May 8, 2023

Colleagues,

I am pleased to announce Jim Ippolito, Natasha Myhal, and Mikaela Schmitt-Harsh will join the faculty of the School of Environment and Natural Resources at The Ohio State University!  With this news, I want to THANK YOU for engaging in our search processes. We hope to have a welcome event for our new faculty in autumn semester with details forthcoming. Below are brief bios of each of our new faculty.

Jim Ippolito joins SENR on July 1 as Professor of Soil Health.  
Dr. Jim Ippolito is a professor of environmental soil health. His 30+ year career has focused on improving environmental soil fertility/chemistry/microbiology/soil health within agricultural, shortgrass steppe, grazed, burned, and metal-contaminated mined-land ecosystems.  His research program connects the intimate linkages between soil macro- and micro-nutrients, trace and heavy metals, microbiological activity, and soil physical attributes, and how these factors combine to influence ecosystem sustainability, resiliency, food, climate and environmental security. 

Natasha Myhal joins SENR on August 15 as Assistant Professor of Indigenous Environmental Studies.  
Boozhoo! I am an environmental social scientist with an emphasis on Native American and Indigenous studies. I am an enrolled citizen of the Sault Ste. Marie Tribe of Chippewa Indians. I was previously at Yale University as the Henry Roe Cloud Dissertation Fellow. I hold a PhD in Critical Ethnic Studies from the University of Colorado Boulder and a MA in Indigenous Studies from the University of Kansas.

I utilize Indigenous research methodologies to conceptualize my research on Odawa-nmé (lake sturgeon) relationships and how Anishinaabe ways of knowing, such as bimaadiziwin (living well), can unify and restore balance to their non-human relatives. My research calls attention to Indigenous restoration programs—in all their complex social, political, and scientific realms—as key sources for formulating responses to climate change.

Mikaela Schmitt-Harsh joins SENR on August 15 as an Assistant Professor in Urban Forestry and Restoration after serving as a tenured faculty member in Interdisciplinary Studies and Biology at James Madison University in Virginia.

Dr. Schmitt-Harsh holds a PhD in Environmental Science and a dual master’s degree in Public Policy and Environmental Science from Indiana University – Bloomington. At JMU, Mikaela taught courses on contemporary environmental science issues, urban ecology, agroecology, and coffeeology (a course borne from her graduate research on coffee agroforestry systems in Central America). Prior to joining the OSU community, she served as the Director and lead designer of the JMU Edible Forest Garden.

Mikaela’s research aims to understand the provision of ecosystem services (the benefits people get from nature) in human-dominated landscapes, with focus given to residential and community forests. Using an inter- and transdisciplinary approach, her research also examines the role of institutions (informal and formal rules and norms) in determining the development and structure of urban greenspaces.

While her work focuses on urban landscapes in the central and eastern United States, she has also completed research in Guatemala and Zambia. Mikaela is an ISA certified arborist and has published her work in a number of scientific journals such as Urban Forestry & Urban Greening, the Journal of Forestry, Ecology & Society, Land Use Policy, and Agroforestry Systems.

Mikaela will hold a joint position with the Landscape Architecture Section of the Knowlton School. She is looking forward to joining the Ohio State community and developing partnerships within and outside the university setting.

Sincerely,

Eric Toman
Professor and Interim Director