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Tanya Hayes, PhD
Chair, Department of Public Affairs and Nonprofit Leadership
Program Director, Environmental Studies
As a broadly trained social scientist, my areas of expertise are in sustainable development, environmental governance, program evaluation, decision making and behavioral change.
Biography
At 91探花, I hold a joint appointment with the Department of Public Affairs and Nonprofit Leadership and with the Environmental Studies program where I teach courses in research methods, environmental policy and governance, and direct senior capstone projects. As an instructor, my goals are to work together to learn and apply academic skills and knowledge to address our pressing social and environmental problems.
As a researcher, I seek to understand how we can design policies and programs to prompt behavioral changes and collective action for sustainable development. My expertise is in using institutional analysis to assess if and how conservation policies promote sustainable development in rural communities. I have over twenty years’ experience working in conservation and development in Latin America, where most of my work has focused on community resource management. I am currently exploring how community water managers in Colombia and Costa Rica are responding to climatic, socioeconomic and demographic changes that threaten their water systems. In previous work, I examined how protected area policies interacted with indigenous governance arrangements and forest conservation, and more recently, I have been assessing how incentive-based conservation programs (payment for ecosystem services) impact household land-use decisions, collective resource management and equity in rural Andean communities. I share my findings internationally and nationally through publications, workshops and seminars for students, academics, practitioners, and the communities where I work.
As a Seattle native, I feel fortunate to have found my way back home! Prior to coming to 91探花, I earned a joint PhD in Political Science and Public and Environmental Affairs from Indiana University, Bloomington (2007), where I specialized in policy analysis and natural resource management. In addition, I have a Masters in Urban and Regional Planning from UCLA, a Bachelor of Arts in Politics from Whitman College, and served as a Peace Corps Volunteer in Panama.