Kirsten (PhD, UC Santa Cruz) focuses on water policy and management, sense of place with respect to resource management practices, and the role of affect and emotion in environmental politics. Her doctoral research was an investigation of the dynamics of contested land and water use practices within the Deschutes Basin of Central Oregon. Prior to her doctoral research, she spent two years co-directing the University of Oregon's Environmental Leadership Program. She has over ten years of experience teaching environmental field courses for undergraduate college students in the western United States and is strongly motivated by her commitment to inclusive interdisciplinary environmental education.

As a SSHRC Post-Doctoral Fellow (2021-2023), Kirsten will join the SEE Lab via Royal Roads University. Her research will examine institutionalized “feeling rules” (Hochschild 1979) around water scarcity and climate change discussions in water learning environments. Because professors establish the culture for generations of water activists and policy-makers, Kirsten will interview and observe faculty members at University of Victoria and University of Waterloo to determine the role of emotion in water decision making and pedagogy, and to explore the reproduction of feeling rules in the culture of the discipline. This research contributes to Wolfe’s Partnership Development Grant (2021-2023).