Aritree SAMANTA

Bio :

Aritree Samanta is an Associate Professor of Environmental Studies at San Francisco State University and the Co-Director of SFSU Climate HQ. Prior to joining San Francisco State, she was a Postdoctoral Research Associate at the Department of Forestry and Natural Resources at Purdue University, Indiana. She holds a Ph.D. in Urban and Public Affairs from Cleveland State University and earned her Masters and Bachelors degrees in Social Work and Economics, respectively, from University of Delhi, India. 

She studies participation and representation in environmental decision-making specifically through a racial and gender justice lens, and the implications of such representation (or lack thereof) on policy and program outcomes. Her other areas of research include participatory water governance, collaborative governance, and social dimensions of watershed management focusing on the intersections between climate change, water quality, and land use management. Her interdisciplinary work draws from a variety of conceptual and theoretical approaches, including, but not limited to, interpretive policy analysis, participatory governance, social equity and justice, representative bureaucracy, theories of learning in organizational development and adaptation, social-ecological resilience, phenomenology, and feminist theories. Her research has appeared in various environmental, public administration, and public policy journals including Journal of Environmental Planning and Management, Journal of Environmental Studies and Sciences, Society and Natural Resources, Public Policy and Administration, and Administrative Theory and Praxis.

Her professional work in India included projects on urban sustainability and climate change adaptation in underserved communities. In the United States, she has held fellowship and research positions with the Alliance for the Great Lakes in Chicago, where she researched landowner perceptions of agricultural conservation practices and conservation behavior adoption, and the Northeast Midwest Institute in Washington D.C., where she worked on research and advocacy with the Northeast-Midwest Congressional and Senate Coalitions for the US federal government on clean and alternative energy technologies.