Valerie Esposito

Professor Valerie Esposito has been at Champlain since July 2010 and is the Director for the Environmental Policy program. She teaches courses on Environmental Issues, Sustainability and Environmental Policy, Policy and Globalization, Ecological Economics, and Environmental Policy Assessment and Development.

Valerie attended American University, where she earned a B.A. in Justice. She received an M.A. from Brown University in Environmental Studies. She obtained her Ph.D. in Natural Resources and Ecological Economics from the Gund Institute for Ecological Economics and the Rubenstein School of Environment and Natural Resources at the University of Vermont. Prior to joining Champlain, she was the Executive Director of the Vermont Earth Institute and taught at UVM.

After college Valerie spent two years living abroad in Costa Rica and Chile, where she participated in environmental volunteer work and taught English. She pursued her international interests in her doctoral work, conducting research and working with local non-profit and non-governmental organizations in Costa Rica, Peru and the Dominican Republic. She is very interested in bringing this experience to the classroom, to ensure relevant local, national and global issues are addressed and connected to course content.

Her research interests include ecological literacy and education for sustainability, service learning and ecological economic policy implementation.

She is also active in Vermont's Localvore food movement and is on the Advisory Board of Vermonters for Sustainable Population. In her spare time, Valerie enjoys taking advantage of Vermont's playground, through skiing, hiking, biking, canoeing, camping, theater visits, ultimate frisbee and seeing live music. Reading, photography, cultivating her inner yogini, movies and spending time with and friends and family also keep her busy.

TAGS: None