Peter Alagona

Professor Alagona Receives National Science Foundation CAREER Award! 
Read more about it here!

Hello and welcome! You have reached the Web page for Peter Alagona, Assistant Professor of history and environmental studies at the the University of California, Santa Barbara. I am an environmental historian and historian of science with additional interests and training in ecology, geography, and science and technology studies.

Website: History Department Profile

Research Interests:

My research focuses on the histories of land use, natural resource management, environmental politics, and ecological science in the North American West and beyond. I have a particular interest in endangered species and biological diversity. My current major project is a book manuscript--under advance contract with the University of California Press--entitled After the Grizzly: A Century of Endangered Species in California and Beyond. I am also developing a collaborative, interdisciplinary, intercampus project that will use the UC Natural Reserve System as a site for research and teaching in environmental history and the history of science.

Beginning in the winter of 2010, I will be teaching undergraduate courses cross-listed in history and environmental studies, as well as graduate seminars in history.

Current Projects:

Endangered Species:  My current major project is a book manuscript, under advance contract with the University of California Press, entitled After the Grizzly: Endangered Species, Critical Habitat, and the Politics of Place in California.

Biological Field Stations:  
I am developing a collaborative, interdisciplinary project that will use the UC Natural Reserve System as a case study to explore the role of biological field stations in American environmental history, from 1950 to 2010.

Steelhead:  I am working with Scott Cooper, from the Department of Ecology, Evolution, and Marine Biology, on a study to determine the historical distribution and abundance of steelhead, a federally listed endangered species, in the Santa Ynez River watershed.

Federalism:  
I am currently working on a project to explore the changing relationships between the state and federal governments in American environmental history--and how previous historians have understood, or sometimes misunderstood, those relationships.

The Mojave Desert:  Over the past two centuries, the Mojave Desert has experienced tremendous environmental change. This transformation has accelerated in recent years with construction, conservation, and energy development. What do we want from the great American desert?