Stephen Zavestoski received his B.A. from the University of
Notre Dame, and his M.A. and Ph.D. from Washington State
University.
He teaches courses in the area of Environmental Sociology. Dr.
Zavestoski's research areas include environmental
sociology, social movements, and sociology of health and illness.
His current research focuses on the strategies that disease
sufferers take to demonstrate that their conditions are caused by
environmental contamination. This work also looks at how citizens
engage in the scientific process and policymaking in order to shape
research and policy agendas. With Phil Brown, Dr. Zavestoski edited
Social Movements in Health, published in 2005 by
Blackwell. With Dr. Brown and the Contested Illness Research Group
at Brown University, Dr. Zavestoski has published numerous articles
and book chapters focusing on environmental health activism in the
U.S. Dr. Zavestoski will build on this work during Spring 2006 when
he will be on leave to study environmental health activism in India
as a Fulbright Scholar. He hopes to understand how the legacy of
Bhopal and the more recent trend of transnational social movement
networks are shaping responses to environmental health threats in
India.
Dr. Zavestoski's other line of research explores the
use of Internet technology as a means of increasing public
participation in environmental decision-making. Environmental
regulatory policy has always been extremely contentious. Dr.
Zavestoski's research investigates whether allowing
citizens to comment on proposed regulations over the Internet
lessens the contentiousness. This work is being carried out under
two separate National Science Foundation grants in collaboration
with political scientists at University of Pittsburgh (Stuart
Shulman) and Northern Arizona University (David Schlosberg), and
computer scientists at Carnegie Mellon (Jamie Callan) and USC
(Eduard Hovy), as part of the eRulemaking Research Group.
In a related project, funded by USF's McCarthy Center
for Public Service and the Common Good, Dr. Zavestoski and five USF
undergraduates are examining the way the Internet changes the
nature of the public discourse during public comment processes for
forest management policies. Focused on the Sierra Nevada Framework
Plan Amendment, the research compares the comments of residents of
rural Sierra Nevada forest communities to those of urban-dwelling
Californians and out-of-state residents. When completed, the
research will also include a telephone survey of citizens who
submitted comments to the U.S. Forest Service during the rulemaking
process. Dr. Zavestoski and his research assistants intend for the
project, which is titled "Environmental Policymaking in the
Internet Era: Enhancing Public Involvement in Natural
Resource-Dependent Communities of the Sierra Nevada," to have
useful outcomes for community organizers in rural communities and
for government agencies who solicit public involvement.
