Home > Academics > Faculty Directory > Faculty Detail
SIPA Faculty
Sara Tjossem
International Affairs Building, Room 1316
Senior Lecturer in Discipline of International and Public Affairs
Phone: 212-854-0424
sara.tjossem@sipa.columbia.edu
sft2101@columbia.edu
Biography:
Sara Tjossem is a Senior Lecturer in SIPA’s Master of Public Administration program in Environmental Science and Policy, and the program’s Associate Director of Curriculum. Her teaching and research interests are on the intersection of science and society, the history of science (particularly biology and ecology in the 20th century), the development of environmental movements and policy, agriculture, and marine science.
Tjossem’s book, The Journey to PICES: Scientific Cooperation in the North Pacific (Alaska Sea Grant Press, 2005) traces the events and explores the impediments to the eventual formation of the North Pacific Marine Science Organization in 1992. PICES is now the premier intergovernmental marine organization for the Pacific Ocean, promoting and coordinating advances in marine science.
Other publications include “ State of the Oceans: Waves of Change” in Great Decisions 2012, "Scientific Cooperation in the North Pacific: The PICES Project," with Warren S. Wooster in Multilateralism and International Ocean-Resources Law, and reviews of history of science books and articles.
Tjossem taught history of science at the University of Minnesota from 1995 to1998 and was assistant director of the Institute of Social, Economic and Ecological Sustainability (ISEES) from 1996 to1998. From 1998 to 2003 she served as lecturer and capstone instructor in history and in the Program on the Environment at the University of Washington, Seattle.
Tjossem holds a BA from Swarthmore College (1983), and an MS in ecology and evolutionary biology (1990) and a PhD in history of science (1994 EEB) from Cornell University.
Search Categories: environment, environmental policy, history of science, history, ecology, ESP