Joni Adamson

Joni Adamson is a President’s Professor of Environmental Humanities in the Department of English at Arizona State University (ASU) and a Distinguished Global Futures Scholar at the Julie Ann Wrigley Global Futures Laboratory (GFL). She leads the Environmental Humanities Initiative and directs the UNESCO BRIDGES Sustainability Science Coalition, the first humanities-led global science platform. Her research focuses on environmental justice, climate fiction/film, Indigenous literatures, and food justice.

Adamson holds leadership roles as Co-Director of the Humanities for the Environment Global Network (HfE) and Director of its North American Observatory. Her work bridges academia and public engagement, emphasizing interdisciplinary collaboration across sustainability science and humanities.

Her expertise includes environmental literature, climate change, and desert studies. Notable publications include American Indian Literature, Environmental Justice, and Ecocriticism (2001) and contributions to The Environmental Justice Reader (2022). She has been recognized with the Benjamin N. Duke Fellowship (2019) and has advised global initiatives like Planet Texas 2050.

Adamson’s projects, such as the Dinner 2040 food sustainability initiative, reflect her commitment to actionable environmental humanities. She advocates for systemic change addressing intersecting crises of climate, equity, and health.