Yanoula Athanassakis

Yanoula Athanassakis is a Clinical Associate Professor in the departments of English and Environmental Studies at New York University (NYU), and serves as Associate Vice Provost and Director of NYU’s Environmental Humanities Initiative. She previously held roles as a Lecturer and Director of Academic Planning and Policy at UC Santa Barbara. Her PhD in English (American Literature) with a global studies emphasis from UC Santa Barbara underpins her interdisciplinary work.

• Education: PhD in English (American Literature) with Global Studies Emphasis, UC Santa Barbara
• Courses Taught: Includes Comp. Lit. 800 ("Being Vegan: the Literature of Environmental Justice") and the MA in Animal Studies’ inaugural course (co-taught with Una Chaudhuri).

Her research focuses on environmental justice, animal studies, and transnational narratives. She co-organized panels on topics like food studies and environmental justice, and co-founded NYU’s Environmental Humanities Initiative, hosting events on climate action, species extinction, and vegan living.

Notable publications include Environmental Justice in Contemporary U.S. Narratives (Routledge, 2017), analyzing environmental disruption in literature. Her work bridges ecocriticism, social justice, and transnational American studies.