Prof. Vivian E. Thomson is Assistant Professor in the Departments of Environmental Sciences and Politics at the University of Virginia. Professionally, she is concerned with environmental politics, both in thought and practice, locally and globally. This is true of her work as a scholar, educator and in her daily practices.
In 2001, she was appointed to the Virginia Air Pollution Control Board, the five-member body that makes air pollution policy for the Commonwealth of Virginia. And she has recently participated in meetings in Germany and Italy on the subjects of trash management and greenhouse gas emissions trading, respectively. Prof. Thomson helped to create and now co-directions the Environmental Thought and Practice B. A. program at UVA, which is one of the University's newest interdisciplinary undergraduate degree programs.
In 2001-2, Prof. Thomson was a Fulbright Professor of American Studies at the University of Southern Denmark, Odense, where she taught American politics and environmental policy. While there and upon her return, she has made it her daily practice of using a bicycle for commuting and errands, a habit that was acquired in Denmark where cycling is a main form of transportation.
Prior to returning to academic life Professor Thomson was a senior policy analyst with the United States Environmental Protection Agency in San Francisco, California and in Washington, D. C. Through this work she learned first-hand about environmental policymaking in a wide variety of issue areas.
In Fall 2005, Professor Thomson will be a Guest Scholar at the Pew Center on Global Climate Change. She will study the European Union's ongoing implementation of the Kyoto Protocol to assess the lessons to be learned for climate change policymaking in the United States.
Vivian Thomson's Home Page
Environmental Thought and Practice Program
"Thomson Studies the Politics of Science", Arts & Sciences Magazine, July 2003
