Melissa Checker

Academic

Dr. Melissa Checker (PhD NYU, 2002) researches environmental racism,  environmental justice activism, the politics of urban sustainability, and contemporary environmental movements. Checker is the Acting Chair and Hagedorn Professor of Urban Studies. She also serves on the faculties of the PhD programs in Anthropology and Earth and Environmental Sciences at the CUNY Graduate Center. Her book,  The Myth of Sustainability: Environmental Gentrification and the Politics of Justice (NYU Press, 2020) won the 2020-21 Delmos Jones and Jagna Sharff Memorial Book Prize from the Society of the Anthropology of North America. She is also the author of Polluted Promises: Environmental Racism and the Search for Justice in a Southern Town (NYU Press, 2005) which won the 2007 Association for Humanistic Sociology Book Award and was a finalist for the Julian Steward Award. She co-edited two volumes: Sustainability in the Global City: Myth and Practice (with Cynthia Isenhour and Gary McDonogh, Cambridge 2015) and Local Actions: Cultural Activism, Power and Public Life (with Maggie Fishman) Columbia U Press, 2004), In addition, she has authored a number of academic articles and book chapters, as well as articles for popular magazines and newspapers.  Office: Powdermaker Rm. 250I Telephone: (718) 997 5148 Email: mchecker@qc.cuny.edu