Faculty Profile
Heather Bedi
(she/her/hers)Associate Professor of Environmental Studies (2014)
Contact Information
on sabbatical 2024-25
Kaufman Hall Room 110
717-254-8168
Bio
Dr. Heather Plumridge Bedi's interdisciplinary research examines human-environmental injustices associated with climate change, food access, and energy systems. Her research has been funded by the Fulbright Program, the Cambridge Political Economy Society Trust, the UK-India Education Research Initiative, the Foundation for Pennsylvania Watersheds, and a Mellon Foundation grant at Dickinson College. Her research and teaching interests include environmental and social justice, political ecology, development, planning, and just energy transitions. Her current work examines the everyday of energy poverty, solar energy access, and climate change vulnerabilities in South Asia. Dr. Bedi also examines energy injustice through the lens of shale gas extraction (fracking) in the United States. Dr. Bedi’s published work appears in Contemporary South Asia; Development and Change; Economic and Political Weekly; Energy Research and Social Science; Environment and Planning, A; Geoforum; Journal of Contemporary Asia; and Oxford Development Studies. She serves on the Pennsylvania Department of Environmental Protection's Environmental Justice Advisory Board and the Cumberland County Food Systems Alliance's board. Dr. Bedi received the American Association of Geographer's Harm de Blij Award for Excellence in Undergraduate Teaching.
Education
- B.A., Occidental College, 2000
- M.S., University of Michigan, 2002
- Ph.D., University of Cambridge, 2012
2024-2025 Academic Year
Fall 2024
ARCH 218 Geographic Information Systems
Geographic Information Systems (GIS) is a powerful technology for managing, analyzing, and visualizing spatial data and geographically-referenced information. It is used in a wide variety of fields including archaeology, agriculture, business, defense and intelligence, education, government, health care, natural resource management, public safety, transportation, and utility management. This course provides a fundamental foundation of theoretical and applied skills in GIS technology that will enable students to investigate and make reasoned decisions regarding spatial issues. Utilizing GIS software applications from Environmental Systems Research Institute (ESRI), students work on a progression of tasks and assignments focused on GIS data collection, manipulation, analysis, output, and presentation. The course will culminate in a final, independent project in which the students design and prepare a GIS analysis application of their own choosing. Three hours per week. This course is cross-listed as ENST 218 , GEOS 218 and GISP 218.
ENST 218 Geographic Information Systems
Geographic Information Systems (GIS) is a powerful technology for managing, analyzing, and visualizing spatial data and geographically-referenced information. It is used in a wide variety of fields including archaeology, agriculture, business, defense and intelligence, education, government, health care, natural resource management, public safety, transportation, and utility management. This course provides a fundamental foundation of theoretical and applied skills in GIS technology that will enable students to investigate and make reasoned decisions regarding spatial issues. Utilizing GIS software applications from Environmental Systems Research Institute (ESRI), students work on a progression of tasks and assignments focused on GIS data collection, manipulation, analysis, output, and presentation. The course will culminate in a final, independent project in which the students design and prepare a GIS analysis application of their own choosing. Three hours per week. This course is cross-listed as ARCH 218, GEOS 218 and GISP 218.
GEOS 218 Geographic Information Systems
Geographic Information Systems (GIS) is a powerful technology for managing, analyzing, and visualizing spatial data and geographically-referenced information. It is used in a wide variety of fields including archaeology, agriculture, business, defense and intelligence, education, government, health care, natural resource management, public safety, transportation, and utility management. This course provides a fundamental foundation of theoretical and applied skills in GIS technology that will enable students to investigate and make reasoned decisions regarding spatial issues. Utilizing GIS software applications from Environmental Systems Research Institute (ESRI), students work on a progression of tasks and assignments focused on GIS data collection, manipulation, analysis, output, and presentation. The course will culminate in a final, independent project in which the students design and prepare a GIS analysis application of their own choosing. Three hours per week. This course is cross-listed as ARCH 218, ENST 218 and GISP 218.
GISP 218 Geographic Information Systems
Geographic Information Systems (GIS) is a powerful technology for managing, analyzing, and visualizing spatial data and geographically-referenced information. It is used in a wide variety of fields including archaeology, agriculture, business, defense and intelligence, education, government, health care, natural resource management, public safety, transportation, and utility management. This course provides a fundamental foundation of theoretical and applied skills in GIS technology that will enable students to investigate and make reasoned decisions regarding spatial issues. Utilizing GIS software applications from Environmental Systems Research Institute (ESRI), students work on a progression of tasks and assignments focused on GIS data collection, manipulation, analysis, output, and presentation. The course will culminate in a final, independent project in which the students design and prepare a GIS analysis application of their own choosing. Three hours per week. This course is cross-listed as ARCH 218, ENST 218 and GEOS 218.
ENST 303 America’s Global Footprint
The U.S. makes up only a small part of the world’s population but uses a vast amount of its resources and produces a disproportionate amount of waste. The US has also shaped foreign landscapes through warfare in places like Germany, Japan, Korea, Vietnam, and Afghanistan. At the same time, the US military and defense industry have radically transformed American landscapes, leaving behind an archipelago of toxic “superfund” sites around the country. This course looks at the impact of the US on global environments and the impact of US cold war policies on American landscapes. The focus will be on connections between the domestic and the international. No international relations background will be necessary, just an interest in examining America’s environmental footprint in full global context.
ENST 303 Dev & Env in the Global South
For much of the 20th century and well into the 21st, international development programs have attempted to reshape environments around the Global South. In this course, we will examine the intentions and consequences of such programs, focusing on the ways in which nature shaped development programs and development programs shaped nature. We will start in the colonial period, pay particular attention to the mix of politics and development during the early years of the Cold War, and bring the course up to the present, with a focus on climate change programs. Along the way we will examine topics such as disease, population growth, dams, land reform, hybrid seeds, and genetically modified organisms, with particular attention to how environmental changes affected local communities. In addition to examining the environmental dimensions of projects, we will examine the ideas of science and technology embedded within projects.