David A. Sonnenfeld

Who is David A. Sonnenfeld?

David Allan Sonnenfeld is professor of sociology and environmental policy at the State University of New York College of Environmental Science and Forestry, which he joined in September 2007. He is co-editor of Ecological Modernisation Around the World: Perspectives and Critical Debates. In 2006, he co-edited the book Challenging the Chip. Previously, he was associate professor of community and environmental studies at Washington State University. He is also a research associate and periodic guest professor with the Environmental Policy Group at Wageningen University and Research Centre.

Sonnenfeld obtained his Ph.D. in sociology in 1996 from the University of California, Santa Cruz, where his graduate studies focused on environmental social science, the sociology of development, and historical and field research methods. Forest policy issues led to pursuits in the late 1980s, providing further impetus for forest-industry related research. As an Intercampus Exchange Student at the University of California, Berkeley in 1991, Sonnenfeld joined a network of scholars studying Indonesian forestry issues, beginning his foray into the study of social and environmental transformation in Southeast Asia and elsewhere. Support for his dissertation research was received from the Fulbright Program, the UC Institute on Global Conflict and Cooperation, and the Switzer Foundation Environmental Program. In 1993-94, he was a Visiting Research Fellow at the Centre for Resource and Environmental Studies at the Australian National University, from where he based his field research on the adoption of environmental technologies in the pulp and paper industries of Australia, Indonesia, Malaysia, and Thailand.