Cleo Woelfle-Erskine

Cleo Woelfle-Erskine is assistant professor at the School of Marine & Environmental Affairs, where he focuses on the ecological and social dimensions of human relations to rivers and their multi-species inhabitants. Trained in ecology, hydrology, geomorphology, critical social science, and feminist science and technology studies, he facilitates collaborative research in partnership with tribes, agencies, citizen scientists, and local community members. He is developing research projects on hydro-ecological and social effects of beaver relocation in eastern Washington, and environmental justice dimensions of fishing and shellfishing in urban Puget Sound.

As a UC President’s Postdoctoral Fellow in Feminist Studies at UC Santa Cruz, he explored queer, transgender, and decolonial possibilities for ecological science. His manuscript in progress, Underflow: Transfiguring riverine relations, imagining queer-trans ecologies considers the lingering ecological, socio-scientific, and psychological effects of Manifest Destiny and the ways that this injurious “destiny” can be transfigured and overturned to renew human-water-fish relations.