Welcome to Gigi Berardi's home page!

Gigi Berardi received her BA in biology from John Muir College, University of California San Diego and her MS and PhD in Resources, Policy, and Planning from Cornell University. She holds a MA in dance from UCLA. She taught at The Evergreen State College, Olympia, Washington, from 1994-1995, and is now professor and institute director at Huxley College, Western Washington University, where she focuses on community vulnerabilities and cultural ecology. Her research and writing includes study and review of Food and Farm Systems, Dance and Performing Arts, and Native American Studies and Tribal Education.

Since coming to Western, she has continued her research and writing in both environmental studies and the arts but also has extended her career-long interests to increasingly blend the two fields.  In her research into historical consolidation of communities that exist beyond economic or environmental carrying capacities in remote sub-arctic areas, she integrates natural resources and cultural geography with traditional music and dance.  In addition to having served as a core faculty member in the Tribal Environmental and Natural Resources Management (TENRM) program, she completed work on a special issue on Alaska natural resources and Native land claims for Journal of Land, Resources, & Environmental Law. Her work on Native dance and arts as subsistence resources has appeared in publications such as Dance Magazine (where she serves as a contributing editor and writer) and The Anchorage Daily News.

Her current research interests include: community food assessment and valuing local, short chain/channel supply networks, measuring "well-being" and considering "genuine process indicators," and characterizing farm systems resilient to disasters and extreme events. Her awards, fellowships, and grants include a first-place Award for Excellence in Journalism, Health and Science reporting, Public Radio, from the Society of Professional Journalists; a Fulbright-Hays Award for Advanced Research in Geography and Environmental Science (Italy); and several Outstanding Teaching Awards at Cornell University as well as a nomination for Outstanding Teacher of the Year and a university-wide Diversity Achievement Award from Western Washington University in 2004.