Dorceta E. Taylor

Dr. Dorceta Taylor, the Wangari Mathaai Professor of Environmental Sociology at the Yale School of the Environment (YSE), is the Founder and Director of the Justice, Equity, Diversity, and Sustainability Initiative (JEDSI) at the Yale Schoo of the Environment. She was the Senior Associate Dean of Diversity, Equity, and Inclusion from 2021 to 2023. She is also an affiliated faculty member in the Department of Sociology, the Yale Institute for Biospheric Studies, and a Fellow of Grace Hopper College at Yale.

Before that, she was a professor of environmental sociology at the University of< Michigan’s School for Environment and Sustainability (SEAS) for 27 years. She was the James E. Crowfoot Collegiate Chair and the Diversity, Equity, and Inclusion Director at SEAS. She also held joint appointments in the Program in the Environment as well as the Department of Afroamerican and African Studies. Dr. Taylor is the former Field of Studies Coordinator for SEAS’ Environmental Justice Program and a past Chair of the American Sociological Association’s Environment and Technology< Section. Dr. Taylor received her Ph.D. and master’s degrees from the School of Forestry & Environmental Studies and the Department of Sociology at Yale University< in 1991, 1988, and 1985. 

Dr. Taylor has also published influential books. The Rise of the American Conservation Movement: Power, Privilege, and Environmental Protection was published in 2016 during the 100th anniversary of the founding of the National Park Service. The book explores the connections between conservation ideas and politics and social dynamics, including racism, classism, and gender discrimination. Revelations made in the book about the ideologies of John Muir, the slave-owning past of John James Audubon, and the eugenicist history of leading environmental organizations and agencies have led institutions such as the Sierra Club, the National Audubon Society, the Save the Redwoods League, the National Park Service, and the Bronx Zoo to acknowledge the problematic discourses and actions of their founders and early directors. Congressional hearings on the lack of diversity in the Department of the Interior have also recognized the significance of this work and other institutional diversity research.

Taylor’s 2014 book, Toxic Communities: Environmental Racism, Industrial Pollution, and Residential Mobility, examines the racial and socio-economic dimensions of exposure to environmental hazards in the United States. It provides critical theoretical lenses through which to examine environmental justice issues. She is also the author of The Environment and the People in American Cities: 1600s–1900s. Disorder, Inequality, and Social Change. The book examines the history< of environmental inequality and urban environmental activism. It received the Allan Schnaiberg Outstanding Publication Award from< the Environment and Technology Section of the American Sociological Association in 2010.

In 2014, Dr. Taylor authored a landmark national report, “The State of Diversity in Environmental Institutions: Mainstream NGOs, Foundations, and Government Agencies.” She also wrote a second diversity report in 2014, “Environmental Organizations in the Great Lakes Region: An Assessment of Institutional Diversity.”  In 2023, Taylor co-authored another significant report on environmental philanthropy titled “Examining Disparities in Environmental Grantmaking: Where the Money Goes.” Her research interests include environmental history, environmental justice, food insecurity, institutional diversity, environmental policy, sustainability, and environmental philanthropy. She has published numerous articles on these topics.

Dr. Taylor has served on several boards and national committees, including multiple committees of the National Academies of Sciences, the Conservation Fund’s National Advisory Council, the Global Council for Science and the Environment, the Earth Day Network’s board, the Woodrow Wilson Foundation, and the board of the Jessie Smith Noyes Foundation. She has also served on the editorial boards of journals such as Nature – Science Reports, American Behavioral Scientist, Environmental Practice, Journal of Leisure Research, and Organization and Environment.

Dr. Taylor′s contributions have been widely recognized. She is the recipient of the 2024 Edward Bouchet Leadership Award Medal. In 2023, she was included in the Smithsonian’s National Portrait Gallery exhibit, Forces of Nature: Voices that Shaped Environmentalism, which featured leaders of the conservation movement. In 2021, she was inducted as an Honorary Fellow in the American College of Environmental Lawyers, a testament to her impact in the field. A year earlier, she was one of four Yale alumni to receive the Wilbur Lucious Cross Medal for outstanding achievements. In 2019, she was also featured in the Smithsonian Institution – Anacostia Branch, Women in Leadership exhibit.  Dr. Taylor is the recipient of several other prestigious awards, including the National Audubon Society Women in Conservation Award, the Women in Sustainability Award, the National Science Foundation Presidential Award for Excellence in Science, Mathematics, and Engineering Mentoring, EcoWorks Sustainable Communities Champion Award, the Burton V. Barnes Award for Academic Excellence from the Michigan Chapter of the Sierra Club, the President’s Award from the Detroit Audubon Society, the Charles Horton Cooley Award for Distinguished Scholarship from the Michigan Sociological Association, and the Frederick B. Buttel Distinguished Contribution Award from the Environment and Technology Section of the American Sociological Association.