The University of Idaho Argonaut

Stephen Mulkey. Courtesy photo.

When Rebecca Cosens, the associate professor at the College of Law, began working as the head of the search committee to find the new director of the Environmental Science Program, she said she was looking for someone who could take the program to the next level.

“In terms of basis things, we were looking for someone who could build the program up and who really understood the importance of interdisciplinary studies,” she said.
After a two year national search, Stephen Mulkey was selected and Cosens said she feels confident about the coming years.

“He has shown that he has the skills necessary,” she said. “Then there’s his energy and enthusiasm. It’s contagious.”
Mulkey said the nature of the University of Idaho’s environmental science program differs from other universities he has belonged to.

“It’s very interconnected here,” he said. “Environmental science is campus wide. It’s woven into so many parts of the campus — technical, societal, legal. It was the reason I was first interested in this program.”

Mulkey’s career shows that he has experience incorporating interdisciplinary studies into the study of environmental science.
While still an assistant professor, Mulkey and colleagues created a graduate program for students from developing counties, which led to the creation of the International Center for Tropical Ecology.

Founded in conjunction with the Missouri Botanical Garden, the center helped fund a doctoral program and attracted some of the best and brightest Latin American students to study ecosystems in the tropics.

After 11 years in St. Louis, Mulkey moved to the University of Florida in Gainesville, where he became faculty in the Botany Department and would later become director of research for the School of Natural Resources and Environment.

“The truth is that I don’t like the heat, I don’t react to it well,” he said. “I know that’s strange considering I’ve studied tropical conditions and lived in so many hot places, but I’m from Oregon and I’m looking forward to some northwest weather.”

While at the University of Florida, Mulkey’s job was to facilitate the development of interdisciplinary research — a role he will fill again at UI’s Environmental Science Program. Although the Gainesville campus boasts more than five times as many students as UI, the enrollment in the UI program is proportionally much higher than in the equivalent program in Florida.

“Most programs of this type, and I mean nationally, struggle to find a place in their university and survive,” Mulkey said. “They usually piggyback onto an existing program. This program has a sense of synthesis that I want to build on.”

As time passes, Mulkey said he wants to train students who can talk science to the scientists and to the legislator at the same time.
Margrit von Braun the associate dean of the college of graduate studies and the supervisor for environmental sciences, said the environmental science program was started in 1993. Since it’s conception, it has served as the guinea pig for the university’s interdisciplinary studies, she said

“Programs evolve, they may start one way, but it’s important that they don’t become stagnant,” von Braun said. “I think what‘s really exciting here is that Stephen will offer a fresh approach and an understanding that environmental science ties into so many factors of living.”