Savoy, Lauret E.

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Savoy, Lauret E.

PERSONAL: Born in Berkeley, CA; daughter of Willard W. (a writer) and Vivian (a nurse; maiden name, Reeves) Savoy. Education: Princeton University, A.B. (cum laude), 1981; University of California, Santa Cruz, M.S., 1983; Syracuse University, Ph.D., 1990.

ADDRESSES: Office—Department of Earth and Environment, Mount Holyoke College, Clapp 320, 50 College St., South Hadley, MA 01075-6419. E-mail—[email protected].

CAREER: Educator, writer, and editor. Mount Holyoke College, South Hadley, MA, began as Luce Assistant Professor of Geology, became professor of geology and environmental studies and director of MHC Center for the Environment, 1990–. Smith College, Mendenhall Doctoral Fellow, 1989–90; Featured on the CD-Rom Telling Our Stories: Women in Science, National Science Foundation.

Exhibitions: Photographer, with work exhibited at Colorfax Galleries, Washington, DC, 1983, and Augusta Savage Gallery, University of Massachusetts at Amherst, 1988.

MEMBER: Geological Society of America, American Studies Association, Association for the Study of Literature and the Environment, American Society for Environmental History.

AWARDS, HONORS: Grants from National Science Foundation, 1992–94, David and Lucille Packard Foundation, 2000–04; fellowships from the Smithsonian Institution and Yale University, 1994–95; Distinguished Teaching award, Mount Holyoke College, 2003.

WRITINGS:

(Editor with Gary B. Griggs) Living with the California Coast, Duke University Press (Durham, NC), 1985.

(Coeditor) A Sedimentary Geologist's Guide to Helping K-12 Earth Science Teachers: Hints, Ideas, Activities, and Resources, Society for Sedimentary Geology (Tulsa, OK), 1990.

(Editor with Alison H. Deming) The Colors of Nature: Culture, Identity, and the Natural World, Milkweed Editions (Minneapolis, MN), 2002.

(Editor with Griggs and Kiki Patsch) Living with the Changing California Coast, University of California Press (Berkeley, CA), 2005.

(Editor with Eldridge M. Moores and Judith E. Moores) Bedrock: Writers on the Wonders of Geology, Trinity University Press (San Antonio, TX), 2006.

Work represented in anthologies, including Hands-On Geology: K-12 Activities and Resources, edited by R.H. Macdonald and S.G. Stover, Society for Sedimentary Geology, 1991. Contributor to books, including Stories of Land, Stories from Land, J. Schneiderman, editor, W.H. Freeman (New York, NY), 1999. Contributor to periodicals, including Geotimes, Canadian Journal of Earth Sciences, Earth Sciences History, Journal of Geoscience Education, and Journal of Sedimentary Research.

SIDELIGHTS: Lauret E. Savoy is an academic who primarily focuses on the intersection of natural and cultural history and has edited several books focusing on these topics. For example, in The Colors of Nature: Culture, Identity, and the Natural World, Savoy and coeditor Alison H. Deming present writers from many different cultures and various disciplines expounding on nature. In the assortment of essays, the authors touch upon a variety of topics from colonization of the New World to environmental racism. Donna Seaman, writing in Booklist, called the book "a salient contribution to the increasingly important nature-writing canon." Audubon contributor Alyssa Worsham wrote that the collection is "important." In a review in OnEarth, Jill Davis commented: "The book is a deliberate effort on the part of the editors to add diversity to the 'overwhelmingly white' world of nature writing." Helen Zia, writing in the Women's Review of Books, noted: "The rich variety in this collection defies thematic categories."