Nancy Tauna of Pennsylvania State University Was Honored by the International Society for Environmental Ethics

Nancy Tuana, DuPont, Class of 1949, Professor of philosophy and women’s, gender, and sexuality studies in the College of the Liberal Arts at Pennsylvania State University, is the winner of the 2022 Victoria Davion Award for Intersectionality in Environmental Ethics from the International Society for Environmental Ethics and the journal Ethics and the Environment.

The Davion Award honors scholars engaged in intersectional work “that describes, considers, or responds to overlapping forms of exclusion, discrimination, or injustice — such as the interplay of race, class, and gender in environmental injustice, or the relationship between colonialism and climate inequities.” It also recognizes research, teaching and service that “extend the scope of environmental ethics to incorporate perspectives and methods that have been historically marginalized or excluded from environmental philosophy as a discipline.”

The award committee stated that Professor Tuana “clearly exemplifies the qualities the Davion award seeks to recognize. She has decades of experience engaging key questions at the intersection of environmental and social justice, collaborating across disciplines, and stretching disciplinary boundaries to include perspectives previously excluded or marginalized.”

A trained “philosopher of science,” Dr. Tuana has focused much of her research on ethical concerns in climate science and climate policy, with a particular emphasis on highlighting critical issues of gender, racial and socio-economic justice. Currently, she’s collaborating with scientists on an NSF project targeting communities in New York, New Jersey, and the Philadelphia area that are adapting to rising sea levels.

Professor Tuana, who holds a Ph.D. from the University of California, has taught at Penn State for 21 years. She is the author of the forthcoming book Racial Climates, Ecological Indifference: An Ecointersectional Approach (Oxford University Press, 2022).