Shelly Grabe Appointed Provost of Rachel Carson College at University of California Santa Cruz

The University of California Santa Cruz has named Shelly Grabe the next provost of Rachel Carson College. The college serves as a center of expertise at the university for environmental, ecological, and sustainability programs.

Dr. Grabe currently serves as a professor of social psychology at the University of California Santa Cruz, where she has taught for 16 years. In addition to her study of social psychology, Dr. Grabe has affiliations with the university’s feminist studies department and Latin American and Latinx studies department. Her tenure at the University of California Santa Cruz includes a year and a half stint as interim and associate provost of Cowell College.

As a scholar, Dr. Grabe’s research on structural inequities led her to partner with grassroots women’s activism organizations in Nicaragua, Peru, and Tanzania. Her professional accomplishments won her the Denmark-Reuder Award for Outstanding International Contributions to Psychology in 2015. She is the author of Narrating the Psychology of Resistance: Voices of the Compañeras in Nicaragua.

“My past research is in social movements, and I am particularly interested in the potential to grow an aspect of environmental justice at Rachel Carson,” said Grabe. “I hope to incorporate programming that recognizes the experience of marginalization and how turning to marginalized sources of knowledge may actually help our efforts towards sustainability.”

Dr. Grabe holds a bachelor’s degree in psychology from Michigan State University. She received her master’s degree and Ph.D. in psychology from the University of Missouri.