Stephen Gasteyer

Biography

Dr. Stephen P. Gasteyer is an Assistant Professor of Sociology at Michigan State University. Dr. Gasteyer’s research focuses on the nexus between water, land, community development. Specifically, his research currently addresses: 1) community capacity development and civic engagement through leadership training; 2) the political and social processes that enable or hinder community access to water and land resources, specifically (but not exclusively) in rural communities; 3) the class and race effects of access to basic services (water, sanitation, food, health care); 4) community capacity, community resilience and water systems management; 5) the impacts of greening in economically depressed small cities; 6) the community aspects of bioenergy development; 7) international social movements and community rights to basic services; and 8) facilitating cross-sectoral and interdisciplinary partnerships to address water and land resources management. Before coming to Michigan State University, Dr. Gasteyer was on faculty in the Department of Human and Community Development at the University of Illinois. Prior to that, he was Research and Policy Director at the Rural Community Assistance Partnership in Washington, DC and a research consultant on issues of global water governance. Dr. Gasteyer was a Peace Corps Volunteer in Mali from 1987 through 1990, and worked with environmental non-governmental organizations from 1993 through 1998 in the Palestinian territories. He received a BA from Earlham College in 1987, and a Ph.D. in Sociology from Iowa State University in 2001.