Emily Brooks received her PhD in Anthropology from the University of California, Irvine in 2017. Dr. Brooks is an envoronmental anthropologist who studies the intersection of environment, science and technology, and governance in the Western United States. Her research explores the cultural politics of environmental problems in the arid Southwest from an ethnographic and historical perspective, with a focus on water scarcity and climate change. Her current book project explores the ecological politics of California water during the 2011-2017 drought, documenting and analyzing how policy makers, scientists, resource managers, and community activists work to understand, protect, and sustain their local groundwater, and with it particular imaginaries of their local way of life.
