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Elizabeth Lowham
Public Policy, Methodology, Environmental Policy, Leadership and Collaboration Studies
Interim MPP Director

Contact Information
Office: Building 47, Room 11M
Phone: 805-756-2919
E-mail: elowham@calpoly.edu

I joined the Cal Poly political science faculty in August 2007. I spent my formative years in Casper, WY. I then attended Carleton College in Northfield, MN, where I majored in Geology and concentrated in Environmental and Technological Studies. During my time at Carleton, I studied off-campus for two trimesters. I did the fieldwork for my Geology major in Coldigioco, Italy. During my senior year, I was lucky enough to spend a trimester studying politics and policy hands-on in Washington, D.C. While studying, I worked for the Senate Energy and Natural Resources Committee. I think it was during this time when I realized that I was in a unique position to utilize the skills and knowledge I had learned as a scientist and in politics.

Upon graduation, I entered the University of Colorado at Boulder to study public policy, with a focus on environmental policy. During three of the years I was in school at Boulder, I worked as a fellow on the Carbon, Climate and Society Initiative. This grant, sponsored by the NSF IGERT program, brought together groups of graduate students to learn not only about climate change, but also about how to do successful interdisciplinary work at the graduate level. These years sparked my interest in collaboration and leadership.

At Cal Poly, most of my current teaching is through the Master's of Public Policy program. My classes right now are focused on research design and methodology. I am also scheduled to teach an Environmental Politics and Policy course during Spring quarter. I am also developing a course on politics in popular culture which investigates the relationships between politics and pop culture.

My research currently focuses largely on issues of leadership and collaboration. In particular, I'm interested in how people share leadership in situations where collaboration, not command, appears to the mode of action.

Curriculum Vitae