Jeff Lockwood

Professor, Natural Sciences & Humanities

B.S., New Mexico Tech

PhD, Louisiana State University

lockwood@uwyo.edu

(307) 766-4260

Ross Hall 129

Best Mode of Communication: E-mail

 

Publications

Nature-based essays published in journals and magazines such as Orion, Ecotone, Wild Earth, High Country News, Conservation Magazine, Concho River Review, Smoky Blue Literary and Arts Magazine, and Quest. Author of three books of nature/spiritual essays through Skinner House and four popular science/history books: Locust: The devastating rise and mysterious disappearance of the insect that shaped the American frontier (Basic), Six-Legged Soldiers: A history of insects as weapons of war and terror (Oxford University Press), and The Infested Mind: From Entomophobia to Biophilia (Oxford), and Behind the Carbon Curtain: The Energy Industry, Political Censorship and Free Speech (University of New Mexico Press).  Columnist for UU World Magazine and blogger for Psychology Today.  Fiction works include a three-book series of noir mysteries Poisoned Justice, Murder of the Fly, and Lethal Fetish (Pen-L Publishing), and short stories in The Strand Magazine, American Entomologist, Sherlock Holmes Mystery Magazine, Sherlock Holmes Journal, and Suspense Magazine. Librettist of the critically acclaimed Locust: The Opera, and working on a set of short, environmental operas.  Currently developing a series of children’s stories set to music and regarding social/environmental justice, as well as a co-authored textbook on the philosophy of science.

 

Teaching
Nonfiction workshops in nature writing, religious/spiritual writing, short forms, and interstellar message composition (really!); undergraduate fiction course in noir writing and literature; courses in environmental justice, natural resource ethics, philosophy of wilderness, deep ecology, ecofeminism, environmental aesthetics, history and philosophy of ecology; children's writing workshops with UW Art Museum; guest lecturer for 48 courses in 21 departments; graduate committee member for 183 students in 26 departments (PhD, JD-MA, MFA, MPA, MSW, MA and MS). 

 

Service 

Currently or recently: Senior advisor to the Board of the Ruckelshaus Institute of Environment and Natural Resources; Governing board of the Rocky Mountain Chapter of Mystery Writers of America; Advisory Board for “Out There” (a public radio nature-and-people podcast) and Rocky Mountain Land Library; Host for “Wyoming Signatures” (Wyoming Public Television program); Editorial Board of Journal of Agricultural and Environmental Ethics and Life: The Excitement of Biology; Master of Ceremonies for the Wyoming State Science Fair and judge for Wyoming Arts Council “Poetry Out Loud”; reviewer for 52 presses and scholarly journals.  Formerly the executive director of the International Orthopterists' Society and the founder/director of the Association for Applied Acridology International. 

 

Affiliations, Associations, Consultation 

Professor of Natural Sciences and Humanities with a split appointment between the Creative Writing Program and the Department of Philosophy (University of Wyoming); Faculty Member, Graduate Program in Ecology (University of Wyoming); Adjunct Professor with the Science & Mathematics Teaching Center's Master of Science in Natural Science program (University of Wyoming, College of Education), artist-in-residence for the National Park Service at Cape Cod, Crater Lake, Denali, Guadalupe Mountains, Homestead, Isle Royale, Mesa Verde, and Sleeping Bear Dunes; writer-in-residence at Witwatersrand University, South Africa. Formerly a fellow with the Organization for Economic Cooperation and Development, a visiting fellow with the Division of Botany & Zoology, Australian National University, and a visiting scientist with the CSIRO Division of Entomology, Canberra, Australia. 

 

Awards 

University of Wyoming, George Duke Humphrey Award, Award for Excellence in Internationalization, Award for Extraordinary Merit in Research; Notable Science and Nature Writing in the Best American anthology, for the essay, “(Un)Natural Selection”; Honorable Mention by the American Publishers Awards for Professional and Scholarly Excellence, for the book Six-Legged Soldiers; Best American Science and Nature Writing for the essay, “The Nature of Violence”;  John Burroughs Award for the essay, “Voices from the past: learning from the Rocky Mountain locust” (published in Orion magazine and re-published in WildEarth); Wall of Tolerance Award (inscription); Finalist for the Spur Award from the Western Writers of America for Behind the Carbon Curtain; Silver Medal from the Independent Book Publishers Assocation for Poisoned Justice; Finalist for Eric Hoffer Book Award for Poisoned Justice; Southern Poverty Law Center, National Campaign for Tolerance (in recognition of the work done to promote tolerance during and after the murder of Matthew Shepard); Pushcart Prize for the essay, “To be Honest” (published in Orion magazine and Grasshopper Dreaming, a collection of essays from Skinner House Publishing);  Albert Schweitzer Sermon Award, Unitarian Universalist Association; Erdős Number 6 (you’ll have to look this up on your own) 

 

Hobbies 

Hiking, cross-country skiing, gardening, opera