Rich has a diverse educational and professional background. He is from California, lived all over the Western United States, and has called both rural and urban Alaska his home for the past twenty years. He holds an M.A. in Networked Communication, a B.S. in Earth Science, and an interdisciplinary P.h.D focused on cross-cultural communication around environmental change issues. Professionally he has extensive experience in online education- specifically in development and delivery of mixed face-to-face and at-distance content. His research reflects this diverse background and utilizes mixed qualitative and quantitative methodologies to explore social ecological, or environmental, systems.
By attempting to more fully understand the processes of cross-cultural communication and institutional, or organizational, reform, Richard’s work advocates for greater Urban-Rural communication in times of rapid environmental change. More generally, his research is focused on understanding spatially grounded communication networks in order to maintain cultural diversity while increasing connectivity and improving community well-being and self-reliance during times of rapid social-ecological change. In whimsical terms, he is interested in anything to do with how people interact and communicate with the environments they inhabit.
Courses Taught for Cross-Cultural Studies:
CCS 690: International Seminar in Indigenous Education
CCS 693: Talking in Circles-- cross cultural communication in the age of social media
CCS 693: Network Weaving:
Moving research to practice for community wellbeing
CCS 492: Comparative Food Systems
