Sarah Ebel, Ph.D.
Location
Dr. Sarah Ebel is a cultural anthropologist who examines the intersection of environmental conservation, gender, Indigeneity, collective action, and (in)justice, as it relates to natural resource management, sustainable development, and environmental policy. Her focus is on how humans shape the environments they live in and how human-environment relationships underpin conservation, collective action, and sustainable development in rural natural-resource dependent communities. Through research on seaweed socio-ecological systems and non-timber forest products in Chile and Maine, she mentors students to apply anthropology to practice. Her intention is to inform environmental governance to support sustainable development and environmental conservation.
Dr. Ebel received her Ph.D. in Anthropology and Environmental Policy from the University of Maine. She is a Fulbright Scholar and an External Faculty at Universidad Austral de Chile. If you are undergraduate or graduate student interested in environmental anthropology, environmental conservation, Latin America, Maine, and/or natural resource management, please feel free to reach out.
Credentials
Education
Research
Selected publications
Recent Publications
Ebel, S.A. and Reedy, K. (2026). Women’s Impact on Environmental Governance: Reclaiming the Commons through Knowledge, Care, and Culture. Lexington Books, an imprint of Bloomsbury Publishing Inc. Awarded entry into Bloomsbury Open Collections. ISBN: 9781666980097.
Everly, J., Ebel, S.A., and Saavedra, G. (2026). No nos falta nada: How women reclaim the commons through environmental and economic governance in southern Chile. In: Women’s Impact on Environmental Governance: Reclaiming the Commons through Knowledge, Care, and Culture. Lexington Books, an imprint of Bloomsbury Publishing Inc. ISBN: 9781666980097.
Ebel, S.A., + Everly, J., and + Grim, S. (2026). Transitions to transformative conservation in Idaho’s Redband Trout management in the face of socio-ecological change. Human Organization.
Lamar, S., Burnham, M., Metcalf, A. L., Ebel, S. A., Graves, D. M., & Sundstrom, A. (2024). Understanding the Hidden Costs and Benefits of Living with Grizzly Bears in Montana. Society & Natural Resources, 1-19.
Ebel, S.A. and + Ortman, B. (2024) How sociopolitical histories and lifeways impact the formation of 'good governance' in the restoration of anadromous fish in the Columbia River Basin. Society and Natural Resources, 37(6): 1-20.
Ebel, S.A., Burnham, M., and +Reynolds, J. (2023). Examining the conditions that activate linking social capital to transition environmental governance: Empirical insights from Chile’s coast. Regional Environmental Change 23:6.
Ebel, S.A. (2022). Transformación y resiliencia en el mar: Cómo los pescadores transforman su bienestar y la gobernanza para dar forma a la resiliencia socio-ecológica en el sur de Chile. In América Profunda: Visones y convergencias en la oceanografía social del continente, eds. Nemer E. Narchi y Christine M. Beitl. ISBN: 978-607-544-166-5.
Research interests
Environmental Policy, Political Ecology, Environmental Justice, Environmental Anthropology, Economic Anthropology, Climate Change Adaptation, Marine Conservation, Fisheries and Coastal Management, Livelihoods, Natural Resource Governance Institutions, Gender and the Commons