Tema O. Milstein, Ph.D.
Ph.D., University of Washington, 2007  Office: Room 226  tema@unm.edu	Assistant Professor  Communication

Research: My work focuses on the culture of nature and the nature of culture, with research generally fitting in the categories of environmental/ecocultural, cultural, and intercultural communication. My methodology is largely critical, cultural, and interpretive. Questions I am interested in include:

• How are ecological and cultural perceptions and practices reproduced or transformed through communication?
• How is the self altered through culture, environment, and communication?
• How does nature mediate communication and culture?

I’m working on several smaller projects and two large research projects. The two larger projects are:

• Nature Tourism Discourses: I am engaged in a long-term ethnographic study focused on the interplay of communication, tourism, and endangered wildlife at the Canada-U.S. Pacific border. My study is centrally concerned with the ways communication in this controversial international tourism setting constructs views of and actions toward endangered whales and their ecosystems.
• Connecting Community Voices: A collaborative participatory action research project with a team of C&J graduate students, Conservation Voters of New Mexico, The Wilderness Society, UNM Resource Center for Raza Planning, and Arts de Aztlan. This is a restorative endeavor, working with Hispanic New Mexicans to help them identify environmental meaning systems, rewrite their communities into the land, and influence environmental politics and policy.

Recent Sample Publications:

• Milstein, T., Anguiano, C., Sandoval, J., Chen, Y.W., & Dickinson, E. (2011). Communicating a "new" environmental vernacular: A sense of relations-in-place. Communication Monographs. 78 (4), 486-510.

• Peterson, J., Milstein, T., Chen, Y.W., & Nakazawa, M. (2011). Self-efficacy in communication: The development and validation of a sojourners' scale. Journal of International and Intercultural Communication. 4 (4), 290-309.

• Milstein, T. (2011). Nature identification: The power of pointing and naming. Environmental Communication: A Journal of Nature and Culture. 5 (1), 3-24.

• Milstein, T., & Manusov, V. (2009). "Oppositional discourse in Israeli media: Reflections of multiple cultural identities in coverage of the Rabin-Arafat handshake." Howard Journal of Communications. 20 (4), 353-369

• Milstein, T. (2009). "Environmental communication theories." In Stephen Littlejohn and Karen Foss (eds.). Encyclopedia of Communication Theory (pp. 344-349). Thousand Oaks: Sage.

• Milstein, T. (2009). "Somethin' tells me it's all happening at the zoo: Discourse, power and conservationism." 3 (1), 25-48. Environmental Communication: A Journal of Nature and Culture.

• Milstein, T. (2008). " When whales 'speak for themselves': Communication as a mediating force in wildlife tourism." Environmental Communication: A Journal of Nature and Culture, 2 (2), 173-192.

• Milstein, T. (2007). "Human Communication's Effects on Relationships with Animals." In M. Bekoff (Ed.), Encyclopedia of Human-Animal Relationships: A Global Exploration of Our Connections with Animals (Vol. 3, pp. 1044-1054). Westport, CT: Greenwood Publishing Group.

Authors: Donal Carbaugh, Donna Haraway, Val Plumwood, Arturo Escobar, Stuart Hall, Norman Fairclough, bell hooks, Michel Foucault, etc.

Teaching Style: I strive for a highly interactive and experiential pedagogy that engages students in transformative learning. I am interested in helping students discover ways to critically apply their learning to their work and their lives.

Awards: 2012 Fulbright Scholar, New Zealand; 2011 UNM Outstanding New Teacher of the Year Award; 2009 Christine L. Oravec Award for Outstanding Scholarship in Environmental Communication, National Communication Association; 2010, 2006 Top Papers, Environmental Communication Division, National Communication Association; 2011, Top Paper, Environmental Communication Division, Western States Communication Association.

Affiliated Faculty: Sustainability Studies Program & Water Resources Program.

Spare Time: Being with my sweet family, gardening, being outdoors, yoga, snowboarding, travel.