research
I am an associate professor in the Department of Humanities, Arts, and Social Sciences at the Colorado School of Mines — Colorado’s premiere public engineering university.
I study environmental governance with an emphasis on how discourse, data, and deliberation shape governance processes and outcomes. Broadly speaking, I study how environmental problems are defined and solutions are enacted (and to what effect). My work focuses primarily on water politics in the American West and spans several types of hydrosocial systems. I have active projects on groundwater pumping (why is it hardly measured and monitored?), surface water management (what might the future hold for hydropower reservoirs approaching dead pool?), and atmospheric intervention (how has cloud seeding emerged as a fix for water shortages despite its being largely unquantifiable?).
My academic background is interdisciplinary, with training primarily in environmental studies (PhD) and secondarily in hydrology (MS). I draw theoretically and methodologically from literatures in human-environment geography (especially political ecology and critical physical geography), science and technology studies, and environmental policy. I utilize mixed qualitative research methods, such as in-depth interviews, participant observation, and media and document analysis. I make public engagement and outreach a focus of my scholarship.
My research has been published in Geoforum, Water Alternatives, Energy Policy, Energy Research & Social Science, Environmental Science & Technology, Society & Natural Resources, The Extractive Industries & Society, Environmental Communication, and Case Studies in the Environment. I have also written about environmental politics for High Country News and The Conversation.
My work has been funded by the National Science Foundation, the U.S. Department of Agriculture, and the Alfred P. Sloan Foundation.
About
I hold a PhD in Environmental Studies and a Masters in Geography, both from the University of Colorado-Boulder. My undergraduate degree is in Science & Technology Studies from Cornell University.
Prior to joining the faculty at Mines, I worked as a journalist covering science and technology policy in Washington, DC and as a graduate researcher and instructor at the Center of the American West at the University of Colorado-Boulder.
I have also learned a lot about the world from adventures outside the academy, which have included (but are not limited to), waiting tables at many restaurants, making espresso drinks at a couple of coffee shops, teaching ski lessons to kids, teaching mountain bike lessons to rockstars and CEOs, freelancing for a handful of newspapers and magazines, racing competitively as a six-time Ironman triathlete with two trips to the World Championships in Hawaii, cheering exuberantly for the Angel City Football Club in L.A., and adopting a border collie mix — not necessarily in that order. When I’m not at my desk, I enjoy parenting a very precocious toddler and doing life with a remarkable partner who loves to go adventuring with us.
TEACHING
U.S. Water Politics & Policy (HASS 484/584)
Environmental Justice (HASS 468/568)
Global Studies: Environment (HASS 200)
contact
akroepsch (at) mines.edu
303-384-2565
Colorado School of Mines, 1500 Illinois Street, Golden, Colorado, 80401
CURRICULUM VITAE
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(last updated March 2023)