Energy, Environment and Resources Center

EERC ~ Faculty Associate - Robert Emmet Jones

Dr. Jones has worked on resource management projects with the Energy, Environment and Resources Center (EERC) since 1994 and was appointed as a Faculty Associate in 2002. Dr. Jones has an interdisciplinary education in the social and natural sciences, and he teaches and conducts social research within the new field of environmental sociology. His work examines the human dimensions of environmental change and ecosystem management.

Dr. Jones has published and reviewed articles in the leading journals within this area of study and currently serves as an associate editor for the international journal Society and Natural Resources. He also serves as a grant reviewer of rural development projects for the USDA, as a Senior Research Fellow for the Southeast Water Policy Initiative, and on the Environmental Studies Curriculum Committee at the University of Tennessee.  

Dr. Jones has worked on funded projects related to the reintroduction of wolves to Yellowstone, salmon restoration in the Pacific Northwest, water recreation in the Columbia River Basin, hazardous waste management in the state of Washington, amenity-migration in Southern Appalachia, the social bases of environmentalism, and public support for the environment in the United States and in Southern Appalachia. He has also worked with colleagues from EERC, the Southeast Water Policy Initiative, the Water Resources Research Center, and the Human Dimensions Research Laboratory at the University of Tennessee on funded projects concerning the future of the Oak Ridge Reservation and watershed management and supply issues facing the Southeast.

Dr. Jones currently teaches graduate and undergraduate courses on the human dimensions of ecosystem management; public opinion on the environment, social problems, and policy; and applied survey design and analysis.

R.E. Jones, “Blacks Just Don't Care: Unmasking Popular Misconceptions about Concern for the Environment among African-Americans,” International Journal of Public Administration, 25(2): 221-251, 2002.

R.E. Dunlap and R.E. Jones, “Environmental Concern: Conceptual and Measurement Issues,” in R.E. Dunlap and W. Michelson, eds., Handbook of Environmental Sociology (Westport, CN: Geenwood Press, pp. 482-524, 2002).

R.E. Jones and R.E Dunlap, “The Social Bases of Environmental Concern: Have They Changed Over Time?” in R. Scott Frey, ed.., The Environment and Society Reader (Boston, MA: Allyn & Bacon, pp. 164-179, 2001).

R.E. Jones, J. Mark Fly, and H. Ken Cordell, “How Green is My Valley? Tracking Rural and Urban Environmentalism in the Southern Appalachian Ecoregion,” Rural Sociology, 64(3): 482-499, 1999.