Rate My Professor Melanie Malone

Melanie Malone is an Associate Professor in the School of Interdisciplinary Arts & Sciences at the University of Washington Bothell, having joined the faculty in 2018 as Assistant Professor and promoted to Associate Professor in 2023. She also holds an adjunct faculty appointment in the Department of Geography at the University of Washington Seattle since 2021. Prior to her academic positions, Malone worked as a Geologist at URS Corporation from 2008 to 2013, conducting environmental site assessments, remediation projects, and hydrology assessments at industrial sites and Superfund locations in Portland, Oregon. She earned her Ph.D. in Earth, Environment, and Society from Portland State University in 2017, M.S. in Soil Science from Oregon State University in 2008, and B.A. with a double major in Geology and English from Williams College in 2005.

Malone's scholarship centers on critical physical geography, integrating soil science with analyses of contamination, environmental policy, and justice. Her research examines urban community garden contaminants, no-till agriculture's environmental impacts, herbicide distribution from conservation programs, sediment runoff, and exposure risks in Superfund sites such as the Lower Duwamish and post-wildfire landscapes in Lahaina, Hawaii. She employs spatial tools like GIS, remote sensing, and drones. Key publications include "Uprooting urban garden contamination" (Environmental Science & Policy, 2023, with Hamlin and Richard), "A critical physical geography of no-till agriculture: Linking degraded environmental quality to conservation policies in an Oregon watershed" (The Canadian Geographer, 2022, with McClintock), "Seeking justice, eating toxics: overlooked contaminants in urban community gardens" (Agriculture and Human Values, 2021), "Teaching critical physical geography" (Journal of Geography in Higher Education, 2020), and "Charting a Critical Physical Geography Path in Graduate School: Sites of Student Agency" (The Palgrave Handbook of Critical Physical Geography, 2018, with co-authors). Malone has secured major grants, including an EPA Science to Achieve Results Climate Change and Environmental Justice award ($1,267,559; 2022-2025) and USDA Partnership for Climate-Smart Commodities as co-PI ($4,865,136; 2023-2028). Her awards encompass the UW Husky Sustainability Award (2023), UW Bothell Connected Learning Excellence Award ($6,000; 2021), and Association of Collegiate Planning Curriculum Innovation Award as co-PI (2020-2021). In teaching courses such as BEARTH 317 Soils and the Environment, she leads hands-on, field-based, community-engaged labs that equip diverse students with skills to address real-world contamination and policy challenges, promoting equity and reciprocal knowledge exchange.