Teresa Cavazos Cohn, PhD, is a Research Associate Professor in the Department of Natural Resources and Society at the University of Idaho and a co-founder of the interdisciplinary Confluence Lab. Cohn is a human geographer and science communicator who specializes in water and hydrosocial relations with emphasis on Indigenous waters, and human dimensions of wildfire. Her research and outreach projects have been supported by the National Science Foundation, Andrew J. Mellon Foundation, NASA, and Milkweed Press.

Cohn chose to become an RPL Fellow “to engage with a vibrant community of scholars, practitioners, and students to explore the role of religion in critical issues of our time.” She is particularly interested in the roles religion may play in climate change adaptation and community resilience. As a mentor, Cohn hopes to leave students with “greater awareness of water and fire on personal to landscape scales and amidst a changing climate, and with a sense of their own creativity, and of the critical roles creative communities play in climate adaptation and resilience.”

When thinking of what drew her to the RLPI, Cohn says, “I find myself again standing in the basement of the New Mexico History Museum, studying cartographer and santero Bernardo Miera y Pacheco’s brilliant red map of the Northern Rio Grande (1758), or peering down into the La Lomita mission’s well along the Southern Rio Grande border as my grandmother’s hand held me back. In my work to better understand people’s relationships with fire and water as they shape the American West, I’m drawn to this initiative to better understand religion’s fundamental role in these human-environmental relationships, including my own. I’m here to listen, learn, and contribute.”