Environmental Humanities Network
About the EHN
The Environmental Humanities Network (EHN) at the University of Waterloo brings together scholars, practitioners, community groups, and artists under the banner of the Environmental Humanities. Broadly defined, the Environmental Humanities seek to interdisciplinarily understand and address pressing environmental problems by employing humanistic methods that attend to, for example, ethics, values, design, cultures, and communication–in short, caring for both the planet and humanity.
We bring together arts-based research and teaching methods with environmental data to examine the most pressing problems facing a sustainable future: a rising climate; biodiversity loss; deforestation; ocean acidification; air, water, and soil pollution. The EHN involves both the arts and sciences, and is an interdisciplinary hub that promotes collaboration and cross-talk between universities, community organizations, and citizen scientists. Members of the EHN work both internally and cross-institutionally to examine and disseminate knowledge about environmental sustainability as represented in the UN 17 Global Sustainability Goals, with a focus on arts-based outputs that persuasively move people to action.
The EHN is made up of a group of interdisciplinary teachers and researchers at the University of Waterloo, UWaterloo-based Affiliate groups, and non-UWaterloo institutional Partners. If you are interested in the Environmental Humanities and are looking for a networked community whose projects and priorities support ethical engagement with the environment, please join us!
Events
Fall 2026 Environmental Humanities Slow Reading Group
Join The Environmental Humanities Network (EHN) and the Waterloo Initiative of Solarpunk and Hope (WISH), for the Fall 2026 EH Slow Reading Group! Facilitated by Dr. Katy Fulfer (PHIL) and Dr. Jennifer Clary-Lemon (ENGL), the Slow Reading Group is a space for thoughtful, collaborative inquiry and open to all scholars--MA students, PhD students, postdocs, and faculty--interested in the Environmental Humanities (EH).
Our fall 2026 book is Bubant et al.'s Rubber Boots Methods for the Anthropocene (U of Minnesota P, 2022). We will start our first reading group with the Introduction, and go from there! Copies of the text will be provided. We meet in HH 335.
Each Slow Reading Group session will begin with a period of silent reading, followed by open discussion. No prior preparation or registration is required; however, you can send any questions you have to jclarylemon@uwaterloo.ca.
Evidence Jam Hackathon
Join Evidence Jam 2026 — Turn Ecological Knowledge into AI-Powered Insight
Evidence Jam 2026 (Causapalooza!) is a weekend hackathon at the University of Waterloo's DRAGEN Lab, November 13–16, where teams use AI to turn ecology literature into structured, practitioner-ready causal knowledge. We're recruiting software developers, ML engineers, restoration ecologists, UX/UI designers, data scientists, and philosophers — interdisciplinary teams of 2–4 are strongly encouraged and prioritized in selection.
Prizes include the Gold Raccoon awards (Dell hardware, with a Dell Pro Max workstation with GB10 for first place), a Green Raccoon sustainability award for the most energy efficient solutions, and the collaborator-voted Most Valuable Possum for best collaborator. Featuring judges and mentors from the World Wildlife Fund, Nature Conservancy of Canada, Conservation Halton, and more.
Beyond the hardware, this is a chance to compress a years-long literature synthesis into one weekend, with real ecological data, GPU compute, and mentors on hand to help you ship something a restoration practitioner could actually use. Create open source software in a collaborative setting, with great food and prizes!
Applications close Friday, October 9 — apply with your team or solo at https://evidencejam.tim-a.ca. Teams must contain at least one current UW student. There is no cost to participate and food will be provided.
Fall 2026 Environmental Humanities Slow Reading Group
Join The Environmental Humanities Network (EHN) and the Waterloo Initiative of Solarpunk and Hope (WISH), for the Fall 2026 EH Slow Reading Group! Facilitated by Dr. Katy Fulfer (PHIL) and Dr. Jennifer Clary-Lemon (ENGL), the Slow Reading Group is a space for thoughtful, collaborative inquiry and open to all scholars--MA students, PhD students, postdocs, and faculty--interested in the Environmental Humanities (EH).
Our fall 2026 book is Bubant et al.'s Rubber Boots Methods for the Anthropocene (U of Minnesota P, 2022). We will start our first reading group with the Introduction, and go from there! Copies of the text will be provided. We meet in HH 335.
Each Slow Reading Group session will begin with a period of silent reading, followed by open discussion. No prior preparation or registration is required; however, you can send any questions you have to jclarylemon@uwaterloo.ca.