Amanda Martin
OSGF
Interdisciplinary Residency, Five-Week, Session I
Amanda Martin is a historian whose research examines how natural resources, social inequities, and environmental politics have intersected across the twentieth-century United States and beyond. She is particularly interested in the ways green spaces—ranging from public parks and urban gardens to remote wilderness areas—have served as important sites of social, political, and environmental history.
She is currently completing her first book project, Greenlining: Civil Rights Struggles Over Access to the Outdoors in the United States, which offers a new interpretation of the American civil rights movement by foregrounding struggles for environmental equity as central to its history.
Amanda received a B.A. in American Studies, with a minor in photojournalism, from the University of Texas at Austin, and an M.A. in History from Montana State University. Before returning to academia for graduate study at Columbia University, she worked for several years as a professional photographer. This background continues to shape her research approach and her commitment to multimedia storytelling.
In addition to her academic work, Amanda has extensive experience in public history and digital humanities. She has collaborated with museums, curated archival exhibitions, created digital maps, produced podcasts, led historical walking tours, and written for popular news outlets. Her research on environmental injustice informs her ongoing efforts to make contemporary green spaces more inclusive and accessible to diverse audiences. She is particularly interested in partnering with public parks, botanical and community gardens, and other outdoor-focused organizations.
Committed to making scholarship widely accessible, Amanda is also the creator of the podcast Everyday Environmentalism, which shares conversations on urban nature, climate change, and environmental issues with a broad public audience.