Erika Weinthal

Dr. Erika Weinthal serves as the John O. Blackburn Distinguished Professor at Duke University's Nicholas School of the Environment, where she has established herself as a leading authority on environmental security and global environmental politics. Her expertise centers on water and energy issues, with significant contributions to understanding environmental conflict and peacebuilding. She is the author of "State Making and Environmental Cooperation: Linking Domestic Politics and International Politics in Central Asia," which received both the 2003 Chadwick Alger Prize and the 2003 Lynton Keith Caldwell Prize. Her scholarly work includes co-authoring "Oil is not a Curse" and "Water Quality Impacts of the Energy-Water Nexus," as well as co-editing several influential volumes including "The Oxford Handbook on Water Politics and Policy" and "The Oxford Handbook of Comparative Environmental Politics." As a founding Vice President of the Environmental Peacebuilding Association and member of the UN Environment Programme's Expert Group on Conflict and Peacebuilding, she has shaped international environmental policy. Her contributions to water diplomacy were recognized with the 2017 Women Peacebuilders for Water Award. Currently, she serves as Director of Graduate Studies for Duke's University Program in Environmental Policy, Co-Director of the Duke Human Rights Center, and holds professorships at both Duke Kunshan University and the Sanford School of Public Policy.