Contact Information
Campus address
About
I hold Ph.D. and M.S. degrees in Forest Resources from Oregon State University and a B.A. in Environmental Studies from New College of Florida. Between 2004 and 2007, I worked for the Ecological Restoration Institute at Northern Arizona University. After receiving my doctoral degree in 2011, I spent two years as a visiting assistant professor at Whitman College in Walla Walla, Washington and five years as a research associate at the Ecosystem Workforce Program, Institute for a Sustainable Environment at the University of Oregon. I have also held various non-academic positions with the National Park Service, Missouri Department of Conservation, Florida Department of Environmental Protection, and other organizations.
Research
My work on natural resource governance and policy spans diverse forest and rangeland environments from the United States to Argentina, focusing on the participation of local communities and local- to regional-scale organizations in environmental governance, policy implementation, and institutional change. Key themes in his scholarship include: adaptive, participatory, and network governance; co-management and co-production; alternatives to traditional state- and market-led approaches to conservation and development; and the dynamics of rural community engagement with natural resource stewardship and conservation. I am currently finishing a multi-year project investigating the policy, planning, and practice dimensions of resilient landscape management in the U.S. Forest Service and beginning a separate project that examines the state-level implementation of the "Shared Stewardship" strategy that seeks to better coordinate among federal, state, county, tribal, and private landowners and managers.
Abrams, J., H. Huber-Stearns, M. Steen-Adams, E.J. Davis, C. Bone, M. Nelson, and C. Moseley. Adaptive governance in a complex social-ecological context: Emergent responses to a native forest insect outbreak. In Press in Sustainability Science.
Steen-Adams, M., J. Abrams, H. Huber-Stearns, C. Moseley, and C. Bone. 2020. Local-level emergence of network governance within the U.S. Forest Service: A case study of mountain pine beetle outbreak from Colorado, USA. Forest Policy and Economics 102204. doi.org/10.1016/j.forpol.2020.102204
Charnley, S., H. Gosnell, R. Davee, and J. Abrams. 2020. Ranchers and beavers: Understanding the human dimensions of beaver-related stream restoration on western rangelands. Rangeland Ecology and Management doi.org/10.1016/j.rama.2020.04.008
Denley, T.J., K.M. Woosnam, M.A. Ribeiro, B.B. Boley, C. Hehir, and J. Abrams. 2020. Individuals’ intentions to engage in last chance tourism: Applying the value-belief-norm model. Journal of Sustainable Tourism 28(11): 1860-1881. doi.org/10.1080/09669582.2020.1762623
Dunn, C., C.D. O’Connor, J. Abrams, M.P. Thompson, D.E. Calkin, J.D. Johnston, R. Stratton, and J. Gilbertson-Day. 2020. Wildfire risk science facilitates adaptation of fire-prone social-ecological systems to the new fire reality. Environmental Research Letters 15: 025001. doi.org/10.1088/1748-9326/ab6498
Gutierrez Garzon, A.R., P. Bettinger, J. Siry, B. Mei, and J. Abrams. 2020. The terms foresters and planners in the United States use to infer sustainability in forest management plans: A survey analysis. Sustainability 12(1): 17. doi.org/10.3390/su12010017
Gosnell, H., R. Kennedy, T. Harris, and J. Abrams. 2019. A land systems science approach to assessing forest governance and characterizing the emergence of social forestry in the Western Cascades of Oregon. Environmental Research Letters 15: 055003. doi.org/10.1088/1748-9326/ab666b
K. Jones, J. Abrams, T. Belote, B.J. Beltran, J. Brandt, N. Carter, A.J. Castro, B.C. Chaffin, A. Metcalf, G. Roesch-McNally, K. Wallen, and M.A. Williamson. 2019. The American West as a social-ecological region: Drivers, dynamics and implications for nested social-ecological systems. Environmental Research Letters 14: 115008. doi.org/10.1088/1748-9326/ab4562
Abrams, J. 2019. The emergence of network governance in U.S. national forest administration: Causal factors and propositions for future research. Forest Policy and Economics 106: 101977. doi.org/10.1016/j.forpol.2019.101977
Davis, E.J., J. Abrams, and K. Wollstein. 2019. Fire on the range: Emergent and established characteristics in Rangeland Fire Protection Associations. Disasters 44(3): 435-454. doi.org/10.1111/disa.12389
Abrams, J., H. Huber-Stearns, H. Gosnell, A. Santo, S. Duffey, and C. Moseley. 2019. Tracking a governance transition: Piloting indicators for social forestry on national forestlands in the United States. Society and Natural Resources 33(4): 504-523. doi.org/10.1080/08941920.2019.1605434
Gandhi, K., F. Campbell, and J. Abrams. 2019. Current status of forest health policy in the United States. Insects 10(4): 106.
Altaweel, M., C. Bone, and J. Abrams. 2019. Documents as data: A content analysis and topic modeling approach for analyzing responses to ecological disturbances. Ecological Informatics 51: 82-95.
Abrams, J., E. Pischke, M. A. Mesa Jurado, A. Eastmond, C. Silva, and C. Moseley. 2019. Between environmental change and neoliberalism: The effects of oil palm production on livelihood resilience. Society and Natural Resources 32(5): 548-565. https://doi.org/10.1080/08941920.2018.1544678.
Abrams, J., D. Córdoba, R. Sidortsov, C. Schelly, and H. Gorman. 2019. Power within and beyond the state: Understanding how power relations shape environmental management. Pp. 21-32 in K. Halvorsen, C. Schelly, R. Handler, E. Pischke, and J.L. Knowlton (eds.), A Research Agenda for Environmental Management. Cheltenham, UK and Northampton, MA: Edward Elgar Press.
I teach courses related to the social and political dimensions of natural resource management, including the undergraduate-level Society and Natural Resources (FANR 3400/D) and the mixed undergraduate/graduate-level course Renewable Resources Policy (FANR 4800/6800). I also offer graduate-level courses in social and political theory for natural resource management and qualitative research methods in alternating years. I am interested in innovative approaches to teaching, including experiential and collaborative teaching approaches that can be used in place of or alongside traditional lecture and discussion formats.
I serve on the Warnell School's Diversity and Teaching Effectiveness Committees along with UGA's Sustainability Steering Committee. I was recently elected to a seat on the Council of the International Association for Society and Natural Resources (IASNR) and am helping to plan the 2022 IASNR Conference in San José, Costa Rica. Additionally, I am on the Editorial Advisory Board for the journal Forest Policy and Economics and am a member of the IUCN Commission on Ecosystem Management.