Biography
Dr. Stephanie Kaza is Professor Emerita of Environmental Studies at the University of Vermont and former Director of the UVM Environmental Program. She co-founded the Environmental Council at UVM and served as faculty director for the Sustainability Faculty Fellows program.
At UVM, Dr. Kaza taught classes on religion and ecology, environmental justice, ecofeminism, radical environmentalism, and unlearning consumerism. She advised graduate students on research in energy and citizen participation, smart growth in town planning, campus sustainability, and religion and ecology. In 2011 Dr. Kaza received the UVM George V. Kidder Outstanding Faculty Award for excellence in teaching. For the past three decades, she has lectured widely on topics of Buddhism and the environment, most recently addressing religion and the climate crisis.
Dr. Kaza is a long-time practitioner of Soto Zen Buddhism, with training at Green Gulch Zen Center, California, and further study with Roshi Joan Halifax, Thich Nhat Hanh, Joanna Macy, and John Daido Loori. She was lay ordained by Kobun Chino Ottogawa in the late 1980s and has shared her Buddhist perspectives with the International Christian-Buddhist Theological Encounter group, the Society for Buddhist-Christian Studies, the Socially-Engaged Buddhism program at Upaya Zen Center, the Society for Buddhist Ethics, and the American Academy of Religion. She served on the Board of Trustees for Naropa University from 2021-2023.
At UVM, Dr. Kaza taught classes on religion and ecology, environmental justice, ecofeminism, radical environmentalism, and unlearning consumerism. She advised graduate students on research in energy and citizen participation, smart growth in town planning, campus sustainability, and religion and ecology. In 2011 Dr. Kaza received the UVM George V. Kidder Outstanding Faculty Award for excellence in teaching. For the past three decades, she has lectured widely on topics of Buddhism and the environment, most recently addressing religion and the climate crisis.
Dr. Kaza is a long-time practitioner of Soto Zen Buddhism, with training at Green Gulch Zen Center, California, and further study with Roshi Joan Halifax, Thich Nhat Hanh, Joanna Macy, and John Daido Loori. She was lay ordained by Kobun Chino Ottogawa in the late 1980s and has shared her Buddhist perspectives with the International Christian-Buddhist Theological Encounter group, the Society for Buddhist-Christian Studies, the Socially-Engaged Buddhism program at Upaya Zen Center, the Society for Buddhist Ethics, and the American Academy of Religion. She served on the Board of Trustees for Naropa University from 2021-2023.
Kaza has led multi-day workshops on the Greening of Buddhism for Zen Mountain Monastery in New York and the Whidbey Institute in Washington. For many years, she taught summer programs with the Institute for Deep Ecology and the Center for Whole Communities. She has offered training sessions on Buddhist perspectives on climate change to Buddhist leaders across the country.
Retired from UVM since 2015, Dr. Kaza works on climate issues in Portland, Oregon, where she serves on the City of Portland's Sustainability and Climate Commission. Her current writing project is a primer of key themes from the writings of Joanna Macy.
Dr. Kaza holds degrees in Biology (B.A., Oberlin College, 1968), Education (M.A., Stanford University 1970), Biology (Ph.D., University of California Santa Cruz, 1979), and Religion (M.Div., Starr King School, 1991). She is married to Davis Te Selle, an artist and printmaker, who supports her passions for trees, lichens, fungi, and Ice Age Floods.
Dr. Stephanie Kaza's CV is available here.
Retired from UVM since 2015, Dr. Kaza works on climate issues in Portland, Oregon, where she serves on the City of Portland's Sustainability and Climate Commission. Her current writing project is a primer of key themes from the writings of Joanna Macy.
Dr. Kaza holds degrees in Biology (B.A., Oberlin College, 1968), Education (M.A., Stanford University 1970), Biology (Ph.D., University of California Santa Cruz, 1979), and Religion (M.Div., Starr King School, 1991). She is married to Davis Te Selle, an artist and printmaker, who supports her passions for trees, lichens, fungi, and Ice Age Floods.
Dr. Stephanie Kaza's CV is available here.
