Brian Kermath has been appointed director of sustainability at the University of Wisconsin Oshkosh.
In his various and multifaceted academic and administrative roles, Kermath has helped develop and oversee an array of conservation and sustainability initiatives ranging from biomass energy projects to on-campus sustainability programs to international conservation efforts in Mexico and South America.
Kermath is currently serving as consultant on biomass energy projects funded by the National Science Foundation in September 2011 and organic farming projects in Florida and involving the importation of green food projects from Brazil. Prior to that role, Kermath served for nearly three years as the director of the Center for Rural Sustainable Development at the University of Maine at Fort Kent.
“We welcome Brian to the UW Oshkosh campus community and look forward to his leadership helping our faculty, staff and students continue their deep, nationally-recognized commitment to sustainability,” said UW Oshkosh Vice Chancellor for Finance and Administration Tom Sonnleitner.
Kermath has also served as Manager of Sustainability and Environmental Programs at the University of California Riverside and as Program Director and Research Associate of International Programs and Sustainability at the University of Wisconsin-Stevens Point. Between mid-1992 and mid-1999, Kermath was an assistant professor and Environmental Science chair at Stetson University in Deland, Florida.
He has pursued Ph.D studies in Geography – Sustainability, Latin America from the University of Tennessee, Knoxville, where he was also designated a Fulbright Fellow (serving in Brazil) and received the annual Grad Student of the Year honor. He earned his M.A. in Geography – Latin American development and his B.S. in Geography – Human/environment relations, Latin America from Michigan State University.
UW Oshkosh Provost and Vice Chancellor for Academic Affairs Lane Earns said Kermath’s diverse and international academic experience will also help strengthen and further the University’s commitment to providing a broad-based, globally-connected education for all of its students.
“The pursuit of a more sustainable life and world is one of the key components of our developing University Studies Program, a new, high-impact redesign of general education at our University,” Earns said. “Brian’s rich academic resume will prove incredibly valuable to our faculty as they continue to collaboratively develop this new nucleus of general education at UW Oshkosh. It will also help further the educational and research advancements in alternative energy and environmental studies that are such a vibrant contributor to this institution’s distinctiveness in the New North, the state, the nation and the world.”
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