Institution(s): Rice University, Rice Sustainability Institute
Dominic Boyer is an anthropologist, media maker and co-founder of the field of Energy Humanities. His current research foci include (1) renewable energy development and decarbonization through electrification initiatives, (2) green stormwater infrastructure and civil power, and (3) a comparative global study of the social impacts and adaptation practices associated with cryospheric diminishment in the Arctic and hydrospheric enhancement in lower latitude coastal cities. In addition to serving on the Board of Governors of the Rice Sustainability Institute, he co-directs Rice University’s Center for Coastal Futures and Adaptive Resilience (CFAR) and will direct its forthcoming Social Design Lab (SDL). Working together with Cymene Howe, their design for the world’s first glacier memorial was named a Finalist for a 2020 Beazley Design of the Year Award by the London Design Museum. The same project inspired The Economist to create its first-ever obituary for a non-human. Boyer’s recent research has been supported by NSF, NOAA, the Berggruen Institute, and the Alexander von Humboldt Foundation, among others. The author of nine books and volumes and more than 100 research articles, Boyer’s latest book is No More Fossils (U Minnesota Press, 2023), a discussion of the fossilized legacy of fossil fuels and the coming transition from petroculture to electroculture.
Recent publications in the last five years (with hyperlinks):
No More Fossils. Minnesota: University of Minnesota Press, 2023 https://www.upress.umn.edu/book-division/books/no-more-fossils
“The Okjökull Memorial and Geohuman Relations” Social Anthropology 32(1):30-45, 2024. https://doi.org/10.3167/saas.2024.320104 (with Cymene Howe)
“Sister Cities for the Anthropocene” Nature Cities 1:330–331, 2024. https://doi.org/10.1038/s44284-024-00067-z (with Cymene Howe)
“Flooded City: Affects of (Slow) Catastrophe in Post-Harvey Houston.” Current Anthropology 63(6):615-636 (with Mark Vardy), 2022. https://www.academia.edu/89265114/Flooded_City_Affects_of_Slow_Catastrophe_in_Post_Harvey_Houston?f_ri=3167
“Infrastructural Futures in the Ecological Emergency: Gray, Green and Revolutionary.” Special issue of Historical Social Research, “Ruptures, Transformations, Continuities. Rethinking Infrastructures and Ecology,” eds. P Degens, I Hilbrich, & S Lenz) 47(4):48-65, 2022. https://www.jstor.org/stable/27182674
