Ann Arbor, Michigan, United States
Sarah's research engages theoretical and empirical questions at the frontier of human and human-environment geography; notably, questions provoked by the contemporary intersection of global financialization, green economic development and other climate change responses, and urban and regional development under austerity.
From 2015 to 2017, Sarah Knuth was a postdoctoral fellow at the Taubman College of Architecture and Urban Planning at the University of Michigan. Her postdoctoral research investigates the contemporary intersection of neoliberal urban strategy, new ideas in green economic development and climate change resilience, and ongoing transformations in the global financial system. In places like the United States, making cities energy efficient, low carbon, and resilient means fundamentally reworking existing urban geographies and modes of city building. These radical changes require major upfront investments. Powerful institutions increasingly frame this challenge as a task for experimental finance and the creation of new forms of public and private indebtedness. Simultaneously, they frame it as a massive untapped market for institutional funds in search of novel assets. They describe experimental green fiscal instruments that range from new kinds of municipal bonds to infrastructure trusts, bids to tap into carbon markets, and real estate-tied financial products. In the years since the 2008 financial collapse, cities such as New York, San Francisco, and Chicago have been centers for the working out of these proposals. They have developed climate change plans, major initiatives to retrofit buildings for energy efficiency and reduced greenhouse gas emissions, and dedicated financing mechanisms. Sarah’s postdoctoral research asks how these instruments are being structured, disseminated, and placed within financial markets, and with what potential repercussions for economic and environmental justice in “financialized” cities. Sarah’s current project builds on dissertation research she conducted in the Department of Geography at the University of California, Berkeley.
Visiting Assistant Professorship in the Environmental Studies Program Courses taught: Urban Political Ecology, Energy and Society, Environmentally Responsible Investing, Introduction to Environmental Studies
Graduate Student Instructor in Geography, Architecture/American Studies, International and Area Studies, Letters and Sciences Courses taught (primary course designer and instructor): Economic Geography of the Industrial World, Food and the Environment, The Ocean World Teaching assistantships: Food and the Environment, Development in Theory and Practice, Global Warming, American Cultural Landscapes 1600-1900 and 1900-Present
Climate change consultant - climate change mitigation in healthcare, health impacts of climate change, sustainable food systems and climate change mitigation