I am an Associate Professor in the School of Environment & Sustainability at the University of Michigan. I hold MA and PhD degrees in Geography from the University of Arizona and have a BA in Environmental Science from Willamette University.

My current CV is here. Collective publications can be found at Academia.edu and ResearchGate. A full list of peer-reviewed publications is available at Google Scholar. You can also find me on Instagram, where I post pictures of everyday life and my scampish kids.

I am keen to advise students interested in human-environment interactions, particularly those focused on critical and/or mixed methods approaches to environmental justice, development politics, land-use and environment-health interactions. My capacity to take on new graduate students varies from year to year — please check-in and tell me about yourself at heidibak@umich.edu!

While I grew up in a middle-class household, my parents are both from working-class backgrounds. I am the first person to get a college degree on my father’s side, and my mom was a first gen college student. I have mentored students from diverse economic and cultural backgrounds, and work hard to help students fund educational and research goals.