Diana Leong, a UCI alumni and former graduate student researcher with the Sustainability Initiative, was hired for a tenure-track position with the University of Utah.
Beginning in the Fall of 2016, Diana will serve as an Assistant Professor in the Environmental Humanities Graduate Program and the Department of English. This joint appointment will enable Diana to engage with the students, faculty, and staff of one of the nation’s leading programs in the Environmental Humanities as she continues her work on Environmental Justice and Ecology in African American literature and Critical Black Studies.
Diana is interested in posthumanism, science and technology studies, and the environmental humanities. Her UCI dissertation, entitled “The Salt Bones: Toward a Slave Ship Ecology,” reads black literature as environmental philosophy, and argues that the slave ship is fundamental to the development of modern, ecological thought.  In 2013, Diana served as a graduate student researcher with the Sustainability Initiative, supporting the faculty Task Force on Sustainability Education. Congratulations, Diana!