William E. O’Brien
William E. O’Brien is Professor of Environmental Studies and Chair of Natural Sciences and Mathematics in the Wilkes Honors College of Florida Atlantic University. He had previously been Chair of Humanities and Social Sciences there. He has two degrees in geography, a field that links the social and natural, and he holds a Ph.D. in Environmental Design and Planning from Virginia Tech. An award-winning teacher and student advisor, his research explores connections between race and environment, including scenic park spaces. He is the author of Landscapes of Exclusion: State Parks and Jim Crow in the American South (University of Massachusetts Press and LALH, 2016; and 2022 in paperback by LALH). The book received the 2017 John Brinckerhoff Jackson Book Prize from the Foundation for Landscape Studies and the 2017 Leadership in History Award of Merit from the American Association for State and Local History. He has published additional work in journals such as Historical Geography, Geographical Review, Human Ecology, Journal of Geography, Journal of American Culture, and Ethics, Place and Environment. His current project, in collaboration with Dr. Wairimũ Njambi, investigates the history of Royal Aberdare National Park in colonial Kenya, emphasizing the role its landscape features played, including terrain, vegetation, and wildlife, in the war between the Kenya Land and Freedom Army (known as Mau Mau) and the British military from 1952 to 1956.