Current Position

Researcher
Norwegian University of Science & Technology, Trondheim, Norway
Department of Interdisciplinary Studies of Culture (Institutt for tverrfaglige kulturstudier)
E-mail: Dolly@jorgensenweb.net

Researcher Profile

I am a historian of the environment and technology. I am most interested in how human technologies shape the world around us and how we come to understand what is "natural" and what is not, what is acceptable environmental behavior and what is not. If you read Norwegian and want to see how I think about environmental history, you can look at "Miljøhistorie: Kunsten å lytte til naturens stemme?" co-authored with Finn Arne Jørgensen, Fortid 5, no. 4 (2008): 6-9. Available as a pdf.

I have a Bachelor's degree in Civil Engineering with an Environmental Engineering specialty. I worked for two different engineering consulting firms in Texas from 1995 to 2009 (with the last few years doing only short contract consulting). My areas of emphasis were waste management operations, site contamination assessments, oil and petrochemical operations, and data management.

Both my master's and PhD projects dealt with medieval environmental issues. My master's dealt with forestry and fishery management in England and Normandy, France, during the period 1066 to 1135. Go to the page on Medieval Resource Management. The PhD project was on urban sanitation in England and Scandinavia from 1350-1600. Go to the page on Medieval Sanitation. I discuss medieval environmental history as a discipline and my own work in a podcast interview for the website Environmental History Resources.

My post-doctoral project has moved me closer to my engineering roots through an examination of policies about converting offshore oil and gas platforms into artificial reefs. It is a comparative project looking at these policies from the mid-1970s to present for three areas: the Gulf of Mexico, California Bight, and North Sea. This project incorporates some concepts from Science & Technology Studies (STS) to find ways of understanding how and why the policies developed differently. Go to the page on my Rigs-to-Reefs project.

As a side interest, I have done a little thinking about artistic works and how they come to represent reality. I am hoping to explore this more in the future. Go to the page about my art history projects.

Professional Activities

I am a co-founder of the Environmental History Network for the Middle Ages (ENFORMA) which was established in 2009. I designed and maintain the website.

I am active in the Envirotech Special Interest Group of the Society for the History of Technology (SHOT) and am currently serving as a co-convener. I was previously on the Article Prize Committee.

I serve on the Hal Rothman Fellowship committee (2008-2010) for the American Society for Environmental History (ASEH) and the Sites committee (2009-2011) for the Society for the History of Technology (SHOT).

I am a member of the Nordic Environmental History Network established by Finn Arne Jørgensen and funded by Nordforsk (2009-2011). I co-coordinated the workshop meeting in Trondheim in November 2009 and will be co-editing the book which will come out of the October 2010 meeting in Stockholm.

I am a co-organizer of the workshop Bringing STS into Environmental History along with Finn Arne Jørgensen and Sara Pritchard (Cornell).

Research Interests

  • The interaction of environment and technology
  • Understandings of the natural
  • How art and artifacts both represent and serve as lived reality

Web Projects

Links to Related Websites