Rate My Professor Cynthia Fowler

Fowler's research specializations encompass biosocial dynamics, fire ecology, freshwater and marine biology, and science and technology studies. Her work examines the human dimensions of fire ecology in the southern Blue Ridge Mountains and the Indo-Australian Monsoon Zone, including ethnographic evaluations of anthropogenic fires in ecosystems. Recent fieldwork in Indonesia, particularly on Sumba Island, investigates how language practices reflect changing waterscapes and links global change to global health among agropastoralists, funded by a Fulbright U.S. Scholar award in 2023 and the American Institute of Indonesian Studies and Council of American Overseas Research Centers in 2025. Key publications include Fire Otherwise: Ethnobiology of Burning for a Changing World (2018, co-editor), Biosocial Synchrony on Sumba: Multispecies Interactions and Environmental Variations in Indonesia (2016), and Ignition Stories: Indigenous Fire Ecology in the Indo-Australian Monsoon Zone (2013). She has contributed numerous peer-reviewed articles, such as 'Pyrosociality: The Power of Fire in Transforming the Blue Ridge Mountain Ecoregion' (Environment and Society, 2023) and 'A global expert elicitation on present-day human–fire interactions' (Philosophical Transactions of the Royal Society B, 2025). Fowler served as President of the Society of Ethnobiology Board from 2017 to 2019, co-founded and co-edits Ethnobiology Letters, sits on the Editorial Board of the Journal of Pyrogeography, and co-edits monograph series Global Change/Global Health and Contributions in Ethnobiology.