Danielle E. Endres, Ph.D.

An attention to activist rhetoric runs throughout my research program. In my analysis of nuclear controversies, I have uncovered strategies of control to which anti-nuclear activists must respond, suggested tactics for activists to use to engage in highly technocratic decision-making settings, and examined the environmental justice implications of nuclear technologies. My interest in environmental activism led me to closely watch the development of climate activism over the past ten years. In 2007, Professor Leah Sprain (CU Boulder), Professor Tarla Rai Peterson (University of Texas, El Paso), and I organized a national research project to evaluate the rhetorical dynamics of the Step It Up climate change movement started by Bill McKibben and his students at Middlebury College. The 2007 campaign provided an excellent opportunity to reflect on communication about climate change, the dynamics of loosely organized web-based activism, the state of environmentalism, and the beginnings of the now widespread climate activism movement. I was the lead editor of Social Movement to Address Climate Change: Local Steps for Global Action, a book that emerged out of our project, which won the National Communication Association’s Christine L. Oravec Book Award in Environmental Communication in 2010. Native activism is also a significant area of interest, resulting in publications analyzing the Free Leonard Peltier movement and resistance to Native mascots. 

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