Dr. Susan Bratton’s scholarly goals are to conduct research in the conservation of biodiversity, and the interface between religion and environmental ethics. She is committed to offering courses providing quality field and laboratory experiences for majors and non-majors, and to developing curricula based on interdisciplinary environmental perspectives. In addition to publishing numerous scientific articles on subjects ranging from fire management in parks, to the impacts of wild hogs, to the restoration of disturbed high mountain floras, she has also published articles and book chapters on ecology and religion, Rachel Carson and ocean ethics, the ethics of commercial fishing, and Christian eco-theology and the Hebrew Scriptures. Dr. Bratton is the author of four books on religion and environmental ethics (with a fifth book currently in the publishing process). Having grown up in a rural environment in the Chesapeake Bay region of Maryland, Dr. Bratton was always interested in land and water management. As an undergraduate, she began field training, attending courses in Scotland and the Colorado Rockies. Then as a graduate student, she studied at the Organization for Tropical Studies in Costa Rica and conducted research on forest dynamics in the Adirondacks and the Great Smoky Mountains. She has served as a scientist with the US National Park Service and conducted research on the Georgia and North Carolina coasts. She has held faculty positions at other institutions, including the University of Georgia, and Whitworth University.

The Comet Corner Series, created by the UT Dallas Office of Research and in partnership with the schools across our campus, hosts chats with some of our notable alumni to hear how they have taken their research out into the world and made #UTDResearchImpact.