Professor Louise Fortmann of the department of environmental science, policy, and management is among three UC Berkeley recipients of the 2010 Sarlo Distinguished Graduate Student Mentoring Awards. The award honors professors for outstanding graduate student mentorship.
Professor Fortmann's research focuses on rural sociology. Her work examines natural resource use and management for individuals and communities. Her students work all over the world, though her own research concentrates on California and southern Africa. She studies issues of gender, property, poverty, community control of natural resources, and knowledge production (the study of social structures and processes that facilitate successful collaboration between scientists and researchers).