Bilal Butt

Bilal Butt is a Professor in the School for Environment and Sustainability and a Senior Advisor at the Center for Global Health Equity at the University of Michigan. He is a Visiting Research Scientist at the Institute for Human Development at Aga Khan University in Nairobi, Kenya. His research sits at the intersection of environmental justice, health equity, and environmental geopolitics. His work centers on three sub-areas: (1) the environmental politics of life and death; (2) livelihood and ecological change under regimes of uncertainty in East African drylands, and (3) environmental and public health dynamics in the tropics. He is a faculty affiliate of the African Studies Center, the Department of Afro-American and African Studies, the Science, Technology, and Public Policy Program, the Michigan Institute for AI, Data Science and Society, and the Science, Technology, and Society Program. Dr. Butt has received the National Science Foundation Career Award for his research and the Kwadwo Konadu-Agyemang Distinguished Scholar Award from the Association of American Geographers. He has received funding from other NSF programs, the Center for Global Health Equity, the University of Michigan, and foundations. He is the recipient of the University of Michigan's Superior Teaching Award and was nominated for the President's Award for Leadership in International Education. He has published in diverse journals, including the Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences, Annals of the Association of American Geographers, Remote Sensing of Environment, Journal of Applied Ecology, and Humanity. He teaches courses on Conservation Justice, Data Justice, Political Ecology, Environmental Governance, and Preparing for International Fieldwork. He directs the Critical Environmental Geopolitics Research Group, which brings together visiting scholars, community practitioners, postdocs, master's and PhD students, and undergraduate students.