Robert Gioielli

I am an urban and environmental historian, with particular interest in environmental justice, social equity and sustainability, as well as environmental politics and activism. I spent most of my career in the United States, primarily at the University of Cincinnati, but came to KTH in 2024 as an Associate Professor of Environmental History and Director of the Environmental Humanities Laboratory.

My early work focused on the history of grassroots urban environmental activism in the twentieth century United States. This work culminated in Environmental Activism and the Urban Crisis: Baltimore, St. Louis, Chicago. My research on the history environmental activism continued with a project on international wildlife conservation and environmental philanthropy that explored the role of fundraising and finance in the creation of civil society organizations and forms of environmental politics.

My current primary research is on the role that race, and efforts to maintain racial hierarchies and privilege, has in making cities more or less sustainable, with a focus on the development of American suburbia after the 1960s. An Environmental History of White Flight examines how whites attempted to use urban development restrictions to build and maintain racially exclusive communities, and more broadly, metropolitan power. These efforts had a host of environmental consequences. The manuscript is currently under contract with the University of Washington Press.

Other current interests include the development and structure of interdisciplinary projects, and the use of data in analyzing and visualizing urban social and environmental issues. I have also done significant work on public engagement and the humanities. I was the director and chief historian for the exhibition Rethinking Porkopolis: Cincinnati and the Ecology of Slavery,and from 2015 to 2023 I was a member of the board of directors (and chair for four years) of the Over-the-Rhine Museum.