About

Ph.D., Geography, Clark University

As a human geographer, Prof. Pieck is broadly interested in how various forms of nature (e.g., “cultural landscapes” or “biodiversity”) are produced, how they become meaningful to different groups of people, and how they are governed, by whom, and to what end.

Research

In the past, she has examined these issues by exploring the transnational alliances between Amazonian Indigenous groups and US environmentalists and by studying NGO mobilization strategies against regional integration and mega-infrastructure projects in Peru.

Her most recent research has taken her back to Germany, her country of origin, where she investigated the history and environmental politics of the Green Belt, an ecological corridor and protected area crafted from the remains of the Cold War inter-German border that once separated socialist East Germany from capitalist West Germany. In her book, Mnemonic Ecologies: Memory and Nature Conservation along the Former Iron Curtain (MIT Press, 2023), she is particularly interested in the complex and mutual entanglements of emergent ecosystems and historical memory. In landscapes marked by war, militarization, and trauma, she argues for a conservation praxis productively situated between land care and curation, between ecological principles and historical memorialization, and between expertise and community participation. Her work ultimately advances a vision of conservation that is sensitive to the landscape’s past while being collaborative, empathetic, and more deeply acknowledging of the interlacing between humans and the places they inhabit.

2024 PROSE Award for Excellence Winner

2024 Choice Outstanding Academic Title

Appearances

Discussion of the book on the New Books Network podcast. October 2023.

Presentation at the UNESCO-hosted conference on “History, Memory, and Heritage in the Age of Ecological Crisis” in Seoul, Korea (begins at 2:26:00). June 2024.

Excerpts from a video interview (in German) with the Thuringian Ministry of the Environment (Thüringer Ministerium für Umwelt, Energie und Naturschutz) about my research. August 2024.

Online book talk at the Greenhouse Center for Environmental Humanities. September 2024.

Realms of Memory Podcast: “Death Strip to Green Belt: Memory and Conservation in Germany.” December 2024.

Book presentation and roundtable discussion at Wageningen University, Netherlands. June 2025.

Keynote lecture at the University of Passau Summer School for Applied Ethics, “History & Memory: Ethical Dimensions.” August 2025.

Teaching

Prof. Pieck is a recipient of Bates College’s Kroepsch Award for Excellence in Teaching. Her courses, from the introductory to the upper levels, broadly cover the environmental social sciences and range across the Global North and South. Course descriptions can be found in the College Catalog.