Nancy Tuchman (PhD, University of Louisville) is the Founding Dean of the Loyola University Chicago Institute of Environmental Sustainability. Prior to her role as Founding Dean, Dr. Tuchman spent her early career as a Professor of Aquatic Ecology in the Department of Biology at Loyola University Chicago. During that time, she served as a Program Officer in the Ecosystem Studies Program at the National Science Foundation in Washington D.C., before returning to Loyola to serve as the Associate Provost for Research for five years. In 2005 she founded and directed the Center for Urban Environmental Research and Policy at Loyola. For three years she served as the University’s Vice Provost before being appointed Founding Dean of the Institute of Environmental Sustainability.
Tuchman’s most recent project is Healing Earth, a free online environmental textbook written by over 90 contributors around the world and sponsored by leaders of the Society of Jesus (Jesuits) worldwide. Healing Earth addresses the most pressing environmental issues of our time, including loss of biodiversity, natural resource exhaustion, transition to sustainable energy, the quality and availability of food and water, and global climate change. All of these issues threaten our common home, disproportionately affecting the marginalized people of the world by having enormous impacts on the global economy, social violence, climate refugees, and world poverty. Healing Earth raises students’ scientific awareness, probes the ethical implications of our environmental crises, challenges students to think deeply about the meaning of the natural world in our lives, and calls all of us to action that heals the Earth.