Dr. Sarah Ray

Dr. Sarah Jaquette Ray (she/her) is a professor and chair of the Environmental Studies Department at Cal Poly Humboldt. She works at the intersection of climate justice and emotions, particularly among youth activists and in higher education.

Ray is author of two books, The Ecological Other: Environmental Exclusion in American Culture, on the emotion of disgust in environmentalism and its implications for social justice, and A Field Guide to Climate Anxiety: How to Keep Your Cool on a Warming Planet, an existential toolkit for the climate generation. She has co-edited multiple volumes bridging social justice and environmentalism, including Latinx Environmentalisms: Justice, Place, and the Decolonial, and Disability Studies & the Environmental Humanities. Her 2024 co-edited book on how to bring emotions into the climate classroom is The Existential Toolkit for Climate Justice Educators: How to Teach in a Burning World.

An environmental humanist with a BA in Religious Studies from Swarthmore College, an MA in American Studies from UT-Austin, and a PhD in Environmental Sciences, Studies and Policy from the University of Oregon, Dr. Ray draws on an eclectic range of disciplines in service of climate justice. Dr. Ray serves on the boards of the Rocky Mountain Ecodharma Retreat Center, the Climate Mental Health Network, and the Middlebury Climate Action Program. She speaks and publishes widely on the role of emotions in climate advocacy. Ray is also a certified mindfulness teacher through the UCLA Mindfulness Awareness Research Center.

For more information or to contact Dr. Ray, go to www.sarahjaquetteray.com. You can also follow Dr. Ray on Blue Sky and LinkedIn.