Political Science Faculty

Fatemeh Shafiei, Ph.D., is associate professor and chair of the Department of Political Science and co-chair of the Sustainable Spelman Committee. 

Dr. Shafiei, a member of the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency’s National Environmental Justice Advisory Council (NEJAC), has served as an environmental justice consultant for the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) and Bates College. She was a member of the Academic Advisory Board for the Annual Editions: Sustainability, which was published by McGraw-Hill Higher Education Contemporary Learning Series. 

She was an Environmental Fellow at Associated Colleges of the South, and has served as an invited speaker, panelist, chair, section chair, panel organizer, moderator and discussant for numerous conferences and forums.  Dr. Shafiei has also served as project director, co-project director, and partnership leader on numerous federal grants from U.S. Environmental Protection Agency (EPA), and Department of Energy (DOE).  In addition, she has served as project director for grants from UNCF/Mellon.

Dr. Shafiei has been an expert and a leader in advancing integration of sustainability into college, university, high school, and middle school curricula for more than two decades. To advance education for sustainability, she has planned, developed and conducted numerous workshops and institutes for college and university faculty; and for high school and middle school teachers. In addition, Dr. Shafiei has received funding for her research in the environmental policy area from U.S. Environmental Protection Agency for “Environmental Policy an Innovation Grant: Emergency Planning and Preparedness.”

Dr. Shafiei is very passionate about addressing environmental justice and has organized and led a broad spectrum of advocacy and educational projects. The many projects she has hosted and directed include “Toxics Release Inventory Regional Workshop;” “Reimagining the Twenty-First Century through Advancing Education for Sustainability;” “Environmental Justice Summit;” “Environmental Lecture Series;” and “The Atlanta Environmental Summit: Linking Priorities from a Minority Perspective.”

Dr. Shafiei received her B.A and her Ph.D. from the University of California, Riverside.   Her research and teaching interests are in environmental policy, environmental justice, climate justice, environmental education, environmental determinants of health disparity, and international relations. Dr. Shafiei’s publications are in the areas of environmental policy, environmental determinants of health disparities and environmental education.