Position Title
Associate Professor & Co-Director, Center for Environmental Behavior
Gwen Arnold joined the Department of Environmental Science and Policy at UC Davis in 2013. She graduated from Indiana University with a PhD in public policy, and is an affiliated faculty member at the Vincent and Elinor Ostrom Workshop in Political Theory and Policy Analysis at Indiana University. Her research broadly focuses on when, why, and how scientific knowledge is integrated into policy processes, examining how institutional and social structures; political dynamics; and characteristics of problems, information, stakeholders, and decision-makers all facilitate or hinder this integration. Arnold’s current research particularly focuses on how to evaluate the functions and values wetlands provide society; how government officials who implement environmental policy access and use policy innovations; and how citizens and policy decision-makers form opinions and make choices regarding hydraulic fracturing (fracking) amidst pervasive scientific uncertainty.