MES Faculty and Staff
MES Program Director
Edward (Ted) Whitesell, Director
While a freshman at the University of Colorado, Ted co-founded the CU Wilderness Study Group in 1970. After graduation, Ted ran the Colorado Wilderness Workshop, the only statewide preservation organization at the time. From 1975 to 1985, he was a leader of the Southeast Alaska Conservation Council, campaigning to secure designation of the first wilderness areas in the Tongass National Forest. At that time, he was recognized as the most accomplished environmental leader in the country of 25 years of age or less by the Tyler Foundation, which awarded him its 1976 Junior Tyler Ecology Award. Later, he earned a Ph.D. in geography from the University of California, Berkeley, investigating grassroots proposals for conservation and development in the Amazon rainforest of Brazil . He now teaches environmental studies at The Evergreen State College, where he is Director of the Master of Environmental Study (MES) Program. He is also President of the Board of Directors for the Washington Wilderness Coalition. His students published a major book under his guidance in April 2004, called Defending Wild Washington (The Mountaineers Books). His current research is a collaborative investigation with the Tulalip Tribes of tribal perspectives on marine protected areas in Washington. Ted currently teaches "Environmental Advocacy" and "Political Economic and Ecological Processes" in the MES Program.
MES Assistant Director and Resource Faculty
JT Austin, Assistant Director
Jennifer (JT) Austin completed her undergraduate studies in Anthropology at the University of Washington in 1994. She then went on to work for the Harvard University Semitic Museum's Leon Levy Expedition in Ashkelon, Israel, among various other archaeological sites throughout the Middle East. JT returned to the US to work as a Sub-Saharan Africa Researcher for Amnesty International, USA in Washington, DC. She went on to law school and graduated from the Seattle University School of Law in 1998. JT took a leave of absence after her first year of law school to work with the Organization for Security and Cooperation in Europe for one year based in Sarajevo, Bosnia and Herzegovina. She was the Director of the Media Experts Commission and worked with post-war Bosnian Muslims, Bosnian Croats, and Bosnian Serbs in an effort to provide unbiased print and television media. JT returned to Olympia in 1998 and worked for the Washington State House of Representatives for two years before becoming a political consultant for various statewide political campaigns. She began working for Evergreen in 2001. JT has a two-year-old son, two cats and a dog. She can be seen hiking the beach trails with her dog, Bindi, most days at low tide.
MES Program Staff
- JT Austin, Assistant Director and Resource Faculty
- Lee Stellmacher, Secretary
MES Program Faculty
Biographical and contact information for Evergreen faculty is available in the faculty directory: