Mike Pasqualetti

Martin J. "Mike" Pasqualetti is a professor in the School of Geographical Sciences at Arizona State University. He is also a member of the graduate faculty on Global Technology and Development at ASU Polytechnic, and an affiliated faculty member in the Global Institute of Sustainability. He pioneered the study of "Landscapes of Power," which interprets the role of human energy demand in reshaping natural landscapes.

Education
Pasqualetti received his B.A. in Geography from the University of California, Berkeley; his M.A. in Geography and Anthropology from LSU in Baton Rouge, and his Ph.D. from the University of California, Riverside.

Publications
Dr. Pasqualetti has published books on wind power, nuclear power plant decommissioning, nuclear energy hazards, landscape development, and 75 articles on various topics, including renewable energy and energy and environment at the U.S./Mexico Border. The following are a small sample of his published works:

Books

 * Nuclear Power: Assessing and Managing Hazardous Technology, edited with K. David Pijawka, 1984
 * Wind Power in View: Landscapes of Power in a Crowded World, edited with Paul Gipe and Robert Righter, 2002

Articles

 * "Morality, Space, and the Power of Wind-Energy Landscapes", The Geographical Review, 90(3):381-394, July 2000
 * "Wind Energy Landscapes: Society and Technology in the California Desert", Society and Natural Resources, 2001
 * "The Unsiting of Nuclear Power: The land use context of decommissioning risk". The Professional Geographer, 48(1):57-69 (with K. David Pijawka), 1996
 * "The land use focus of energy impacts", in Energy and Land Use Planning Newark, N.J.: Transaction Publishers, pp.99-136, 1990
 * "Landscape Permanence and Nuclear Warnings", The Geographical Review, 7(1):73-91, 1997
 * "Land requirements for the solar and coal options", The Geographical Journal, July, 1984

Service
To advance energy studies, Dr. Pasqualetti founded the Energy and Environment Specialty Group of the Association of American Geographers in 1979. He also wrote the principal documents for the energy-educational program called "In Concert with the Environment," which was distributed and completed by approximately one million users. As part of that program, he devised the "EcoWatt" monetized measure of the environmental benefits of energy savings.

He was appointed by Governor Hull and reappointed by Governor Napolitano of Arizona as Chairman of the Arizona Solar Energy Advisory Council in 2002, and has been instrumental in promoting solar energy development in Arizona. He is an original member of the Board of Directors of the Arizona Solar Center.

Dr. Pasqualetti has advised several agencies, including the U.S. Department of Energy, the U.S. Office of Technology Assessment, the Southwest Center for Environmental Research and Policy, the National Wind Coordinating Committee, the Natural Resources Defense Council, the Center for the American West, and Resources for the Future.

Dr. Pasqualetti serves on the Editorial Boards of two scientific journals, The International Journal of Sustainable Energy Technologies and Land Use Policy, and he is Associate Editor of Environmental Sciences.

For two years he served on the Arizona Board of Geographic and Historic Names, where he was principally responsible for the renaming of "Squaw Peak" in Phoenix, Arizona to "Piestewa Peak", in honor of the first Native American female killed in combat. He was also the founding member and President of the Rural/Geneva Neighborhood Association (Tempe, Arizona), and is a member of the Tempe Board of Adjustment.

Awards and honors
Dr. Pasqualetti was chosen Environmental Educator of the Year (Association of Energy Engineers) and received a Lifetime Achievement Award from the Renewable Energy Task Force. In recognition of teaching excellence, he was chosen Co-Curricular Professor of the Month in March 2004.

In recognition of the interplay of wind energy and landscapes, he was appointed Associate Member of the National Wind Coordinating Committee in Washington, D.C. His students hold positions at utility companies, universities, and federal and state agencies.