Meet the faculty
Dr. Yi-Sz Lin
Assistant Professor
Phone: (217) 206-7805
e-mail: ylin43@uis.edu
Yi-Sz Lin, assistant professor of Geographic Information System (GIS) and environmental planning, received his PhD in Urban and Regional Sciences from Texas A&M University in 2009. He has a B.S. in Architecture and a M.S. in Construction Science. He currently directs the GIS Laboratory in the Department of Environmental Studies at UIS.
During his PhD study, Yi-Sz worked for the Hazard Reduction and Recovery Center (HRRC) at Texas A&M University on several research projects including the Mid-America Earthquake (MAE) center project that developed algorithms to map social vulnerability and estimate post-disaster population dislocation as well as shelter needs for communities, the National Center for Disaster Reduction (NCDR) project that compares the patterns of housing recovery after 1992 Hurricane Andrew in Florida and 1999 Chi-Chi earthquake in Taiwan, and the NOAA Sea Grant program that develops a coastal communities planning atlas as an educational tool for decision makers and local residents.
Yi-Sz’s interests include environmental hazard management, GIS applications in environmental planning and hazard management, and statistical/planning methods. He is certified in GIS, Remote Sensing, and Environmental Hazard Management by Texas A&M University.
Dr. Troy Lepper 
Visiting Assistant Professor
e-mail: tlepp2@uis.edu
Dr. Troy Lepper received his Ph.D from the Colorado State University Sociology Department, and he received his M.S. from the University of Missouri-Columbia Rural Sociology Department. Dr. Lepper worked as a research associate in the Sociology Water Lab and has worked on a variety of natural resource use projects. During his time with the Sociology Water Lab, Dr. Lepper has researched many pressing issues affecting changing water use patterns in the arid West in general and the state of Colorado in particular. Dr. Lepper does research on water marketing in the Western United States, and the ultimate consequences of urban growth and the transfer of water from one economic use to another. Over this time, Dr. Lepper has researched the implementation of water banks in the state of Colorado, as well as the development of new water markets in the western part of the United States. These new water markets are designed to move water from agricultural uses, which tend to be lower valued uses for scarce water resources, to municipal uses, which tend to have a higher value.
Dr. Andrew Predmore 
Assistant Professor
Phone (217) 206-7895
e-mail: spred2@uis.edu
Andrew received his PhD from the Department of Forest Resources and Environmental Conservation at Virginia Tech. Before joining the Department of Environmental Studies at UIS, Andrew conducted postdoctoral research at Virginia Tech geared towards determining which factors—public controversy, planning team leadership, interdisciplinary team work styles, or public involvement values and techniques—most commonly predict success in planning efforts on federal lands. Results from this work are being used to improve environmental planning efforts across the national forest system. In addition to his work on federal public lands, Andrew is interested in relating public involvement, environmental values, and environment discourse to planning outcomes. Results from his research have been published in Society and Natural Resources, the Journal of Forestry, the Journal of Environmental Planning and Management, and Environmental Impact Assessment Review.
Andrew’s passion for natural resource issues stem from his own love of outdoor recreation, and when he is not working he can be found playing tennis, taking his kids to Washington Park, or occasionally backpacking. Although Andrew has mostly lived and worked in the southeastern U.S., he is excited to learn about sustainability issues in Illinois, as well as those directly linked to the UIS campus and the Springfield area.
Dr. Dennis Ruez, Jr. 
Assistant Professor
Environmental Studies Department Chair Director of Graduate Admissions
Phone: (217) 206-8425
e-mail: druez2@uis.edu
Dennis received his Ph.D. in geological sciences from The University of Texas at Austin in 2007 and joins UIS after spending three years teaching at Auburn University. Dennis is a vertebrate paleontologist with research interests inthe relationship of past climate changeand fossil mammal communities. This includes the rigorous testing of paleoecological models and developing new quantifiable methods of examining past environmental change. To this end, Dennis has done field work throughout the US - coast to coast, and border to border. His work is published both in regional journals and international ones (including Journal of Vertebrate Paleontology, Journal of Human Evolution, and Journal of Paleontology).
Visit Dr. Ruez's web site or read more at Inside UIS.
Dr. Tih-Fen Ting
Associate Professor
Phone: (217) 206-7876
Email: tting1@uis.edu
Areas of Interest: Resource ecology and conservation, population-environment interactions, ecosystem management, and sustainability studies.
Tih-Fen Ting received her Ph.D. in Natural Resources and Environment at the University of Michigan in 2003. She has a B.S. in Biology and a M.S. in Wildlife.
Her work before Michigan focused mainly on the ecology, behavior, and demography of various avian species (including northern spotted owls). At Michigan, as a doctoral student, Professor Ting began an interdisciplinary exploration on issues regarding interactions between human populations and the environment. Her dissertation focused on how resource accessibility affects individual reproductive decision-making in China. She also participates in a collaborative project on public health and environmental integrity along the Danshui River ecosystem in northern Taiwan. At UIS, Professor Ting has been active in campus sustainability initiatives.
In 2002, Professor Ting was selected as a LIFE fellow in the International Max Planck Research School. She has published her work in journals including Population and Environment, Science of the Total Environment, and Environmental Justice. Read more at Inside UIS.
Dr. Ting currently chairs the UIS Campus Senate.
Associated Faculty
Professors from the natural and social sciences and the humanities often lend their expertise to broaden the educational experiences of our students.
Harshavardhan Bapat
Associate Professor, Chemistry
(217) 206-7744
e-mail: hbapa1@uis.edu
Environmental chemistry
Michael Lemke
Professor, Biology
(217) 206-7339
e-mail: lemke.michael@uis.edu
Microbial and aquatic ecology
Amy McEuen
Associate Professor, Biology
(217) 206-7341
e-mail:
mceuen.amy@uis.edu
Ecology
Robert McGregor
Professor, Hisory
(217) 206-7442
e-mail: mcgregor.robert@uis.edu
Environmental history
William Siles
Associate Professor, History
(217) 206-7432
e-mail: siles.william@uis.edu
Urban and agricultural history
Emeriti Faculty
Edward Hawes, Malcolm Levin, John Munkirs, Charles Schweighauser, William Warren, Roy Wehrle.
Adjunct Faculty
The department brings in individuals from the surrounding community, and worldwide, whose professional expertise in a particular subject allows students to broaden their educational experience.
Matt Evans, Deanna Glosser, Stephen Janasie, Tom Heavisides, Roger Kanerva, Tom Miskelly, Mehdi Nassirpour, Erinn Nicley, Mohammed Shahidullah, Jennifer Scanlan, John Sherrill, Darlene Snyder, Chris Widga.
