Peter Friederici  

 

    

Associate Professor
Science Writing, Environmental Journalism, Science Communication
School of Communication, Room 335
(928) 523-6378
Peter.Friederici@nau.edu 

Research and teaching interests

As an award-winning journalist specializing in science and environmental stories, Peter is interested in how complex and important topics are communicated through today’s media. His writing, teaching and research focus on exploring connections between people and the environment, and on ensuring that the reporting and analysis involved in such stories are accurate, compelling and relevant.

Courses offered

• Introduction to Journalism
• Basic Reporting
• Environmental Reporting
• In-depth Reporting
• Journalism Capstone Project
• Environmental Communication
• Ecological Oral Histories

Representative research and creative activity

What Has Passed and What Remains. Permanent multimedia oral history exhibit at the Pioneer Museum, Flagstaff. 

What Has Passed and What Remains: Oral Histories of Northern Arizona’s Changing Landscapes. University of Arizona Press, 2010 [edited collection of first-person narratives about environmental change]. 

“Pecking Order,” Audubon 113, no. 1 (January 2011): 60-64 [on the science of bird beaks]. 

 “The World’s Best Bad Idea,” Miller-McCune 3, no. 6 (November 2010): 46-53 [on ocean carbon sequestration]. 

 “Working the Stone,” pp. 9-16 in The New Nature Writers: A Junction Anthology, ed. K. Caswell. Texas Tech University Press, 2010 [essay]. 

“The dirt on climate change,” Miller-McCune 3, no. 1 (January 2010): 42-47 [on soils and carbon storage]. 

 “California prepares for the next burn,” High Country News 41, no. 10 (June 8, 2009): 6-7 [on wildfire planning]. 

Nature’s Restoration: People and Places on the Front Lines of Conservation. Island Press, 2006) [nonfiction book profiling the spread of ecological restoration across North America]. 

 “Fifteen Ways of Seeing the Light,” pp. 70-85 in The Best American Spiritual Writing 2004, ed. P. Zaleski. Boston: Houghton Mifflin [essay].

Links of interest

 

www.whathaspassed.net (An overview of NAU’s Ecological Oral Histories project) 

peterfriederici.com (personal webpage) 

nieman.harvard.edu/narrative/digest (Literary journalism: great examples and how-tos) 

 

Education

• 1991 M.S., Environmental Education with focus in environmental writing, Audubon Expedition Institute/Lesley College, Cambridge, Massachusetts
• 1985 B.A., Comparative Literature, Northwestern University, Evanston, Illinois; graduated Phi Beta Kappa
• 1983–1984 Ludwig-Maximilians-Universität München, Germany (Wayne State University Study Abroad Program)