Sarah Surak

Research Interest

Dr. Sarah Surak holds a joint appointment as Associate Professor in the Departments of Political Science and Environmental Studies at Salisbury University. Her interdisciplinary research spans the topics of environmental political theory, social theory, civic engagement, and critical public administration, and has appeared in journals such as New Political Science, Capitalism Nature Socialism, Administrative Theory & Praxis, and the Journal of Higher Education Outreach and Engagement. Her book, Governing Waste: Politics, Process, and Public Administration (expected Routledge 2019), assesses the practices of sustainability and waste management by municipal authorities.

Dr. Surak co-Directs Salisbury University’s Institute for Public Affairs and Civic Engagement. With her colleague, Dr. Sandy Pope, she oversees daily operations, a multi-year research project to collect and analyze data on the delivery of a civic engagement curricular and co-curricular programming, and the Center for Civic Reflection. Surak and Pope are the 2019 recipients of the Wilson H. Elkins Professorship from the University System of Maryland to support these efforts.

PACE: http://www.salisbury.edu/PACE
Center for Civic Reflection: http://civicreflection.org
Civic Engagement: https://www.salisbury.edu/academic-offices/liberal-arts/pace/ceac/sarah-surak.aspx