Martin V. Melosi
Distinguished Professor (United States, Environment)
556 Agnes Arnold Hall
(713) 743-3090
mmelosi@uh.edu

Dr. Melosi is one of the nation’s leading scholars in the area of Environmental history. Melosi is Distinguished University Professor of History and Director of the Center for Public History at the University of Houston. In 2000-01, he held the Fulbright Chair in American Studies at the University of Southern Denmark in Odense, and has been a visiting professor at the University of Paris and the University of Helsinki. He has a Ph.D. in History from the University of Texas at Austin and a BA and MA in History from the University of Montana.

Melosi recently has received the Esther Farfel Award, the highest honor accorded to a University of Houston faculty member. The Farfel Award, a symbol of career excellence, is based on three criteria: the significance and international impact of the candidate’s research; his or her outstanding teaching ability; and his or her exemplary service to the University, the profession, and the community.

Dr. Melosi is the general editor for the History of the Urban Environments Series of the University of Pittsburgh Press (with Joel A. Tarr), served on the Scientific Committee for Postgraduate Studies on Urbanism at the University of Geneva, and has been president of the American Society for Environmental History, the National Council on Public History, and the Public Works Historical Society. In the Department of History, he has been the director of graduate studies and has served on the executive and graduate committee. In 2005-06, he will serve as chair of the University Research Council.

Teaching:
Dr. Melosi teaches a variety of research classes in the field of Environmental history, public history, and American urban history. One of his strengths as an instructor is his ability to communicate his knowledge effectively to his students while encouraging them to use critical thinking when analyzing complex historical events. Melosi has directed numerous theses and dissertations.

Research:
Professor Melosi has written ten books and more than sixty articles, and book chapters. His areas of research interest include urban environmental history, city services and urban technology, environmental racism, environmental politics, and energy history. His published work covers these areas as well as topics in American diplomatic history, public history, and the history of technology. For example, the multiple-award-winning The Sanitary City (Johns Hopkins, 2000) traced the development of water supplies wastewater, and solid waste systems in the United States from colonial times to the present. He is currently doing research for books on the environmental history of Houston, an abridged version of The Sanitary City, and atomic power in America.

Selected Publications:
The Sanitary City: Urban Infrastructure in America from Colonial Times to the Present. Johns Hopkins university Press, 2000. Winner of the George Perkins Marsh Prize, American Society for Environmental History, for the best book in environmental history (2000); winner of the Abel Wolman Prize, Public Works Historical Society for the best book in public works history (2001); winner of the Urban History Association Prize for the best book in North American Urban History (2001); and winner of the Sidney Edelstein Prize, Society for the History of Technology, for an outstanding scholarly book in the history of technology (1999-2001).

Garbage in the Cities: Refuse, Reform and the Environment. ed. (University of Pittsburgh Press, 2005).

Effluent America: Cities, Industry, Energy, and the Environment (University of Pittsburgh Press, 2001).

Public History and the Environment, (co-author with Philip Scarpino). (Krieger Pub., 2004).

Urban Public Policy: Historical Modes and Methods (Penn State Press, 1993) (Editor and contributor).

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