Maria Isabel Espinoza
- Assistant Professor
- Department of Sociology
- PhD Sociology, Rutgers University-New Brunswick, 2023
- Berkey Hall Room 460B
- 509 E. Circle Drive
- East Lansing, MI 48824
- espin145@msu.edu
LINKS
CURRICULUM VITAE
Maria Isabel Espinoza P.BIOGRAPHY
Maria Isabel Espinoza is an Assistant Professor in the Department of Sociology at Michigan State University. Her research and teaching areas of expertise are environmental communication, the sociology of climate change, and the climate and health nexus. Her work has been published in Social Science & Medicine, Environmental Sociology, Big Data & Society, and Climatic Change. Her book, A Strategic Nature: Public Relations and the Politics of Environmentalism (Oxford University Press), co-authored with Melissa Aronczyk, has won the National Communication Association’s Roderick P. Hart Outstanding Book Award in the Political Communication division.CURRENT RESEARCH
One of her current research projects examines how the immigration experiences of Latinx populations in the United States shape their understandings of environmental problems and potential solutions.
A second project examines how women’s organizations in the Andean and Amazonian regions identify and articulate demands related to climate change adaptation, with a particular focus on health. This project builds on her previous research exploring how laypeople and public health experts in Peru understand the relationships among environmental conditions, climate change, and infectious diseases such as dengue, and how they identify strategies to adapt to these challenges.
PUBLICATIONS
Book
Aronczyk, M. & Espinoza, M.I. (2022). A Strategic Nature. Public Relations and The Politics of American Environmentalism. Oxford University Press. https://global.oup.com/academic/product/a-strategic-nature-9780190055356.
· Outstanding Book Award in PR from the National Communication Association
Book Chapters
Aronczyk, M., & Espinoza, M.I. (2024). Climate Change and Public Relations Firms. Pp. 443-456 in Routledge Handbook on Climate Change & Society, 2nd Edition.
Journal Articles
Espinoza, M. I. (Accepted on October 6, 2026). Organizational Barriers to Addressing Climate-Sensitive Diseases in Decentralized Health Systems: A Case Study of Peru’s Dengue Response. Global Public Health.
Mohanto, K.*, Picasso, C., Benjamin, M., Espinoza, M.I., O’Connor, & Rodriguez, Z. (Accepted on August 10, 2026). Dairy producers’ perceptions of Highly Pathogenic Avian Influenza (HPAI) H5N1 and their influence on adoption of biosecurity practices. Journal of Dairy Science
Takahashi, B., dos Santos, I., Aparicio, R., Beling, E., Espinoza, M., Gavirati, P., Gil, C., Gómez, V., Herrera, E., Nepote, A., & Palma, C. (2026). "Environmental communication from Latin America..” https://doi.org/10.1080/17524032.2026.2680570
Espinoza, M. I. (2021). Conflicting diagnostic and prognostic framing of epidemics? Newspaper representations of dengue as a public health problem. Social Science & Medicine, 289, 114398. DOI: 10.1016/j.socscimed.2021.114398
Espinoza, M. I., & Aronczyk, M. (2021). Big data for climate action or climate action for big data? Big Data & Society, 8(1). DOI:10.1177/2053951720982032
Aronczyk, M., & Espinoza, M. I. (2019). Sustainable communication: green PR and the export of corporate environmentalism, 1989–1997. Environmental Sociology, 5(3), 308-322. DOI: 10.1080/23251042.2018.1564455
Espinoza, M. I., & Brechin, S. R. (2017). A case against the Green Climate Fund’s concurrent 50:50 ratio climate change mitigation and adaptation strategy. Climatic Change, 142, 311–320. DOI:10.1007/s10584-017-1938-8
Espinoza, M. I., & Brechin, S. R. (2017). A case against the Green Climate Fund’s concurrent 50:50 ratio climate change mitigation and adaptation strategy. Climatic Change, 142, 311–320. DOI:10.1007/s10584-017-1938-8