To download publications or view my CV visit my page on academia.edu.
I am an Associate Professor in the School of Environment, Geography, and Sustainability at Western Michigan University (Kalamazoo, MI) where I teach environmental, sustainability, and water courses. At WMU I’m the Track Leader for Climate Change and Energy Policy, WMU Center for Interdisciplinary Research on Secure, Efficient and Sustainable Energy Technologyt. I’m also a Senior Fellow in the Bill Graham Centre for Contemporary International History at the University of Toronto, an Associate in the L.R. Wilson Institute for Canadian History at McMaster University, an Affiliate at Carleton University’s Global Water Institute, and an Affiliate of the Great Lakes History Research Group at the University of Windsor. I’m currently the President of the International Water History Association (IWHA) and the co-editor of the “Environmental Studies of the Great Lakes” book series with MSU Press.
My research looks at Canadian and American environmental, transnational/borderlands, environmental diplomacy, energy, and technology issues, focusing in particular on the history of US-Canada border waters in the Great Lakes-St. Lawrence basin. I am an environmental historian, but my work tends to cross both interdisciplinary and political boundaries (e.g., political science, political ecology, IR, historical geography, sustainability studies, etc.). I engage current policy issues with some of my publications and teaching, and I have also served as an expert witness, researcher, and consultant for different departments in the Canadian federal government.
My first book, published in 2014, was on the binational creation of the St. Lawrence Seaway and Power Project, titled Negotiating a River: Canada, the U.S., and the Creation of the St. Lawrence Seaway. I co-edited (with Lynne Heasley) and contributed to Border Flows: A Century of the Canadian-American Water Relationship which is available as an Open Access publication. I co-edited (with Murray Clamen) and contributed to a book on the history of the Boundary Waters Treaty and the International Joint Commission, titled The First Century of the International Joint Commission. My 2020 book Fixing Niagara Falls: Environment, Energy, and Engineers at the World’s Most Famous Waterfall delves into the transnational history of landscape, engineering, and hydro-electricity at Niagara Falls.
In 2023 I published the book Natural Allies: Environment, Energy, and the History of US-Canada Relations. In September 2024, my sixth book, titled The Lives of Lake Ontario: An Environmental History, will be published. I’ve tentatively started working on other research projects on the history of Canadian climate diplomacy and on the environmental history of Lake Michigan. In the long run I plan to write an environmental history of the Great Lakes.
In the past I’ve utilized digital humanities, such as GIS mapping, and have co-authored several different print and online efforts showing how historians and other scholars can make use of digital techniques, including an online textbook (co-authored with Josh MacFadyen and Jim Clifford) The Geospatial Historian. I am an editor of The Otter, the NiCHE (Network in Canadian History and Environment) group blog, and am a member of the NiCHE Executive. My writing and research has appeared in, or been featured in, public-facing forums such as The Washington Post, Slate, The Globe and Mail, Huffington Post, The Conversation, Maclean’s, Toronto Star, Ottawa Citizen, Buffalo News, The National Post, CBC, BBC, etc. I have a photography and film background, some of which you can see on this site.
I can be reached at: danielwdmacfarlane at gmail.com or daniel.macfarlane at wmich.edu
Daniel Macfarlane, PhD 