People

Heather O'Leary

Associate Professor

Contact

Office: Davis 239
St. Petersburg Campus, Davis Hall
(SW stairwell through Reception 287 doors)
Phone: 727-873-4156
Email

Bio

An award-winning transdisciplinary scholar of the human dimensions of water, Dr. Heather O'Leary leads multiple science communication and diplomacy initiatives demonstrating the vital contributions communities make to transnational water policy and science. As an Associate Professor of Anthropology, her research interests trace the ways water impacts the most pressing concerns of our century - from extractive development; to informal labor and human migration; to challenges to human and environmental health; to building crucial data literacy goals in the face of disinformation and science skepticism; to creating just environmental policy models for all.
O’Leary’s current science literacy projects include: analyzing misinformation around chemicals of emerging concern along American coasts; comparative projects on cultural values of contamination in coastal and riparian India; epistemic erasure and selective citation in environmental sciences; expanding public hydroliteracy through data-driven sonification (CRESCENDO); and projects for the interdisciplinary USF Oceans of Data Think Tank which she jointly leads.
Together, these projects trace water knowledge across each of its steps—from physical source to scientific interpretation, public consumption, and policy—in non-linear and overlapping complexities.  Her portfolio outlines the challenges sciences face to making our waters secure and sustainable for today's needs and tomorrow's generations.
Dr. O'Leary has served as a specialist with the OECD, Global Water Partnership, International Science Council, and in leadership positions on the multiple international anthropological boards (World Anthropological Union (WAU); International Union of Anthropological and Ethnological Sciences (IUAES); Scientific Commission for Anthropology and Environment (CAE)) creating intergenerational, North-South learning communities among members to foster bi-directional mutual understanding.

education

  • M.A., University of Chicago
  • Ph.D., University of Minnesota

Additional Roles

Teaching

Undergraduate courses in anthropology and interdisciplinary social sciences, including courses on gender in the cross-cultural perspective, environmental movements methodologies and a senior capstone course. She directs CRESCENDO, where interdisciplinary colleagues join O'Leay's graduate and undergraduate students to analyze the changing representations of environmental justice in popular culture and rigorous scholarly works.

Awards

  • Fulbright
  • Wenner-Gren
  • NOAA-GCOOS
  • Case Studies in the Environment Best Article Award
  • The Burge and Field Outstanding Article Award “for innovative and meaningful contributions and great promise to be influential over time”
  • Kate Browne Creativity in Research Award (2025)

Publications

  • 2024: O’Leary, H., Kramer, M., Shuff, H., Howard, S. “Visual Tropes in the Restoration Logics of Coral Reefs: Global Restoration Organizations’ Shared Imagery” Environment and Society. Abstract Accepted for SI on Restoration; 2024, v15. With student co-authors. Under revision following revise and resubmit.
  • 2024: O’Leary, H. “Insecure Toilets, Secure Women: Examining the Museology of Sanitation Justice at Sulabh International Toilet Museum in Delhi, India” Indian Anthropologist.

  • 2024: O’Leary, H., Gantzert, T, Mann, A., Mann, E., Bollineni, N., Nelson, M. “Citation as Representation: Gendered Academic Citation Politics Persist in Environmental Studies Publications” Journal of Environmental Studies and Sciences Accepted for SI on Diversity; 2024. With student co-authors.

  • 2024: O’Leary, H., Alvarez, S., Bahja, F. “What’s in a Name?: Political and Economic Concepts Differ in Social Media References to Harmful Algae Blooms” Journal of Environmental Management 357 (2024): 120799. With student co-author.

  • 2024: Alvarez, S., Brown, C.E., Garcia, M., O’Leary, H., Solís, D. “Non-linear impacts of harmful algae blooms on the coastal tourism economy." Journal of Environmental Management 351 (2024): 119811.

    • First Prize: SECSA-CHRIE Most Innovative Thought-Provoking Research Award
  • 2023: O’Leary, H., Smiles, D., El Sayed, M., & Parr, S. “‘I Can’t Breathe:’ The Invisible Slow Violence of Breathing Politics in Minneapolis before Floyd” Special Issue on Air Quality of Society and Natural Resources.
  • 2023: Coleman, L. & O’Leary, H. "Right Under Our Noses: GIS Exploration of Covid-19 and Air Quality." In The Science Teacher. 2023; 90(3). With student co-author.

  • 2022: Hagen, L., Fox, A., O’Leary, H., Walker, K., Hernandez, R.G., & Lengacher, C. "The Role of Influential Actors in Fostering the Polarized COVID-19 Vaccine Discourse on Twitter: Mixed Methods of Machine Learning and Inductive Coding " In Journal of Medical Internet Research: Infodemiology. 2022;2(1):e34231.

  • 2022: O’Leary, H., El Sayed, M., & Parr, S.. "The Breathing Human Infrastructure: Integrating Air Quality, Traffic, and Social Media Indicators" In Science of the Total Environment, p154209.
  • 2021: Hernandez, R.G., Hagen, L., Walker, K., O’Leary, H., & Lengacher, C., (2021), The SARS-CoV-2 Vaccine Social Media Infodemic: Healthcare Providers' Missed Dose in Addressing Misinformation and Vaccine Hesitancy In Human Vaccines & Immunotherapeutics, 17 (11).

  • O’Leary, H. Washing Delhi: Conduits of Purity and Reproducing Class in a Developing Waterscape. Monograph Manuscript. University of Arizona Press. Under Revision after external peer review. 

  •  2019: “Conspicuous reserves: Ideologies of water consumption and the performance of class” In Economic Anthropology, “Water and Economy” 6: 195–207.
  • 2018: “Pluralizing Science for Inclusive Water Governance: An engaged ethnographic approach to WaSH data collection in Delhi, India” In Case Studies in the Environment.
    • First Prize: Case Studies in the Environment Best Article Award
  • 2017: “Epistemological Undercurrents: Delhi’s Water Crisis and the Role of the Urban Water Poor” In Water, Knowledge and the Environment in Asia: Epistemologies, practices and locales, Ravi Baghel, Lea Stepan, Joseph    K.W. Hill (eds.).  Routledge Earthscan series.
  • 2016: “Between stagnancy and affluence: Reinterpreting water poverty and domestic flows in Delhi, India.” Society & Natural Resources, 29 (6), 639-653.
  • 2015: (with lead author, Dustin Garrick) “Chapter 4: Pathways to Water Security” Securing Water, Sustaining Growth: Report of the GWP/OECD Task Force on Water Security and Sustainable Growth, Claudia Sadoff (ed.). 114-169. University of Oxford.
  • 2015: “Producing Middle-Class Waterscapes Beyond Middle-Class Thresholds: Domestic Workers and Identity Expression through Water Allocation in Lower-Class Delhi, India” In Averting a Global Environmental Collapse: The Role of Anthropology and Local Knowledge, Thomas Reuter (ed.); Cambridge Scholar Series.