Making connections is what motivates Tanya Heikkila -- inside and outside the classroom, and in her research.

Heikkila, an assistant professor in the Department of International and Public Affairs, says she gets “joy in seeking out hot button issues I think students will be inspired by, and maybe make some small dent in some big problem.” Her “hot buttons”: clean water, climate change, alternative energy sources, green buildings.

She’s been at Columbia since 2002, teaching Environmental Politics and PolicyManagement and two workshop classes, Applied Earth Systems Management and Earth Systems Policy Analysis, both part of SIPA’s Master of Public Administration program.

In talking with Hekkila about her teaching, it’s clear that the workshops, especially Earth Systems Policy Analysis, are her favorites. Through these workshops – in her own words – she’s able “to teach from a practical perspective in practice-oriented classes.” In the policy analysis workshop, students actually work for a client. There, Heikkila says, “I have my biggest impact.”

She’s also able to bring together her students and her “hot buttons” in the policy analysis workshop. Last year, for example, student teams worked with the Clean Energy Group, a non-profit organization that seeks ways to market new, less polluting energy sources. The Columbia team analyzed community-based wind power in the United States, comparing states that belong to the Clean Energy States Alliance with those that do not.

Another of Heikkila’s groups has recently worked with Notre Europe, a think tank based in Paris, to analyze the European Emission Trading Scheme to reduce greenhouse gas emissions. This summer several of these students have returned to Europe with paid internships for additional work on environmental issues.

Heikkila says both the Clean Energy Group and Notre Europe planned to use the students’ reports to inform stakeholders and policymakers about the target issues – namely cleaner energy and less greenhouse gas emission – and to provide policy recommendations from the findings.

Heikkila describes students in each of her classes as “activist, passionate and wanting to make a difference.” She sees networking and helping them find and make contacts as essential parts of their MPA educations. And she raves about what she calls Columbia’s “entrepreneurial students.” “Their enthusiasm needs to be institutionalized,” she says. “Faculty and administration have the responsibility to institutionalize this enthusiasm over time and be inspired by students. It’s great to be a professor, constantly inspired by young ideas.”

Heikkila is a member of the Search Committee that’s been working over the summer to find a Director of Environmental Stewardship, a new position at Columbia. She says she’s been very impressed by the applicants who’ve been interviewed, and plans to tap some of them for her course in Environmental Politics and Policy Management. “I’m hoping to get some back as guest speakers. They’ve got lots of experience,” she says, “and most students want the practical side of environmental policy.”

“Salmon and streams were my life as a kid,” Heikkila says. Hence her deep interest in water issues. Her undergraduate studies at the University of Oregon were focused on international affairs and the environment. She studied Spanish, and became interested in U.S.-Mexican border issues.

Heikkila moved on to the University of Arizona (UA), from which she received her MPA and PhD, because of its strong environmental and border issues program. Though she thought she’d stay involved in international environmental issues, as a PhD student she was encouraged to work with a faculty member on a National Science Foundation grant on water issues in the Southwest.

Now Heikkila shares another NSF grant with a UA faculty member. This one concerns interstate river basin compacts and the allocation of water across states. She and her partner will look at the challenges and conflicts, how they arise and whether interstate agreements can resolve them.

Heikkila’s thoughts on environmental stewardship closer to home, within the Columbia University community?

She’s convinced that as an Ivy League institution, Columbia should be setting an example, and developing commitments to environmental stewardship from research, teaching, administration and management. Heikkila cites the Columbia’s “enormous resources – the Earth Institute, Lamont-Doherty, SIPA, an active international student body,” and says that to harness these resources, “we need forums for communication.”

In Heikkila’s view, reaching beyond campus boundaries is essential to the stewardship effort. She regards the new Director of Environmental Stewardship as pivotal in making this happen. The new director will need to “take risks, have outside connections,” she says. We can’t exist in a vacuum; we’re community members of Harlem and Morningside Heights.”

“We need to set a big and bold example. We need something big and bold to sell,” Heikkila says. Bringing the Director of Environmental Stewardship on board “could be a big, bold step. There are lots of pieces we need to harvest into a bigger ball of energy.”