The Log | School News
Nicholas School Mourns Loss of Professor Ronie Garcia-Johnson
 We
remember her walking down the hall in a black dress and bowling
shoes, her sunglasses poised in her dark hair. She was pushing
baby Soleil in a stroller and smiling. Wit. Grace. Charm.
Intellect. We miss her.
The Nicholas School said goodbye to Ronie Garcia-Johnson,
assistant professor of environmental policy, in a memorial
service at Duke Chapel on April 21. The chapel was decorated
with her photos—bigger-than-life pictures of her laughing
with her dog—and lilies. Her friends, colleagues, and
students stood behind the podium and talked about the influence
she had on their lives.
She died too young, at age 34, of cancer on April 15, leaving
behind her husband, David Paul Johnson, her two daughters,
Madeleine Revel and Soleil Holiday Garcia-Johnson, her family
and a host of friends.
“Vibrant. That’s how I would describe Ronie.
Her intellect, her teaching style, her sense of humor, her
clothes, her deep love for family and friends were all vibrant
in a way that defies description. I miss that quality—I
miss Ronie—every single day,” said Marie
Lynn Miranda, Gabel Professor of the Practice
in Environmental Ethics and Sustainable Environmental Management.
Garcia-Johnson was a rising political scientist. Her book,
Exporting Environmentalism: U.S. Multinational Chemical
Corporations in Brazil and Mexico, was considered a pioneering
study of how civil society in the United States exported environmental
ideas. She was recognized for it, receiving the 2001 Harold
and Margaret Sprout Award from the International Studies Association.
“Ronie was widely recognized as one of the world’s
foremost scholars in global environmental politics. But rather
than rest on her laurels, Ronie had the humility to appreciate
that with each new answer comes a host of novel questions
whose significance was hitherto unappreciated, and for which
the answers are only dimly visible on the research horizon,”
said Paul Steinberg, visiting scholar in the School of Advanced
International Studies at Johns Hopkins University and a former
Nicholas School colleague.
Ronie developed and team-taught Business and the Environment
(Env 182) with Visiting Professor Erika Sasser.
The class was part of year-long research collaboration with
Sasser and Gary Gereffi, professor of sociology at Duke, called
“The Project on Social and Environmental Certification,”
which was designed to explore the emergence, evolution, diffusion
and effectiveness of certification institutions. The three
researchers then coordinated the Seventh Annual Colloquium
on Environmental Law and Institutions on “Certification
Institutions and Private Governance: New Dynamics in the Global
Protection of Workers and the Environment.
“Ronie was the kind of teacher, advisor and friend
who wanted to see you succeed, but would never give you an
easy way to get there. She helped me learn to identify the
big questions, wrestle with them, and reach and defend my
own conclusions. Most of the important things I learned at
Duke can be traced directly back to her—I am extraordinarily
lucky to have had Ronie as my mentor,” said Sara Eisenstat
T’2002, who worked as Garcia-Johnson’s research
assistant during her junior and senior years and was in the
first Business and Environment class.
Before her death, Garcia-Johnson expressed an interest in
creating a Melanoma Education Fund focusing on people of color.
The Nicholas School professor, who was Hispanic, said, “People
need to know and understand melanoma better—even brown
girls.”
Those wishing to contribute to the fund should make checks
payable to Duke University, c/o Marie Lynn Miranda, Nicholas
School of the Environment and Earth Sciences, Box 90328, Durham,
N.C. 27708.
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