Cathy Jordan
Professor, Department of Pediatrics
- Health
- Human development
- Sustainability
Introduction
Cathy Jordan, Ph.D., serves as the associate director for leadership & education at the University of Minnesota Institute on the Environment
Jordan leads an Institute on the Environment team that cultivates sustainability awareness in students and supports sustainability-savvy leaders with soft skills that make them more effective change agents.
As a pediatric neuropsychologist, Jordan has had a long-standing interest in the influence of environments on children’s health and development. Early in her career, she focused on the influence of environmental risks, such as lead overburden, on children’s cognitive and behavioral development. She later turned her attention to the positive impact of nature contact—through nature play, nature-based learning, and therapeutic uses of nature—on children’s physical and mental health and educational outcomes and development of a stewardship ethic.