Rabel J. Burdge is an Emeritus Professor at the University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign where he held tenure appointments from 1976 to 1996 in the Institute for Environmental Studies and the Departments of Agricultural and Consumer Economics (Rural Sociology), Leisure Studies (now Recreation, Sport and Tourism) and Urban and Regional Planning. He was a Visiting Professor in the Department of Sociology and Huxley College of the Environment at Western Washington University in Bellingham, where he taught courses on environmental sociology and social impact assessment from 1996-2012. He has written over 200 scholarly articles and papers on social change in rural communities, natural resource and environmental issues, needs assessment surveys, the use of public involvement in the resource decision making process, the social and economic impacts of development, the sitting of hazardous and conventional waste facilities, as well as natural resource recreation management.
