Nicolas Hernandez

Assistant Professor

Ph.D., 2024, University of Utah

Nicolas Hernandez is an Assistant Professor in the Department of Environmental Studies and Sciences. His research areas are environmental communication, energy transition, and rhetorical studies. His past research has focused on how communication shapes the way in which experts and stakeholders communicate about and intervene in energy transitions. This has included the study internal rhetoric of low carbon energy technology scientists and engineers as well as an ongoing project on Puerto Rican energy issues since Hurricane Maria. This research has been funded by two National Science Foundation Science and Technology Studies Program grants. Hernandez has been published in Frontiers in Science and Environmental Communication, Frontiers in Conservation Science, and World Development Sustainability. At Santa Clara University, he continues his work on Puerto Rico energy while developing a new research trajectory focusing on energy issues related to energy accessibility and inter utility dynamics in the Bay Area.

Courses

ENVS 22: Environment and Society
ENVS 111: Mixed Methods for the Environment
ENVS 177: Race and the Environment
ENVS 101: Capstone Seminar

Publications

Selected Publications

Cozen, B., Endres, D., Hernandez, N., & Feldpausch-Parker, A. (2026). Speculative feasibility: Future narratives and discursive infrastructure in Puerto Rico's nuclear alternative project. Environmental Communication, 1-16. https://doi.org/10.1080/17524032.2026.2631454

García, I., & Hernandez, N. (2023). "They're just trying to survive": The relationship between social vulnerability, informal housing, and environmental risks in Loíza, Puerto Rico, USA. World Development Sustainability, 2. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.wds.2023.100062

Hernandez, N. C., Horton, C. C., Endres, D., & Peterson, T. R. (2019). The frontier myth in U.S. offshore wind energy communication. Frontiers in Science and Environmental Communication, 4. https://doi.org/10.3389/fcomm.2019.00057

Endres, D., Chaplain, J., & Hernandez, N. (2024). Rhetorical approaches to environmental communication. In T. R. Peterson & A. Carvahlo (Eds.), Environmental Communication (pp. 71-88). De Gruyter Mouton. ISBN: 9783110774832