Mark Nepf

My work examines how organizational and spatial conditions shape meaningful participation in collaborative governance. I study Collaborative Platforms — organizations that facilitate sustained collaboration among public and private stakeholders — with a focus on how organizational capacity, institutional design, and local context shape who participates and how.

My dissertation uses the U.S. National Estuary Program to investigate how platforms coordinate stakeholders, distribute authority, mobilize resources, integrate diverse forms of knowledge, and adapt participation practices to the social, economic, geographic, and infrastructural conditions of the communities they serve. More broadly, my work connects collaborative governance and environmental justice to understand how institutions can facilitate meaningful participation across diverse and uneven contexts.