Rosalie Luo

Rosalie Luo is a postdoctoral research fellow at the Erb Institute for Global Sustainable Enterprise, a joint program of the Ross School of Business and the School for Environment and Sustainability at the University of Michigan. She is thrilled to be returning to the University of Michigan, where she completed undergraduate degrees through both the Program in the Environment and the Department of Earth and Environmental Sciences. She recently completed her Ph.D. in Business Administration with a focus on management and sustainability at Ivey Business School at Western University.

Rosalie is an organizational theorist who uses qualitative and ethnographic methods to study how communities navigate environmental risks and crises, and how public trust is affected by organizational and institutional behavior. Drawing on years of doctoral fieldwork on the Red Hill fuel contamination and subsequent drinking water crisis in her hometown of Honolulu, Hawaiʻi, Rosalie traced how affected communities, military agencies, and regulatory agencies navigated the challenges of responding to an environmental and public health crisis that affected 93,000 residents. This research examined how institutional distrust develops after environmental violations, how public engagement can inadvertently amplify distrust, and how non-culpable organizations can build trust by applying precautionary and culturally-informed approaches. This work has been recognized by the Academy of Management ONE Division and the European Group for Organization Studies. Outside of this research, she has published on topics related to digital sustainability, social innovation, and environmental justice, and is actively engaged in research on regenerative agriculture.