Dominic Piacentini

Dominic joined the Margaret Chase Smith Policy Center as a research assistant after graduating with a PhD in Anthropology and Environmental Policy in 2023. His research interests revolve around issues of access in changing political and ecological environments and include resource use in contested property regimes, the public use of private space, dispossession, extractive industry and energy development, wild-growing foods and medicines, and plant–human relations. His dissertation follows the construction of major pipeline infrastructure in Appalachia, the impacts these projects have had on land use and land ownership, and the formal and informal claims people, plants, and pipelines make to land and property.

At the Policy Center, Dominic assists in qualitative analysis and ethnographic engagement on a variety of projects, including the Maine Naloxone Distribution Initiative and case preparation for the state’s Opioid Review Panel. As the Center prepares to launch its collaborative hazard mitigation project with the State Fire Marshall’s office, he is excited to begin connecting his experience in rural ethnography and environmental policy to a new context.