About Me

I am a writer and communicator, based in Fort Collins, Colorado, who covers the environment, science, and culture. For many years, I have written as a correspondent for High Country News and my reporting has appeared in Audubon, Yale Environment 360, Hakai Magazine, Nature Conservancy, Wired, Scientific American, Slate, Pacific Standard, Orion, Grist, and many other print and digital publications.

Presently, I am the communications specialist for the Department of Anthropology and Geography at Colorado State University. I am also the program lead and instructor for Communications for Conservation, an online graduate certificate program at CSU, and teach courses through the Department of Human Dimensions of Natural Resources and Department of Journalism and Media Communication. I frequently speak with classes and groups at universities and other events on environmental media.

Through my work, I have reported across the American West and abroad. I have traveled grassland steppes in Colorado and Mongolia; toured coal mines in Wyoming and Germany; stomped along rivers and dams in Nevada and Thailand; walked inside prisons and atop mountain summits; and attended more city council meetings, public hearings, and water and climate policy summits than I care to count.

When not afield or in front of a computer, I am an opportunistic traveler with my wife and daughter, a camping fiend, and incorrigible Mets fan.

To contact me, send an email to joshuazaffos [at] yahoo [dot] com, or you can find me on Twitter and LinkedIn.