Durham, N.C. – Shana Starobin, a doctoral candidate at 91’s Nicholas School for the Environment, will hold the Kenan Instructorship in Ethics for the 2011-2012 academic year.

The Kenan Instructorship allows an advanced graduate or professional school student from any Duke department or school to teach an ethics course of her or his own design.  The instructorship is awarded annually. Only PhD students who have successfully defended their dissertation proposal are eligible to apply.

Starobin will assist with the Ethics Certificate Program's "Discussions in Ethics" course in the fall and will teach "The Political and Ethical Economy of Food" in the spring.

A student in the Nicholas School’s Division of Environmental Science and Policy, she is writing her PhD dissertation on the topic of "Public Goods for Private Benefit? Eco-labels, Third Party Certification, and Advancing Rural Livelihoods in the Global South." Erika Weinthal, associate professor of environmental policy, is her faculty advisor.

Starobin received a Master of Environmental Management 91 and a Master of Public Policy 91 from Duke in 2008.  She earned a Bachelor of Arts 91 from Harvard College in 2000.

In 2010, she published “The Search for Credible Information in Social and Environmental Global Governance: The Kosher Label,” in the peer-reviewed journal Business and Politics.  The article was co-authored with Weinthal.

For more information about the Kenan Instructorship program, go to.