Liam Heneghan

Liam Heneghan is an ecosystem ecologist working at DePaul University, where he is a professor of Environmental Science and co-director of DePaul University’s Institute for Nature and Culture. His research has included studies on the impact of acid rain on soil foodwebs in Europe, and inter-biome comparisons of decomposition and nutrient dynamics in forested ecosystems in North America and the tropics. Over the past decade, Heneghan and his students have been working on restoration issues in midwestern ecosystems. Heneghan is co-chair of the Chicago Wilderness Science Team. He is also a graduate student in philosophy, an occasional poet, and the author of Beasts at Bedtime: Revealing the Environmental Wisdom of Children’s Literature. 

Contributions to Humans & Nature:

• “Is This Essay Noise?” an essay in Sensoria: Attending to the Wonder and Vitality of Nature (Humans & Nature Press, 2026).

• “Is Paddy Heneghan Dead?” an essay in Elementals: Earth, Vol. 1 (Humans & Nature Press, 2024).

• “Avoesis: Ten Theses on Kinship with Birds,” an essay in Kinship: Belonging in a World of Relations—Vol. 4, Persons (Humans & Nature Press, 2021).

City Creatures Blog posts:

• A Visit To Oz
• #1000UrbanMiles—Where Have We Gone, What Have We Seen?
• One Thousand Urban Miles: Take the Praeger Walking Challenge
• Chicago’s Natural History: What Remains Unknown? Almost Everything
• Being Unseen: The Commonest Animal That You Have Never Seen

Questions for a Resilient Future responses:

• Beyond Science Fiction: Nature in the City and Our Ethical Future

Noteworthy Links:

• 3 Quarks Daily
  Read Liam Heneghan’s posts at 3QD.