Dr. Erim Gómez is a Distance Education faculty member at Unity College and comes to us with 21 years of conservation, environmental, and Wildlife biology experience. In addition to teaching at Unity, Gómez is a faculty member in one of the nation’s top Wildlife Biology programs. He holds a teaching appointment in the Department of Ecosystem and Conservation Science, in the W.A. Franke College of Forestry and Conservation at the University of Montana. He is a past award winner of the Bullitt Environmental Leadership Fellowship ($100,000) and now serves on the Board of the Bullitt Foundation. Gómez used the fellowship to conduct conservation research on Palouse Prairie amphibians in Eastern Washington. He has formerly served as Co-Director of Southern Oregon University’s Ecology Center of the Siskiyous (now the Environmental Resource Center). While at SOU, he co-led an effort to pass a green-tags initiative to offset the university’s carbon footprint. He served on the board of Oregon Stewardship and board of the Society of Northwestern Vertebrate Biology. Gómez holds a Bachelor of Science in Environmental Studies from Southern Oregon University (2007) and Masters (2011) and Ph.D. in Natural Resource Sciences from Washington State University (2020). Gómez is a naturalist at heart and thus has eclectic research interests, including the conservation of endangered species, the ecology and sustainability of freshwater ecosystems, and amphibians and freshwater fish. He is willing to serve on graduate student committees with Unity students or others. 

Gómez is a first-generation college graduate and proud of his parent’s farm working and immigrant roots. Gómez is devoted to encouraging students from under-represented groups to pursue higher education, particularly the sciences. In service of this goal, Gómez frequently gives presentations to students and their parents. He often enjoys giving these presentations in Spanish to connect with LatinX communities. He also offers educational workshops and mentors undergraduate LatinX student groups and students from the Society for Advancement of Chicanos/Hispanics and Native Americans in Science. Gómez hopes to create applied ecological research while helping diversify the conservation and environmental field. 

In his spare time he loves to hike beautiful western Montana, take photos of wildlife, float rivers and Latin dance.