Joni Adamson is an expert in environmental justice, Indigenous literatures and scientific literacies.

Adamson is the President's Professor of Environmental Humanities in the Department of English and Distinguished Global Futures Scholar at the Julie Ann Wrigley Global Futures Laboratory. She is the Founding Director of the Flagship Hub of UNESCO BRIDGES Sustainability Science Coalition, the first humanities-led science platform in the world. She also directs Humanities for the Environment, North America based in the Global Institute for Sustainability and Innovation at ASU's Walton Center for Planetary Heath.

Adamson helped lay the foundations for environmental justice critical studies and the environmental humanities. From 1998 to 2011, she founded and led the Environmental Justice Caucus of the American Studies Association.

She is the author and or co-editor of nine books and special issues and over 90 articles, chapters, reviews and blog posts.