Dr. Sarah Nahar

I recently graduated with a PhD in Environmental Studies and Religion in Syracuse, New York, unceded Onondaga Land.

My academic work is in the Religion Department at Syracuse University, and the Environmental Studies Department at the State University of New York College of Environmental Science and Forestry.

The toilet, both the ritual and receptacle, is the topic of both of my dissertations, though the dissertations are unique to the fields in which I am writing them, and distinct projects from one another. More info on the Dissertations tab!

100 word general bio

Dr. Sarah Nahar (she) is a nonviolent action trainer and interspiritual theologian. An emerging expert of Excreta Infrastructure Technologies, her doctoral work centers on ecological regeneration, community cultivation, and discard studies. Previously, Sarah was a 2019 Rotary Peace Fellow and worked at the Martin Luther King, Jr. Center in Atlanta, Georgia. She has been the Executive Director of Community Peacemaker Teams, an organization committed to building partnerships to transform violence and oppression worldwide. She attended Spelman College, majoring in Comparative Women’s Studies and International Studies, minoring in Spanish. She has an MDiv from Anabaptist Mennonite Biblical Seminary in her hometown.

100 word academic bio

Dr. Sarah Nahar (she) graduated in May 2025 from Syracuse University in Religion with a dissertation entitled, “Fertile, Social, Dangerous, Sacred, Gift, and System: Religion, Salt City Harvest Farm, and the Future of Human Shit.” She simultaneously matriculated at the State University of New York’s College of Environmental Science and Forestry and wrote an additional dissertation entitled, “Dealing with our Crap, Literally and Metaphorically: Ecological Sanitation in Context of Environmental Studies and Religion.” She recently coined the terms Excreta Infrastructure Technology (ExIT) system, defecatory justice, and excretory justice. She will teach at the University of Michigan’s Program in the Environment.