Cynthia O'Neill

Cynthia O’Neill is an interdisciplinary scholar and artist working at the intersection of environmental humanities, disability studies, creative practice, and critical media. Her research develops eco-crip theory to examine how public landscapes shape ecological access, participation, and care. Her book project, Creative Troubles and Crip Natures (under contract with Bloomsbury Academic), analyzes the American lawn as a cultural and ecological system structured by norms of control, productivity, and exclusion. Drawing on critical plant studies and practice-based research, the project rethinks weedy species as sites of resistance and reimagines public green space as accessible, interdependent ecological environments. Her current research builds on this work by shifting from critique to proposition, examining food forests as accessible urban ecologies. The project offers one of the first sustained eco-crip analyses of food forests, exploring how disability justice can reshape ecological design, governance, and participation in public space. O’Neill’s work has appeared in Leonardo and in edited volumes on art and social practice. She holds a PhD in Arts, Technology, and Emerging Communication from the University of Texas at Dallas and an MFA in Sculpture from the Maryland Institute College of Art.