She has served as the chair of the Environment and Technology Section of the American Sociological Association, Vice President of the Society for Applied Sociology, a founding member of the Committee for the National Institute for the Environment (CNIE), and as an advisor to UNEP on the Montreal Protocol since 1990 and a member of UNEP's Economic Options Committee of the Technology and Economic Assessment Panel. Canan currently serves on the Boards of Directors of the Colorado Energy Science Center Foundation and of the SLAPP Resource Center. She was chosen Master Teacher of the University of Denver in 1988.
Her research combines the sociology of community, politics, law and natural resources. She has published widely in academic and law journals on subjects ranging from geothermal energy and community development, public participation in land use decision making, the use of civil litigation to silence political speech, and environmental governance through expert networks and collaborative leadership.
For 15 years Canan and law professor George Pring have researched "SLAPPs," or Strategic Lawsuits Against Public Participation. This is the use of civil lawsuits to silence political speech, a violation of the First Amendment Right to Petition. The results of their long-time collaboration are summarized in their 1996 publication of the book SLAPPs: Getting Sued for Speaking Out (Temple University Press). To date, 23 states have passed anti-SLAPP legislation. Canan is currently completing a book manuscript, Ozone Connections: Expert Networks in Global Environmental Governance, with Nancy Reichman.
Before coming to DU, Canan was Professor of Urban and Regional Planning at the University of Hawaii. As a community planning professor, her research on integrating community values and energy development won national acclaim from the American Planning Association in 1982.
