Members

Tracey Osborne
Email
:
tosborne@email.arizona.edu

TraceyOsborne_SGDphotoI am Assistant Professor in the School of Geography and Development, and Director of the Public Political Ecology Lab at the University of Arizona. My research investigates the political ecology of environmental markets, particularly carbon markets,and their implications for the lives and livelihoods of forest communities in the Global South. Specifically, I explore the intersection of carbon markets, development, and agrarian change as they relate to forestry-based carbon initiatives in Mexico.

 


Stina Janssen
Email
: srmjanss@email.arizona.edu

As a Masters student researcher, I work with the Climate Alliance Mapping Project to create an interactive map of fossil fuel reserves, Indigenous lands, and biodiversity hotspots as a platform for storytelling and organizing across frontlines of fossil fuel extraction. With an interest in the political ecology of energy, economic geography, Indigenous sovereignty and anti-racist, just alternatives to the fossil fuel economy, my master’s research is based on a collaboration with Black Mesa Water Coalition, a leading member of the Climate Justice Alliance which advances the grassroots movement for a just transition to renewable energy. My research supports Black Mesa Water Coalition’s work to build solar capacity on the Navajo Nation and explores the political economy of renewable energy development in the context of climate policy and finance.


Meg Mills-Novoa
Email
: mmillsnovoa@email.arizona.edu

I am a Ph.D. student in the School of Geography and Development at U of A focusing on the political ecology of climate change adaptation projects in Latin America. Beyond my research, I also support PPEL’s Climate Alliance Mapping Project as the data coordinator and am the program manager for the School and Community Garden Program.

 


Niki vonHedemann
Email: nvonhedemann@email.arizona.edu

vonhedemannMy research interests lie at the cross section of ecology and human geography, particularly the complex social, political, and economic factors that play into landscape conservation and the impact of environmental protection on human societies.

 

 


Carly Nichols
Email: cnichols@email.arizona.edu

carly

As an MA student, my research interests largely transect subfields of political ecology and critical development studies. I am specifically interested in the different ways that state and non-state actors implicitly and explicitly influence how people eat, grow, and experience food; and the multifarious forms of everyday contestation that emerge in response. I ask how these diverse practices are translated into both environmental and food security outcomes. My region of study is South Asia, specifically North India.

 


Gigi Owen

Email: gigi@email.arizona.edu

reading2_0I am a Ph.D. candidate in the School of Geography and Development. My dissertation research investigates the impacts of climate change adaptation to better understand the components of successful adaptation practices. Part of my research includes leading a long-term evaluation of the Climate Assessment for the Southwest, a federally funded research program that aims to improve the U.S. Southwest region’s ability to respond to climate variability and change. 


Sarah Kelly-Richards
Email
: shkelly@email.arizona.edu

I finished my masters thesis in December 2013, which was titled: “The SKR_photoCodependence of Land Tenure and Sanitation Access in Nogales, Sonora.” For my PhD research, I am investigating water governance in Chile, with a focus on water conflicts. I draw from political ecology, environmental anthropology, and legal and political geography to explore perceptions, actions, and socio-natural dynamics in the process of Chilean water governance.

 


Richard Johnson
Email
: rljohnson@email.arizona.edu

RJ Port

I am a MA student exploring the processes and outcomes of migrant debt, loan default, and land dispossession in Central America stemming the political economy of migrant finance and US border securitization and deportation policy. My research draws primarily from agrarian and critical migration studies. Other interests include illicit economies for natural resources, extractive industries, and land grabs in Latin America.

 


Mindy Butterworth

Email: mkbutter@email.arizona.edu

Butterworth

Informed by health geography, political ecology, and physical geography, my research explores the environmental and social dimensions health and illness, predominantly of vector-borne infectious diseases. Using northern Australia as a case study, my dissertation addresses questions of dengue fever emergence within the context of climate change, public health response, and resident involvement in mosquito control efforts.

 


Laurel Bellantebellante
Email
: bellante@email.arizona.edu

Laurel Bellante is a Ph.D. candidate in the School of Geography and Development at the University of Arizona. She specializes in food security and agrarian questions in both the U.S. and Mexico. Using a political ecology approach, Laurel is a passionate defender of farmer rights and rural livelihoods and an advocate of more sustainable and just food systems.


Diego Martinez-Lugo {Photo coming soon}

Email: dmartinezlugo@email.arizona.edu

My research interests are located at the nexus of social and environmental justice with a critical race theory and feminist political ecology perspective. I am particularly interested in how racial and ethnic minority groups in the United States practice sustainability in their communities and how their construction of sustainability–whether it be environmentally, economically, or culturally–may challenge white and affluent notions of sustainable development.

Sophia Borgias {Photo coming soon}

Email: sborgias@email.arizona.edu

I am a PhD student drawing on political ecology and legal geography to study water conflicts. My current work focuses on the politics of water allocation in the Owens Valley of California, an area that many consider a “resource colony” of Los Angeles because of the city’s monopolistic control over land and water rights in this distant watershed. My previous research explored issues of water scarcity, multiple-user conflicts, and social mobilization in central Chile. In addition to my research and studies, I work as the Field Coordinator for the Community and School Garden Program.

Sarah Renkert {Photo coming soon}

Email: sarahrenkert@email.arizona.edu
Sarah Renkert is a graduate student at the University of Arizona studying Applied Sociocultural Anthropology. Her M.A. research focused on community agency, food sovereignty, and tourism in the Ecuadorian Amazon. For her Ph.D. work, she has moved her focus to Peru, where she is looking at social networks and community organizing in Huaycán, a disenfranchised neighborhood located on the outskirts of Lima. Her broader research interests include social mobilization, state-community relations, Indigenous knowledge, critical race theory, and food security.

Joel E. Correia {Photo coming soon}

Email: jcorreia@email.arizona.edu

I am currently a Postdoctoral Research Associate with the University of Arizona Center for Latin American Studies. My research investigates intersections of indigenous politics, land rights, socio-environmental (in)justice, and law in the context of development and Latin America, with a focus on Paraguay. As a critical human geographer trained in political ecology, critical development studies and cultural geography, I am particularly interested in the uneven effects of development, environmental change, and law on power relations across space, time, and scale. Within this broad framework, I investigate how the law—as a discourse, material practice, and boundary object—is used, contested, or broken by different actors involved in legal struggles for socio-environmental justice. Click here and here for more information.


Jesse Quinn
Email
: jessesquinn@email.arizona.edu

JQ

As a Master’s candidate in the School of Geography and Development at the University of Arizona, I am excited about collaborative, critical and creative geographic research projects. My own research currently focuses on resource access and the lived experiences of human migration in post-Soviet spaces, specifically in the Republic of Georgia. I am also interested in the methodological possibilities of digital image and video, and look forward to continuing work with the PPEL group to combine these interests in productive, academically rigorous ways.

 


Lily House-Peters
Email: lilyhp@email.arizona.edu

HousePeters

I am a Ph.D. student and a Graduate Teaching Associate in the School of Geography and Development. Previously, I worked for two years as a Graduate Research Associate at the Udall Center for Studies in Public Policy. I am interested in the politics of water allocation and reallocation in arid and semi-arid environments. Specifically, my dissertation research focuses on the impacts of climate change, economic policy, geopolitics, and drought on water use and land use decisions in riparian communities in the US/Mexico borderlands. I seek to improve ties between academic research and activist efforts to improve social andenvironmental justice in water-dependent communities. My research draws from theoretical, conceptual, and methodological insights from political ecology, political geography, remote sensing and spatial analysis, and climate change science.


Manuel Prieto
Email: mjpm@email.arizona.edu

Manuel_PhotoMy research interests are situated at the intersection of political geography, political ecology, cultural ecology, and legal anthropology. Within this context I am interested in exploring the tensions that exist between neoliberal practices as applied to nature and local environmental knowledge. My current research interrogates the relation between water governance, state formation, and indigeneity in the Northern Atacama Desert, Chile.

 


Remy Franklin {Photo coming soon}

Email: remysfranklin@email.arizona.edu

I am a MA candidate in Geography interested in the political ecology of food and climate justice and the degree to which they can articulate alternatives to neoliberal capitalism. As a graduate research assistant I work on media and website maintenance for the Lab, and specifically on developing the website home for the Climate Alliance Mapping Project. I also work with the UA Community and School Garden Project and have an emerging interest in participatory action research through new media.