Director
Eduardo S. Brondízio
Distinguished Professor, Anthropology
Email: ebrondiz@iu.edu
Website: https://anthropology.indiana.edu/about/faculty/brondizio-eduardo.html
Eduardo S. Brondízio is a Distinguished Professor of Anthropology at Indiana University–Bloomington, Director of the Center for the Analysis of Social-Ecological Landscapes, and Executive Co-Director of Ostrom Workshop. A scholar with a career bridging agricultural sciences, anthropology, and geospatial analysis, his work has, for more than three decades, advanced ethnographically grounded and multi-scalar approaches to understanding social-environmental change, governance, and climate challenges in Amazônia and beyond. His research highlights the lived experiences and contributions of rural smallholder and Indigenous communities while illuminating the complex links among policy, markets, household decision-making, and landscape transformation. Internationally recognized for his leadership in global environmental assessment and participatory social-ecological research, Brondizio co-chaired the landmark 2019 IPBES Global Assessment Report and is an elected member of the United States National Academy of Sciences and the American Academy of Arts and Sciences. He is a 2023 Volvo Environment Prize Laureate and a 2025 Tyler Prize for Environmental Achievement Laureate.
Topical interests: Environmental and economic anthropology, land use and landscape history, institutions and collective action, household economy and demographics, livelihoods and poverty, local ecological knowledge, people-forest interaction, social-ecological complex systems analysis, global environmental and climate change, sustainability sciences, and integrative methodologies [geospatial, ethnography and survey, ecological assessments, institutional analysis].
Geographical areas of specialization: Amazon, Brazil, Latin America.
Associate Director
Taehee Hwang
Associate Professor, Geography
Email: taehee@iu.edu
Website: https://geography.indiana.edu/about/faculty/hwang-taehee.html
Taehee Hwang is an Associate Professor of Geography at Indiana University–Bloomington and Associate Director of the Center for the Analysis of Social-Ecological Landscapes. His interdisciplinary research bridges ecohydrology, landscape ecology, and remote sensing to explore how coupled ecological and hydrological systems respond to climate variability, land-use change, and environmental perturbations. His work uses advanced remote sensing data and ecohydrological modeling to investigate vegetation dynamics, water resource variability, and hydro-climatic interactions across forested landscapes — including NASA-funded studies detecting drought signals and long-term research at the Coweeta Long-Term Ecological Research site in the Southern Appalachians.
Topical interests: Vegetation patterns under geomorphic settings, coupled distributed ecohydrological modeling, vegetation phenology, ecohydrological nowcast and forecast, ecohydrological controls on hurricane-induced shallow landslides.
Geographical areas of specialization: Southern Appalachians, Piedmont.