Adriana Abreu
Ph.D. Student, Anthropology
Adriana Abreu has a master's degree in anthropology and is a specialist in environmental management. She is a researcher interested in sustainable development, natural resource management, and traditional populations in the Brazilian Amazon. She is also a freelance journalist covering traditional populations, socio-environmental conflicts, and urbanization in the Amazon.
Alex Badillo
Ph.D. Candidate
Badillo investigates people who lived in proximity to trade roads during times of conquest in the Nejapa region of Oaxaca, Mexico. His research spans the Late Postclassic period and the Colonial period and focuses on settlement patterns throughout the region. Research interests: Archaeology and social context, colonization, anthropology of violence, landscape, settlement patterns, trade and commerce, archaeological survey methods, GIS, dialect geography, archival research. Geographical areas of specialization: Mesoamerica, Oaxaca, Mexico.
Felipe Bravo-Peña
Ph.D. Student, O’Neill School of Public and Environmental Affairs
Felipe Bravo-Peña is a Fulbright Fellow and second-year doctoral student in Environmental Science at the O’Neill School of Public and Environmental Affairs. His research interests focus on how institutions can determine agrobiodiversity and access to key resources (like water, land, or genetics) and impact the resilience and livelihoods of small family farms. Felipe is interested in using mixed methods and applying IAD and SES frameworks in his research in agricultural contexts. A Native from Chile, he holds a Master of Animal Sciences focused in epidemiology at the University of Chile and a Master in Public Policy at the Pontifical Catholic University of Chile. Prior to coming to O’Neill, he worked as a lecturer at the University of Chile and researcher in the Foco Rural lab, work as a consultant to the ministry of agriculture of Chile, and participate in initiatives with international cooperation organizations such as IICA, FAO, GIZ, and REAF-Mercosur, in diverse countries in Latin-American.
Ruhui Chai
Ph.D. Student, Geography
Research interests: remote sensing, vegetation monitoring, forest and climate interactions, climate change, drought, carbon sequestration/GPP/NPP, land cover and land use change, GIS/spatial analysis.
Mackenzie Cory
Ph.D. Candidate, Anthropology
Cory's dissertation research seeks to address the current locus in the representation of children in the archaeological record of the Northwest Plains. He does so by examining the survivance of indigenous children's play practices from the late prehistoric into the reservation era. Research interests: North American High Plains archaeology, archaeology of childhood, stone circles, hunter-gatherers, indigenous archaeologies, domestic structures, land-use patterns, landscape archaeology, Rocky Mountains, Geographic Information Systems, archaeology in education.
Martin Delaroche
Ph.D. Candidate (SPEA)
Delaroche is a researcher interested in environmental policy implementation and efficacy, institutional analysis of socio-ecological systems, sustainable commodity supply chains, and farmers decision-making. For his Ph.D. dissertation, he conducted a multi-methods research (combining statistical and geospatial analysis with semi-structured interviews) examining how large-scale soybean producers in Brazil make decisions about agricultural and environmental practices over time, depending on a variety of factors including environmental values. In addition, Martin is working on a project about sustainability indicators in commodity supply chain. A native from France, he holds masters degrees in International Economic Law and Applied Economics, both from the University Paris 1 Panthéon-Sorbonne.
Vitor Martins Dias
Ph.D. Candidate, Sociology
Dias is pursuing his Ph.D. in sociology. For his dissertation, Dias examines the rights-seeking behavior of, and the provision of legal assistance for, the immediate victims of climate hazards in Brazil’s urban Amazon. Specifically, he uses mixed methods to assess how individuals who endure climate hazards, as well as the lawyers who should serve them, recognize this issue as a matter of rights and responsibilities. Prior to leaving Brazil to pursue his LL.M. at Indiana University Maurer School of Law, Dias received his LL.B. and LL.M. from Centro Universitário do Pará and São Paulo Law School of Fundação Getúlio Vargas, respectively. Research interests: Political sociology, law and society, organizational theory, political ecology, climate justice, and social movements. Geographical area of specialization: Brazilian Amazon.
Colleen Friedly
Ph.D. Candidate, Anthropology
Friedly is pursuing her Ph.D. in anthropology with a minor in environmental science through the School of Public and Environmental Affairs. Her dissertation will explore the interactions between human and non-human primates across a myriad of landscapes. Specifically, she will examine the way that human and non-human primate behaviors shape one another through feedback and in changing contexts over time. Research interests: Primate behavior and ecology, environmental anthropology, multispecies ethnography, conservation biology, wildlife biology, ecotourism, people and protected areas, ethnoprimatology, institutional analysis.
Mahsa Khodaee
Ph.D. Candidate, Geography
Khodaee is an associate instructor in the Department of Geography at Indiana University Bloomington. Research interests: Remote sensing, drought monitoring, land covers changes, and GIS.
Marika Lapham
Ph.D. Candidate, Geography
Research interests: Invasive plant species and their ecohydrology interactions. Geographical area of specialization: Southern Appalachians of the United States.
Beatriz Lima Ribeiro
Ph.D. Student, Anthropology
Beatriz earned a B.A. in Social Sciences and a M.A. in Social Anthropology at the University of Brasília, Brazil.She is interested in Social-cultural Anthropology with focus on the study of politics, institutions and rights related to the land and land-use in the Brazilian Amazon. She spent the last years studying along different organizations in the Amazon and other Brazilian biomes, such as the Alto Rio Negro Indigenous Women Association (AMARN), and the Brazilian NGO Instituto Socioambiental (ISA). Beatriz will continue her studies as a Fulbright Scholar at IU, reflecting upon global environmental politics and its power relations materialized on different groups from a local to global scale.
David Massey
Ph.D. Candidate (water resources)
Research interests: Agricultural development, archaeology, complexity, LULC, UAVs.
Paulo Massoca
Ph.D. Candidate, School of Public and Environmental Affairs (environmental science)
For his doctoral research, Massoca intends to approach the new Brazilian Forest Code, particularly the alternatives to landowner’s compliance with the law, either restoring the native vegetation cover within their properties or compensating its debt to a different property. He wants to understand how landowner cohorts make decisions in different socio-economic contexts at the local level, as well as the effect of such decisions on land-cover at larger scales within the Amazon. Research interests: Forest ecology and socio-ecological systems in the Brazilian Amazon. Ecological succession of tropical forests, the role of second-growth forests in conserving and provisioning ecosystem services, and the drivers of land-use and land-cover change. Geographical area of specialization: Brazilian Amazon.
Emma McDonell
Ph.D. Candidate, Anthropology
McDonell earned B.A.s in anthropology and environmental studies from the University of California, Santa Cruz in 2013 and is currently a Ph.D. candidate at Indiana University. Working at the intersection of environmental anthropology, economic anthropology, and food studies—her dissertation examines the cultural, economic, and environmental politics of the quinoa boom-bust in the Peruvian highlands. In tracing the changing power relations in the quinoa commodity chain over the course of the quinoa boom and bust, her dissertation shows how the “revalorization” of an indigenous staple crop seisin motion complex and entangled changes in local environments, identities, and economies. Research interests: Political ecology, food studies, politics of indigenous recognition, quinoa and the commercialization of “traditional” foods, consumerism, environmental politics, anthropology of development. Geographical areas of specialization: Peru, Andean highlands, Latin America, North America, and relations between these geographical regions.
Lucy Miller
Ph.D. Candidate, Anthropology
Miller is pursuing her Ph.D. in socio-cultural anthropology with a minor in geography. She has been doing research in the Marajó region of the Brazilian Amazon since 2009. Her dissertation looks at how mobility and livelihood flexibility continue to be key features of Amazonia’s economic and social history by examining current processes and impacts of rural-urban circulation. Specifically, she looks at generational shifts in forest livelihoods and identity in the context of increased rural-urban circulation and considers the implications of these changes on community-based conservation. Her research takes a broad approach to mobility and migration by looking at physical movements as well as the movement of ideas, values, and meanings as part of a larger process of cultural change. Research interests: Environmental anthropology, political ecology, people and protected areas, rural livelihood change, youth involvement in sustainable development and resource management, identity politics.
Samapriya Roy
Ph.D. Candidate, Geography (water resources)
Research interests: Remote sensing and GIS applications for sub-surface drainage detection, surface water flow, and urban growth relationships to change in surface water dynamics.
Sudipta Roy
Ph.D. Candidate (education policy studies with a concentration in international and comparative education)
Roy is conducting a dissertation research on socio-environmental vulnerability among secondary schools in coastal Bangladesh on Mellon Dissertation Fellowship and American Institute of Bangladesh Studies (AIBS) Resident Fellowship for 2015-16. He came to IU through a Fulbright scholarship from Bangladesh as Bangla/Bengali language instructor. He organized panels and presented at various international conferences on quality and equity of education, education for environmentally marginalized populations, education for sustainable development, secondary education in coastal Bangladesh, and the concept of vulnerability in the context of schools. Research interest: socio-environmental vulnerability among secondary schools in coastal Bangladesh. Geographical area of specialization: Coastal Bangladesh.
Rubaya Rubaya Pervin
Ph.D. Candidate, Geography
Research interests: Land use and land cover change, climate change, mangrove change monitoring and the impact of mangrove change on the carbon sink, carbon fertilization, greening trend and land cover change, ecohydrology, remote sensing, and spatial analysis.
Sacha Siani
Ph.D. Candidate, Geography
Sacha Siani is a Ph.D. candidate in the Department of Geography at Indiana University, Bloomington. His research focuses on understanding social-ecological systems by linking in-depth local-scale field research with geospatial analysis of regional-scale landscape change. Siani holds a Master’s degree in Remote Sensing from the National Institute for Space Research (INPE), Brazil (2016), and a Bachelor’s degree in Environmental and Sanitary Engineering from the University of Taubaté, Brazil (2012). Research interests: Land System Science, Social-Ecological Systems, Remote Sensing, Spatial Analysis, Institutional Analysis. Geographic areas of specialization: Amazon, Atlantic Forest, Brazil, Latin America.
Godfreyb Ssekajja
Ph.D. Candidate, SPEA and Political Science
Ssekajja is an associate instructor and Joint Public Policy Ph.D. candidate at Indiana University’s School of Public & Environmental Affairs and the Department of Political Science. His research focuses on the conditions that enable individuals to create and sustain institutions for overcoming collective action problems. He is currently studying communities in Lake Victoria to understand the conditions that determine effective local governance of forests, fisheries, and waste.
Tessa Steiniche
Ph.D. Candidate (bioanthropology)
Steiniche's research focuses on interactions between primates and endocrine-disrupting chemicals in their environment. She conducts her fieldwork at Kibale National Park, Uganda—combining methods in ecology, toxicology, remote sensing, and environmental chemistry to understand how land-use change is linked to primate exposure of anthropogenic pollutants and the ecological and evolutionary implications of these interactions
Kat Tafoya
Undergraduate, Center for the Integrative Study of Animal Behavior
Tafoya is an undergraduate at Indiana University majoring in animal behavior B.S. with minors in geographic information science and remote sensing, anthropology, and biology. Her honors thesis examines a time series analysis of primate populations and forest cover change at biological research stations, primarily in Costa Rica. Outside of CASEL, Tafoya is an undergraduate researcher in the Primate Environmental Endocrinology Lab and a project manager in the Critical Food Studies Lab at IU. Research interests: Conservation biology, land cover change, and wildlife management.
Wes Zebrowski
Ph.D. Student, O’Neill School of Public and Environmental Affairs
Wes is a queer, interdisciplinary researcher who studies food systems primarily at the intersection of agricultural policy and farmer behavior, especially as it applies to disadvantaged or unempowered farmer groups. For their dissertation, Wes is evaluating the potential discrimination in US farmer aid programs and the economic and environmental consequences of rate setting in the US Conservation Reserve Program. Wes specializes in using big data quantitative methods, network analysis, and GIS to evaluate public policy and farmer behavior in a variety of agricultural landscapes.
