About UF Roadies

The UF Roadies group began meeting in November 2001. The impetus for the formation of the group occurred when we realised that a number of faculty and students on campus shared interests in the impacts of infrastructure on the sustainability and resilience of linked social and ecological systems. We adopted the framework of resilience theory as a starting point for interdisciplinary research, and have since become a member node of the Resilience Alliance.

Our interests cover a wide range of disciplines. Included in the group are experts on ecology, sociology, anthropology, land tenure, mathematics, geography and remote sensing, and economics. Our focus has been on finding common threads and novel ways of thinking about the resilience of social-ecological systems in several areas with changing infrastructure: Isla Grande de Chiloe, off the coast of Chile; MAP (Madre de Dios, Accre, Pando), where the boundaries of Brazil, Bolivia and Peru meet; Uruara, in the Eastern Amazon; and the Maya forest in Belize. Members of the group are also working in Honduras, the Caribbean, Florida, and other parts of Latin America. This research has been pursued by individual group members for many years. We are still in the process of finding funding for truly collaborative research, but our goal is to develop a strong, interdisciplinary field component to test and refine the ideas that we have been working on.

The roadies group meets every two weeks, currently on Fridays at 1:30 pm in Room 3012, Turlington Hall. Student participation is encouraged. If you would like to get involved, contact one of the faculty listed on the participants page. You may also be interested in the course that we will be offering in Spring 2004 on Resilience and Sustainability.