Current Graduate Students

PhD Students

Sanchayeeta Adhikari
Research Areas include: Parks, development, India, Land Use Land Cover Change
Research Topic: Land cover change and parks in India
Advisor: Dr. Jane Southworth

Kofi Adu-Brempong
Research Areas include: Urban geography, Urban and Regional Analysis and Planning, Spatial Analysis and Modeling
Research Topic: Urban Spatial Change in Ghana and Implications for Environmental
Sustainability
Advisor: Dr. Tim Fik

Laura Avila (SNRE)
Research areas include:
Research topic:
Advisor: Dr. Eric Keys

Chris Baynard
Research Areas include: energy and environment, land use land cover change, road ecology, non renewable resource use and politics.
Research topic: The political ecology of heavy oil in eastern Venezuela. Dissertation research examines the connection between 1) land use change related to petroleum extraction, 2) road density and 3) energy policy in eastern Venezuela's heavy oil belt.
Advisor: Dr. Michael Binford

Carlos Cañas
Research areas include: The ecology and conservation of aquatic ecosystems, especially as related to entire river basins.
Research Topic: The Andes-Amazon region in Peru and the ecological relationship between highlands and lowlands in the ecology of rivers, including hydrology, hydrography, fish migrations and fisheries. Furthermore, I am interested in how human influence - migration, agriculture, deforestation, roads and dams - might threaten the ecology of rivers.
Advisor: Dr. Peter Waylen

Andrea Chavez
Research Areas include: Land Use Land Cover Change, Landscape Ecology, Political Ecology, Remote Sensing, Ecotourism, Indigenous Communities
Research Topic : Land Use Land Cover Change along the Transoceanic Road in Southeastern Peru: A Socio-Spatial Study of Landscape Fragmentation
Advisor: Dr. Michael Binford

Alisa Coffin
Research Areas include: The geography of human-environment interactions, land use and land cover change, and landscape ecology with particular emphasis on the ecological effects of roads and transportation networks
Research Topic: Road networks and landscape fragmentation in the Santa Fe River watershed of North Central Florida.
Advisor: Dr. Michael Binford

Amy Daniels (SNRE)
Research Areas include: Land Use and Land Cover Change; Protected Areas; Watershed Management; Predictive Landscape Models for Conservation and Development; Traditional Resource Management Systems
Research Topic: Effects of Land Management Strategies on Landscape Connectivity in Central America
Advisor: Dr. Jane Southworth

Meredith Evans (SNRE)
Research areas include: Wildlife, parks, Africa
Research topic: Striped Hyena population in and around parks in Tanzania
Advisor: Dr. Michael Binford

Ann Foster
Research Areas include: Geomorphology, Hydrology, Land Cover Change
Research Topic: Land Cover and Geomorphological Change in the Everglades, FL.
Advisor: Dr. Joann Mossa

Jennie Garcia-Saqui (SNRE)
Research Areas include: Africa, conservation, community management Research Topic: Determining whether Community based Natural Resources management programs are influencing attitude and behavior change in local people in Namibia and Botswana. Advisor: Dr. Brian Child

Andrea E Gaughan
Research Areas include: Human-environment interaction in southern Africa; Land-use/land-cover change and adaptive co-management 
Research Topic: The use of remote sensing and modeling for land-use and water resource conservation in savanna ecosystems
Advisor:  Dr. Michael Binford

Cerian Gibbes
Research Areas include: Land use land cover change, Remote Sensing, Natural Resource Management, Protected areas     
Research Topic: Understanding landscape patterns in African savannas: An investigation of landscape change and fragmentation in and around protected areas in southern Africa.
Advisor: Dr. Jane Southworth

Carlos (Valerio) Gomezs
Research areas include: Socio-economic drivers of tropical deforestation, community-based conservation, Amazon protection areas system
Research Topic: Cattle Ranching Expansion Among Rubber Tapper Communities in Southwestern Brazilian Amazonia
Advisor: Dr. Nigel Smith

Jaclyn Hall
Research Areas include: Biogeography, diversity, rarity, and endemism, Biodiversity conservation, Land cover change, Remote Sensing of vegetation characteristics
Research Topic: Analyzing Variation in Structure and Composition within Natural and Disturbed Humid Forests: Ecological Change in the East Usambaras- Tanzania.
Advisor: Dr. Jane Southworth 

Stephen Howell
Research Areas include: quantitative methods in hydrometeorology, climatology and ENSO, natural hazards, economic consequences of natural hazards.
Research Topic: 'Statistical models to forecast precipitation in Costa Rica'
Advisor: Dr. Peter Waylen

Bill Kanapaux (SNRE)
Research Areas: Natural Resource Management in southern Africa, Adaptive Management of Wetlands, Human-Environment Interactions
Research Topic: The effects of protected areas and tourism on livelihood activities in Caprivi, Namibia
Advisor: Brian Child

Bothepa Kgabung (SNRE)
Research Areas include: Community Conservation in Botswana
Advisor: Dr. Brian Child

Betty Lininger
Research Areas include: Human Geography, urban geography, population, immigration, gender, health and ethnic studies
Advisor: Dr. Barbara McDade

Matt Marsik
Research Areas include: Surface hydrology, landscape and soil interactions in tropical countries; Geographic technologies
Advisors: Dr. Peter Waylen (Chair), Dr. Jane Southworth (Co-Chair)

Pinki Mondal
Research Areas include: Remote Sensing, Parks, Land Cover Change
Research Topic: Analysis of Land Cover Change, and Changing Landscape Pattern using Remote Sensing in National Parks, India
Advisor: Dr. Jane Southworth

Patricia Mupeta (SNRE)
Research Interest: Community Governance and CBNRM performance in Namibia, Botswana and Zambia.
Advisor: Dr. Brian Child

Kwadwo Owusu
Research Areas include: Climatology, Africa
Advisor: Dr. Peter Waylen

Gregory Parent
Research Areas include: economic development, natural resource management and economic geography, Sub-Saharan Africa
Advisors: Dr. Brian Child (Chair), Dr. Janaki Alavalapati (SFRC) (Co-Chair)

Risa Patarasuk
Research Areas include: roads, land cover change, population, human settlement pattern, core-periphery, remote sensing, GIS
Research Topic: The effects of roads on population, settlement pattern and land cover in Lop Buri Province, Thailand
Advisor: Dr. Michael Binford

Ashish Patel
Research Areas include: Business Geography with Concentration in Applications of Geographic Technologies
Advisor: Dr. Grant Thrall

Narcisa Pricope
Research Areas include: Global environmental change, Remote Sensing and GIS
Research Topic:  Land management and environmental impacts in degraded lands, Southern Africa.
Advisor: Dr. Mike Binford

Janet Puhalla
Research Areas include: Africa, Land Use
Research Topic: Land Use Change in Wetlands in Africa
Advisors: Dr. Michael Binford and Dr. Abe Goldman

James Rasmussen
Research Areas include: Geomorphology, Hydrology
Advisor: Dr. Joann Mossa

Kimly Reth
Research Areas include: Hydrology, Modeling, GIS, Cambodia
Research Topic:
Advisor: Dr. Michael Binford

Karla Rocha (SNRE)
Research Areas include: Remote Sensing, Land Cover Change, Community Management
Research Topic: Utilizing Remote Sensing and GIS tools to evaluate Land Use Land Cover Change in the tri-national frontier (MAP) - implications for sustainable land use in SW Amazon
Advisor: Dr. Jane Southworth

Joysee Rodriguez (SNRE)
Research areas include:
Research topic:
Advisor: Dr. Eric Keys

Luke Rostant (SNRE)
Research Areas include: Land use and land cover change, resilience, savannah ecology, community based natural resource management, community based natural resource monitoring systems.
Research Topic: Efficacy of the community based monitoring system in Namibia, the Event Book System.
Advisors: Dr. Michael Binford and Dr. Brian Child

Morgan Schmidt
Research Areas include: conservation, tropical ecosystems, archaeology, human ecology, indigenous rights
Research Topic: Genesis and Distribution of Anthrosols in the Upper Xingu of Southeastern Amazonia, Mato Grosso, Brazil
Advisor: Dr. Nigel Smith

Geraldo Silva
Research Areas include: Agronomy, Soil Science and land evaluation
Research Topic: Indigenous Tropical Agriculture, In situ conservation and local management of the agrobiodiversity, Kaiabi (Tupi Guarani) and Yudja (Juruna-Tupi) people Xingu Indigenous Park, MT Brazil.
Advisor: Dr. Nigel Smith

Claudia Stickler (SNRE)
Research areas include: LULCC, Brazil, Remote Sensing, GIS, Ecology
Research topic: Developing a property size and land use/land cover configuration index for modelling alternative landscapes to evaluate Brazilian forest legislation
Advisor: Dr. Jane Southworth (Chair) & Dr. Dan Zarin (Co-Chair)

Tracy Van Holt (SNRE)
Research areas include: Remote Sensing, biodiversity, GIS
Research topic:
Advisor: Dr. Michael Binford

John Warford
Research Areas include: Economic Geography
Advisor: Dr. Barbara McDade

Ken Whalen
Research Areas include: Cultural Landscapes, Geographic Representation, Contemporary Geographic Thought
Research Topic: Trail of Tears National Historic Trail.
Advisor: Dr. Ary Lamme

Keith Yearwood
Research Areas include: Fluvial geomorphology
Research Topic: Effects of dams on river planform change
Advisor: Dr. Joann Mossa