Regional Studies

A geographer is naturally curious about the world and having only one specific place or region of focus can be limiting!  

Most of my career has been focused on the political economy and political ecology of Brazil. I actually did my dissertation fieldwork in urban Brazil, where I studied urban change, sustainability, and democratic participation in planning in the favela (comunidade) of São Pedro in Vitória in the late 1990s and early 2000s.  Since then, I have co-published on the political economy (neoliberalization) of Brazilian higher education and the political ecology of the Samarco dam disaster.  I also joined a research group at Universidade Federal de São Carlos (UFSCar) with Dr. Joao Reis da Silva Jr.

My other regional interest lies in East Asia.  While I have not published extensively on this area, I have continued to study it since my first visit to Beijing in March 1988.  I was awarded a Fulbright to South Korea in 2010.  I was part of a USFIL grant at the East-West Center in 2012 (and currently serve on its Asian Studies Development Program alumni board). I co-wrote the Asian Studies minor at Mercer University. I have been the chair of the University System of Georgia's Asia Council (2018-2022), and oversee the Asian Studies Minor at Columbus State University. 

More locally, I have become very interested in the political ecology of sea-level-rise (SLR) on the Georgia coastline.  I have published two articles on this front and joined the Georgia Climate Project to search for interdisciplinary solutions to this on-going climate change threat.  

Learn more about my regional scholarship at my Google Scholar site.