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My research and teaching efforts focus on developing and applying interdisciplinary approaches that analyze interactions between agriculture, livelihoods, and biodiversity conservation in tropical and temperate landscapes.  This work aims to integrate natural and social science concepts and methods, drawing strongly from the fields of agroecology, agroforestry and landscape ecology, as well as political ecology, development studies, food systems research and rural sociology.

As part of my desire to bring research into action, I use Participatory Action Research (PAR) as a strategy to directly  support the farmers, communities and organizations that I interact with through my investigations and teaching.

Tropical Agricultural Landscapes

Research activities in this area focus on analyzing the potential of biodiversity conservation in tropical agroforestry systems, and how these initiatives can result in direct benefits to farmer livelihoods.  For the past 7 years, this work has focused on shade coffee, but will be expanding to other forms of agroforestry, such as homegardens, live fences and windbreaks.   This work is underway in El Salvador, through collaborations with Advising and Interdisciplinary Research for Local Development and Conservation (ASINDEC), a non-profit research foundation, and the Association of Organic Coffee Producers of Western El Salvador (ACOES), a second level farmer cooperative.  Collaborative work has also been underway in Nicaragua, Costa Rica and Mexico through the Community Agroecology Network (CAN).  Much of this work has been done in close collaboration with Dr. Christopher Bacon and Steve Gliessman's research group at UC Santa Cruz.

Focus group with cooperative members

Shade coffee landscape in Tacuba, western El Salvador

Soil Sampling in Shade Coffee, El Salvador

Temperate Agricultural Landscapes
Research activities in this area focus on documenting and analyzing ecosystem services of agricultural landscapes, agroecological farm production, and local food systems in Vermont, using a Multifunctionality framework.  My lab is focusing specifically on agroforestry systems, as part of a larger project on the multifunctionality of agricultural landscapes in the Chittenden Watershed of Vermont. These projects are recently starting with the collaboration of Dr. Sarah Taylor Lovell, of the Department of Plant and Soil Science at UVM.

Last modified May 09 2008 04:07 PM