Who We Are
Don Nelson
I am an ecological anthropologist and Professor of Anthropology. My research explores relationships between humans, climate and their natural environments and I use a range of qualitative and participatory methodologies as well as quantitative tools in my research, which include GIS and remote sensing. In my professional life I have worked extensively in Latin America and the Caribbean, with a particular focus in Northeast Brazil and the Brazilian Amazon. I have also been involved with work in Africa including the countries of Mozambique, Angola, and The Comoros. I am a core faculty member of the Institute for Resilient Infrastructure Systems, UGA’s Latin American and Caribbean Studies Institute, a faculty affiliate of the Center for Integrative Conservation Research, and co-director of BNRGI.
Gregory Thaler
I am Associate Professor of Environmental Geography and Latin American Studies in the Oxford School of Global and Area Studies and the School of Geography and the Environment at the University of Oxford.
My research examines the political ecology and political economy of development, global environmental governance, and agrarian politics. In Brazil, my work is focused on governance and change on agro-forest frontiers in the eastern Amazon and transboundary land change processes between Brazil and Bolivia. I am co-director of BNRGI.
Valério Gomes
I am a professor with the Amazonian Institute of Family Agricultures (INEAF) at the Federal University of Pará in Belém, Brazil. My research analyzes the interface between environment and development, particularly on the subjects of land use and planning, small-scale family farming systems, sustainable rural development, and environmental change at local and global scales.
I have three decades of experience working with social movements, multilateral cooperation programs, international conservation organizations, and government agencies to promote sustainable livelihoods and forest conservation in the Brazilian Amazon.
I am a 2019 Visiting Practitioner for the School of Public and International Affairs (SPIA) at the University of Georgia and the principal affiliate for BNRGI at the Federal University of Pará in Belém, Brazil.
MONIQUE MEDEIROS
I am a professor in the Amazonian Institute of Family Agricultures (INEAF) at the Federal University of Pará, in Belém, Brazil.
Since 2018, I have been developing intercultural research with traditional river-dwelling (ribeirinho) and Afro-descendant quilombola communities in the Brazilian Amazon.
This interdisciplinary research has emphasized communities’ counter-hegemonic practices for socially constructing technologies, knowledges, and innovations. More recently, I have been focusing in these collaborations on water insecurity and water injustice in the Amazon, and intersectionality (race, gender, and class) is a key approach for our analyses.
I also participate as a researcher in the AgriTerris Network (which links researchers from Brazil, Argentina, and France), I am vice-leader of the Innovation, Society, and Eco-Territorialities Research Group and leader of the Rural Development and Socio-Technical Innovation (DRIS) Research Group.
Thomas ludewigs
I am an agronomist and professor at the Amazonian Institute of Family Agricultures at the Federal University of Pará. I conduct action-research related to family agriculture, with an emphasis on agroforestry systems and agro-ecology. My research methods include field interviews with a systemic or interdisciplinary focus and attitudinal analysis.
Additional topics relevant to my research are Agenda 2030, common pool resources (CPRs) and collective action, and climate change.
Shelly A. Biesel
A cultural-ecological anthropologist by training, Shelly examines how historic, intersectional inequalities shape social and ecological experiences of environmental change in rural communities. She has worked with coal-mining communities in rural Appalachia, and with Afro-descendent traditional communities in Northeast Brazil. In 2020, Shelly received a Fulbright-Hays DDRA Fellowship to study gendered and racialized experiences of industrial development in coastal Pernambuco. In Pernambuco she collaborates with the Centro das Mulheres do Cabo, Elaine Cristina Salgado Mendonça, Christine Dabat at the Universidade Federal de Pernambuco, and numerous interlocutors and NGOs in Cabo do Santo Agostinho and Ipojuca.
In addition to being a founding member and Digital Project Coordinator for the Brazil Natural Resource Governance Initiative, Shelly is a PhD candidate in UGA’s Department of Anthropology, where she is based in the Humans and Environmental Change Lab. She is also affiliated with the Institute for Women's Studies, and the Latin American and Caribbean Institute.
Cydney Siegerman
Cydney K. Seigerman is a PhD student in the Integrative Conservation & Anthropology program at the University of Georgia (UGA).
As a scholartist*, Cydney critically uses the social sciences, the natural sciences, and performance/theatre to examine the entanglement of humans and non-humans within their shared socionatural environments. Cydney’s dissertation research will focus on water (in)security and how social and political relationships impact and are impacted by water use in Ceará, northeast Brazil.
Cydney is a student affiliate of the BNRGI, the UGA River Basin Center, and the UGA Center for Integrative Conservation Research. They co-developed the workshop series Exploring Research as Craft, co-chairs the 2020 Integrative Conservation Conference, and collaborates with The Georgia Incarceration Performance Project as a co-deviser.
*The term scholartist was coined by the interdisciplinary scholar/artist Joseph Shahadi.
Raul Basilio
Raul Basilio is a Ph.D. student in the department of anthropology at the University of Georgia.
Raul’s research interests are in political ecology, social movements and memory within an urban setting in a coastal area of Rio de Janeiro. He seeks to understand how water pollution and environmental degradation influences people’s perceptions of the environment considering social, cultural and political factors of Rio.
Bruno Ubiali
Bruno Ubiali is a Ph.D. student in the Integrative Conservation and Anthropology Program at the University of Georgia.
He has worked with non-timber forest products in the Amazon, and environmental planning and forest restoration in southeastern Brazil. His research interests comprise the topics of forest conservation and rural development, specifically the relationship between traditional communities’ livelihoods and biodiversity conservation in the Brazilian Amazon.
EDUARDO MONTEIRO
Eduardo holds a Bachelor's and Licensure in Geography from the Faculty of Geography and Cartography of UFPA. He is currently completing his Master's research on territorial dynamics in northeastern Pará State through the Postgraduate Program in Amazonian Agricultures at INEAF (PPGAA/INEAF). His research interests center on territorial dynamics, territorial governance, and territorial development. He is affiliated with the AJURI Agroecological Studies Center, which provides interdisciplinary training in support of family agriculture within the Amazonian Institute of Family Agricultures (INEAF/UFPA).
Eduardo is a producer and composer working principally with audiovisual media and music. He is co-designer of the BNRGI website and responsible for the Portuguese-language version of the site, as well as creator of the BNRGI logo. During his academic career he has created numerous websites for conferences and seminars in Pará and in other states in Brazil.
VICTOR OEIRAS
Victor holds a degree in Law from the Federal University of Pará and a degree in Forest Engineering from the Federal Rural University of Amazonia. He is qualified as a specialist in Environmental Law from the College of Law (Lawyer’s Order of Brazil - Pará) and University Center of Pará (CESUPA).
Victor is currently a Master's student in Family Farming and Sustainable Development in the Graduate Program of the Amazonian Institute of Family Agricultures (INEAF) at the Federal University of Pará; and he is a collaborator in the socio-environmental justice area of the Magis Brasil Program, an initiative of the Jesuits in Brazil.
larissa lourenço
Larissa holds a degree in Agronomy from the Federal Rural University of Amazonia, and she is currently in her first year of the Masters in Family Agricultures and Sustainable Development (PPGAA) at the Amazonian Institute of Family Agricultures of the Federal University of Pará (INEAF/UFPA). She is completing a specialization in Management of Agroextractivist Systems for Common-Use Territories in the Amazon, also at the Amazonian Institute of Family Agricultures.
Her graduate research examines territorial development through rural credit policies for small-scale family agriculturalists in the Brazilian Amazon, especially in the State of Pará.
Gabriel Soyer
Gabriel Soyer is a Ph.D. Student in Political Science and International Affairs at the University of Georgia. He is interested in studying rural development on agricultural frontiers and its consequences for rural landscapes and livelihoods. He holds a Bachelor of Arts in International Relations from the University of Brasilia, Brazil. He has worked with food policy, social protection, and development in Brazil through positions at the Food and Nutrition Security National Council (CONSEA), the International Policy Centre for Inclusive Growth (IPC-IG) of the United Nations Development Program (UNDP), and recently FIAN Brazil.
His current research is focused on the Cerrado’s agricultural frontiers based on an interdisciplinary perspective, drawing on development studies, political economy, and human geography.