The collective.

Island geographies in the Andaman and Nicobar Islands — political geographies and ecologies of indigeneity, colonialism, and bureaucracy. Co-advised with Dr. Cynthia Simmons.

Interested in advancing critical engagements with island geographies that have implications for social and environmental justice, and de/anti colonial futures. Research in the Andaman and Nicobar Islands focused on the political geographies and ecologies of indigeneity and colonialism that advances our understanding of island geographies through archival, feminist, and ethnographic attention to governance, bureaucracy, and islander community dynamics. Recipient of fellowships from the University of Florida's Center of the Humanities and the Public Sphere and the American Institute of Indian Studies; and the Rauf Ali Fellowship based in India. Holds a master's degree in development studies. Earlier work supported research projects on post disaster recovery and public health and nutrition in India. Keywords: islands, colonialism, indigeneity, and bureaucracy.

Community-based conservation with Waimiri Atroari communities in the northern Brazilian Amazon — critical transdisciplinary science, communal resurgence and autonomies in the wake of genocide. Co-advised with Dr. Karen Kainer.

Research with Waimiri Atroari Indigenous communities in the northern Brazilian Amazon focused on community-based conservation through critical transdisciplinary science and communal resurgence and autonomies in the wake of genocide.

Bahía Malaga, Colombia, with Afro-descendant women piangüa harvesters — cuerpo-territorio analysis of how mangroves and human well-being are interrelated, advancing a framework for critical nature-based solutions.

Research in Bahía Malaga, Colombia with Afro-descendant women piangüa (clam) harvesters focused on cuerpo-territorio analysis of how mangroves and human well-being are interrelated while advancing a framework for critical nature-based solutions.

The Chaco-Pantanal interface in Paraguay — human geographies of fire use and management, bridging geospatial analysis with social science to advance integrated fire management. Co-advised with Dr. Michael Gavin.

Research in Paraguay at the Chaco-Pantanal interface focused on assessing human geographies of fire use and management through mixed-methods research that bridges geospatial analysis with social science to advance integrated fire management.

The Ecuadorian Amazon with Siona and Siekopai communities — environmental governance and the conditions that shape territorial stewardship, toward community-based conservation planning.

Carlos Armando Urgilés Verdugo is a PhD student in the Human Dimension of Natural Resources at Colorado State University. His research examines the asymmetries in organizational agency between two Indigenous nationalities, the Siekopai and Siona, in the northern Ecuadorian Amazon. He contextualizes their historical separation to understand its drivers and its implications for contemporary governance from Indigenous perspectives. He also explores the governance mechanisms and practices emerging in each territory and evaluates ecological and social outcomes associated with these arrangements. In parallel, he analyzes how Indigenous and Western visions of governance are—or are not—articulated through management tools.

Analyzing these factors is particularly relevant given that the Amazon has become a contested region shaped by accelerating pressures from legal and illegal extractivism, infrastructure expansion, and land-use change. As a result, forest fragmentation and pollution intensify climate disruptions that threaten the biocultural diversity, well-being, and resilience of this biome. Drawing on social-ecological systems theory, governance mechanisms, political ecology, conservation biology, and transdisciplinary approaches, his research examines what governance means in Indigenous territories and how it can be articulates with Western governance frameworks through the co-creation of knowledge between Indigenous epistemologies and academic.

Community-based conservation and the relationships between environmental management, biodiversity, climate resilience, and human livelihoods — how communities that depend on natural resources respond to environmental change, and how conservation initiatives can support both ecological and social well-being.

Vasilios Kosmakos is a Master's student in the Conservation Leadership program at Colorado State University. His research interests focus on community-based conservation and the relationships between environmental management, biodiversity, climate resilience, and human livelihoods. He is particularly interested in how communities that depend on natural resources respond to environmental change and how conservation initiatives can support both ecological and social well-being.

His interests include examining the social, ecological, and economic factors that shape conservation outcomes, particularly within coastal and forest communities. He is interested in how local knowledge, institutions, governance systems, and livelihood strategies influence the ways communities manage natural resources and adapt to changing environmental conditions. He is also interested in the connections between biodiversity conservation, water security, and community resilience.

Drawing on social-ecological systems theory, community-based conservation, environmental governance, and the human dimensions of natural resources, his work seeks to better understand how conservation approaches can be designed to reflect local priorities while strengthening the resilience of both ecosystems and the communities that depend upon them.

The role collaborative networks play in realizing land stewardship outcomes — how they connect actors across scales, enable knowledge and resource exchange, and act as deliberative spaces critical to forming shared visions and influencing conservation policy.

Zac holds a M.S. in International Conservation and Development at the University of Montana, where he studied collaborative governance arrangements in Chilean Patagonia. He has since offered coordination support to the Latin American Private Land Conservation Network, part of which involved research into the enabling conditions of voluntary land conservation in the region. In other work, he helped assess grant programs investing in collaborative capacity in the US and hopes to build on these experiences through his dissertation work.

His research interests center on the role collaborative networks play in realizing land stewardship outcomes: how they connect actors across scales, enable knowledge and resource exchange, and act as deliberative spaces critical to forming shared visions and influencing conservation policy.

Beyond research, Zac sees himself continuing his journey as an environmental educator and facilitator. He wants to support place-based visions of land stewardship and sees this as immediately linked with a more sustainable future. He draws much of his inspiration from various extended stays throughout South America and has come to love the region's diverse cultures and landscapes. These passions form the foundation of his research and career aspirations. On his own time, he likes to cook, play music, roam around mountain peaks, drink maté, and discuss philosophy.

Everyday life in an Indigenous community resisting the mining frontiers of the Venezuelan Amazon. Now a PhD student in Geography at UT Austin, working on how extraction reorganizes kinship, care, and place-based knowledge along the Venezuelan–Colombian Amazonian border. Co-advised with Dr. Rebecca Hanson.

Thesis: Finding spaces to heal: Exploring the everyday life experiences of an Indigenous community resisting the mining frontiers of the Venezuelan Amazon.

Laura is currently pursuing a PhD in geography at University of Texas Austin. Her research examines how emerging mining frontiers are reshaping Uwottüja Indigenous territories along the Venezuelan–Colombian Amazonian border. While these territories are often understood as protected through Indigenous governance and longstanding relations with the land, she explores how extractive pressures take hold from within. Moving beyond accounts that focus primarily on environmental impacts or territorial defense, her work foregrounds the relational and embodied dimensions of extraction.

Drawing on feminist political ecology and Indigenous geographies, she analyzes how mining reorganizes everyday life by transforming kinship relations, care practices, mobility patterns, and place-based systems of knowledge. She is particularly interested in how these shifts are entangled with the intensification of gendered and intimate forms of violence. By centering women's experiences, her research conceptualizes extractive frontiers as embodied processes, produced through the disruption and reconfiguration of social and territorial relations.