VISITING SCHOLARS

Carlos Ivan Salinas Espinoza

Soy biólogo manejador de recursos naturales, estudiando mi Doctorado en Ciencias Biológicas en la Universidad Autónoma de Nayarit en México. Mi investigación se titula “Valoración económica de los servicios ecosistémicos de Marismas Nacionales” en este trabajo se analizan los cambios en el valor económico de los servicios ecosistémicos de Marismas Nacionales que es una Reserva de la Biosfera en la costa noroeste de México. Este análisis se realiza ante diferentes escenarios de cambio de uso del suelo, analizando los patrones de cambio de 1986 a 2022 y realizando proyecciones hasta el año 2050.

Elena Dauster

I am a Geophysics and Meteorology student at the University of Edinburgh, interested in understanding the intersection of biodiversity conservation and Indigenous and Traditional knowledge as essential tools in addressing the climate crisis and ecological breakdown. My research focuses on unraveling how industries access and utilize native species in Brazil, while also addressing the issue of traceability. The ultimate goal of my work is to contribute to the development of transparent environmental policies that facilitate fair and equitable benefit-sharing. Recognizing the significance of a decolonized approach to environmental science, my work seeks to elevate the livelihoods of Indigenous and Traditional communities and empower them in their vital role of safeguarding the land and ensuring sustainable land use.

Andrea Pacheco

is a Honduran, interdisciplinary environmental scientist and is currently a researcher at the University of Bonn’s Institute for Food and Resource Economics, as a part of the Economics of Sustainable Land-use group. She works under the EU-funded “CLEVER” project (Creating Leverage to Enhance Biodiversity Outcomes of Global Biomass Trade), and collaborates with CSR team members to better understand the impacts of global trade pressures and flows on the distribution and persistence of biodiversity in Brazil.

Beatriz Figueiredo Cabral

I am a Forestry Engineer from the Federal University of Lavras (UFLA) and a Master in Tropical Forest Sciences from the National Institute for Research in the Amazon (INPA). I am currently a collaborator at the National Center for Monitoring and Natural Disaster Alerts (Cemaden) and at the National Institute for Research in the Amazon (INPA), working as a fellow in a project entitled “Prediction of Forest Degradation as a Subsidy for Actions to Avoid Burning and Forest Fires”, coordinated by researchers Dr. Liana O. Anderson and Dr. Philip M. Fearnside. In this project, we are working with Dinamica-EGO to simulate future scenarios of degradation by logging and forest fires in southern Amazonas. Our objective is to provide a diagnosis and prognosis of forest degradation, due to logging and forest fires resulting from burnings, in order to generate scenarios that allow the preventive control of burnings, thus subsidizing the management of natural resources and conservation areas.

Marit Verbeet

This year I will finish my studies at Avans University of applied sciences where I study environmental sciences with a specialization in sustainable agriculture at Wageningen University. To gain experience in my field I am at CSR for my research internship. My research is about incorporation of native species in Minas Gerais into sustainable agriculture systems. The intent of this research is to boost the biodiversity in Minas Gerais, while at the same time investigating resilient and sustainable agricultural systems that fit to the community and socioeconomic status.

Yannic Rudá Damm

I am an environmental economist and PhD-student at the Institute for Food and Resource Economics at the University of Bonn, Germany. My research focuses on the assessment of externalities of land-use change and conservation policies. To do so, I apply quasi-experimental methods and other impact evaluation techniques to quantify the size and significance of these external effects. As an interdisciplinary researcher, I combine remotely sensed spatial data with socioeconomic, health and environmental micro-level data. This allows me to, for example, examine some of the various consequences of deforestation and the soybean expansion in the Brazilian Amazon.

Ruben Oliemans

Currently studying Environmental Science for Sustainable Energy and Technology at Avans University of Applied Sciences in Breda, the Netherlands. A part of this study program is to do a research internship. This part of my studies brought me to Brazil, where I am doing my research at the CSR. My research is on the role of native species in the biofuel industry of Brazil. The goal is to assess how native species can contribute to sustainable land use by providing local communities the resources required to sustain their land. After this research internship, I will begin my graduation as an Environmental Scientist. After graduation, I will continue studying or start working as an Environmental Scientist.

João Cândido André da Silva Neto

He holds a master’s degree in Geography from the Federal University of Mato Grosso do Sul (UFMS/CPA), a PhD in Geography from the Paulista State University Estate (ESP). He is an Adjunct Professor at the Department of Geography and the Postgraduate Program in Geography at the Federal University of Amazonas, where he integrates the HIDROGEO Laboratory (Hydrogeography, Climatology and Environmental Analysis in the Amazon). He is currently carrying out a post-doctorate in the Postgraduate Program in Geography at the Federal University of Minas Gerais, with support from FAPEAM (Fundação de Amparo à Pesquisa do Estado do Amazonas), within the scope of the Post-Doctoral Support Program – PRODOC. He has experience in the area of Physical Geography, with emphasis on Environmental Analysis, Biogeography, Geographic Information Systems and Remote Sensing.

Hongxi Liu

I have finished PhD in the SURUMER (Sustainable Rubber Cultivation in the Mekong Region) project assessing C dynamic changes by land use change, at Hohenheim University, Germany. Now I am a full time researcher at the school of environment, Beijing Normal University (BNU), China. My research interests lie in assessing land use change impact on ecosystem services. Currently I am working on a project evaluating urbanization impact on environmental capacity. This project cooperates between UFMG and BNU, and aims at modelling how the spatial patterns of urbanization can affect the regional ecosystem services and environmental capacity.

Laura Sonter

My research interests broadly encompass the themes of sustainability science, human-ecological systems and spatial patterns of land-use change. I have research experience in ecological restoration of tropical rainforests (see Sonter et al. 2011) and in modeling restoration of coal mining landscapes to optimize ecological, social and economic management goals (see Barrett et al. 2011). In March 2011, I began my PhD research project at the Sustainable Minerals Institute (University of Queensland) in collaboration with CSR. This project aims to quantify the conservation conflict and opportunities associated with the expansion of mining activities in Brazil’s major iron mining region, the Quadrilátero Ferrífero.

Suveshnee Munien 

I am currently a full time lecturer  in the department of geography and environmental science, University of KwaZulu-Natal, South Africa. My research focuses on the use of spatial tools and methodologies in understanding human-environment interactions.  

Raíza Salomão Precinoto 

Raíza has a degree in Forestry Engineering from the Federal Rural University of Rio de Janeiro (UFRRJ) and is currently a Master’s student in Ecology at the Federal University of Rio de Janeiro (UFRJ). His research consists of analyzing the dynamics of forest loss and gain in the São João river basin, in the state of Rio de Janeiro, developing a spatially explicit model for modeling forest cover and making projections of deforestation and natural regeneration events in future scenarios.

Michelle Farfán Gutiérrez

I am currently a full-time teacher in the Department of Geomatic and Hydraulic Engineering, in the Division of Engineering of the University of Guanajuato, Campus Guanajuato. I am also interested in developing the spatial modeling of the fire risk caused by human activities, as well as relating them to climatic variables for the state of Guanajuato, implementing the software DINAMICA EGO.

Andrés Burgos Delgado

Robert Davenport

As a doctoral candidate in Environmental Anthropology at the University of California, Santa Cruz, my dissertation research focuses on livelihood and institutional change in smallholder landscapes in the Brazilian Amazon. I combine surveys, ethnography and remote sensing analysis to analyze and compare the unexpected emergence of forest conservation and intentional secondary forest regrowth in former frontiers. Rather than to hypothesize a forest transition driven by high tech agricultural intensification and rural to urban out migration, however, I hypothesize that forest regrowth and conservation may be driven by higher value for manual labor in agroforestry systems and extractive industries, social and institutional structures, mobility between rural and urban areas, and ethnobotanical knowledge and experience on the land (Hecht et al 2014). For these landscapes, I also plan to use DINAMICA EGO to model the impact of ‘policmixes’ on LULUCF.

Estela Herguido

I am biologist and I made a M.S. in Ecology at the Universidad Autónoma de Madrid. Currently, I am a PhD candidate at the Universidad de Extremadura and I am studying the dynamics of the land cover during the last decades in the traditional Iberian open wooded rangelands called Dehesas or Montados. In Dehesas, the lack in tree recruitment is widely reported. My main focus is on land use intensity and its relationships with tree regrowth. I am also modelling the formation of bare soil patches around livestock aggregating elements in DINAMICA EGO, with the objective of studying different management strategies under current climate and future climate change scenarios. I will also use DINAMICA EGO to model the polarization of the processes of intensification vs. abandonment in these systems at the landscape scale.

Carlos Ivan Salinas Espinoza

I am a biologist, Master’s student in Management of Arid Zones Ecosystems, of the Universidad Autónoma de Baja California. My research is entitled “Proposal of a model for identification of areas for conservation.” I am developing land cover scenarios for northern Baja California with Dinamica EGO and they will be combined with distribution models of native Baja California species.

Livia Abdalla

Geographer graduated from Universidade Federal Fluminense – UFF and Master’s student in Cartographic Engineering at Instituto Militar de Engenharia – IME. Her dissertation project is entitled “Dynamic modeling of regeneration of Atlantic Forest vegetation“, which aims to develop modeling based on cellular automata for quantification of estimates and evaluation of future trends on the natural recovery of vegetation from the Atlantic Forest in order to simulate the dynamics of evolution between the classes: secondary vegetation and forest; capoeira and secondary vegetation; grass and capoeira; exposed soil and gras.

Michelle Farfán Gutiérrez

Michelle is a PhD. candidate in Geography at Centro de Investigaciones en Geografía Ambiental (CIGA), UNAM, Campus Morelia, Mexico. Her research focuses on spatial modeling environmental dynamics and biodiversity conservation. In the last 4 years she has worked on the estimation of deforestation and conservation in the Sierra de Manantlan Biosphere Reserve, Jalisco, Mexico. Currently she is developing scenarios of change with DINAMICA EGO in combination with potential distribution of species under the tutelage of Dr. Jean-François Mas.

Kimberly Carlson 

As a PhD student at Yale University’s School of Forestry and Environmental Studies, my research focuses on the effects of land use change on people and ecosystems. I am interested in how social processes and ecological dynamics interact and shape land use transitions around agricultural intensification in the tropics. By assessing the full costs and benefits – including traditionally undervalued “ecosystem services” – of competing land uses, I believe that local communities and policymakers can adapt incentives to alter land use trajectories to become more sustainable and equitable. For my dissertation, I am examining how oil palm plantation expansion in Indonesian Borneo affects land use, livelihoods, and ecosystem services. To assess the impacts of oil palm agribusiness at local-to-regional scales, I couple empirical socio-economic, biophysical, and remote sensing assessments with spatially-explicit models of land use change developed in Dinamica EGO.

Laura Sonter

My research interests broadly encompass the themes of sustainability science, human-ecological systems and spatial patterns of land-use change. I have research experience in ecological restoration of tropical rainforests (see Sonter et al. 2011) and in modeling restoration of coal mining landscapes to optimize ecological, social and economic management goals (see Barrett et al. 2011). In March 2011, I began my PhD research project at the Sustainable Minerals Institute (University of Queensland) in collaboration with CSR. This project aims to quantify the conservation conflict and opportunities associated with the expansion of mining activities in Brazil’s major iron mining region, the Quadrilátero Ferrífero.

Isaac Kwadwo Nti 

– PhD Candidate at Geoinformatics Research Centre of Auckland University of Technology. New Zealand. Ongoing
– Lecturer/Researcher @ University of Ghana, Computer Engineering Department. From 2006 to Present
– Lecture/Researcher @ University of Mines and Technology, Tarkwa, Ghana. Department of Geomatics. From 2005 to 2006
– MSc Geomatics, Germany.
PHD work – Researching into modeling, simulating and visualising the landuse and cover change. Looking into performance generic platform(DINAMICA) for landuse modeling. Using Auckland Region as the Candidate area to design LUCC, determine the drivers, evaluate best methods of calibration and validation.