Lin Cassidy

Lin Cassidy is a land change scientist focusing on social-ecological systems and human-environment interactions, particularly as related to natural resources management and rural livelihoods in savannas and wetlands.   Her career expertise includes sociological and ecological surveys and assessments relating to conservation and development.  Lin’s research approaches include spatial analyses and remote sensing techniques to understand landscape-level change in resilience and adaptation.  Lin is an independent researcher, having previously worked at the University of Botswana’s Okavango Research Institute.

Andrea Gaughan

Andrea is an Associate Professor in the Department of Geography  and Geosciences at the University of Louisville.  She completed her PhD in Geography at the University of Florida (2011) and has held post-doctoral positions in the Division of Biological Sciences at the University of Missouri for modeling tree-grass dynamics and also for developing new statistical methodologies to map human population distribution for the WorldPop Project. Her research interests examine the intersection of population, land use/land cover and climate dynamics using a variety of geospatial tools and modeling approaches.

Joel Hartter

Joel is a social scientist and land change scientist that studies human-environment interactions in protected area landscapes. He came to the University of Colorado in 2013 after 6 ½ years in the Geography Department at the University of New Hampshire.  He is an associate professor in the Environmental Studies Program and leading the development of the Masters of the Environment professional degree, which is set to launch in fall 2016.  Since 2003, Joel has worked in national parks and the communities that surround them in Uganda, exploring issues of conservation management, climate change, health, community development, human migration, and resource extraction.  Joel’s work has been funded by National Geographic Society, the National Science Foundation, and the International Development and Research Council. ​
Narcisa Pricope
Narcisa is an Associate Professor of applied geography at University of North Carolina at Wilmington and director of the Socio-Environmental Analysis Lab at UNCW. Narcisa obtained her PhD in Geography (with a minor in Environmental Engineering) from the University of Florida in 2011 and subsequently worked as a visiting researcher in the Human-Environment Dynamics Lab at University of California at Santa Barbara. Her current work  focuses on applied questions at the intersection between land change science, watershed science, and population geography. Narcisa's overarching interest and long-term focus revolves around understanding the vulnerability of different populations to environmental change in the context of transboundary-managed water and natural resources by examining the drivers, patterns and impacts of vegetation change and degradation on both ecosystems and people particularly in southern and eastern African drylands.
Jon Salerno
Jon is an ecologist and is based at Colorado State University.  His research involves questions about how and why rural people make livelihood decisions, based mostly on evolutionary approaches to understand human behavior.  Jon focuses on tropical systems, particularly in eastern and southern Africa, in changing landscapes of mixed savanna woodland and expanding agropastoralist communities.  Recent projects extend to working lands and resource-linked communities in the western U.S. as well.  Ultimately he's interested in applying research on people’s interactions with their surrounding natural and social environments to challenges of biodiversity conservation and natural resource management. ​
Forrest Stevens
Forrest R. Stevens graduated with a B.A. in Biology, specializing in Ecology and Evolution from the University of Chicago in 1998.  He received his Ph.D. in Geography from the University of Florida in 2015.  His research focuses on environmental management and modeling across multiple scales, satellite- and UAS-derived remote sensing, with an emphasis on applications to Land Change Science and studying Human-Environment interactions.  Currently, he is an Assistant Professor at the University of Louisville in Kentucky.
Patricia Mupeta-Muyamwa
​Patricia Mupeta-Muyamwa received her Ph.D. in interdisciplinary ecology from the University of Florida. Her PhD work was a comparative study on the democratization of community based natural resource management (CBNRM) in Botswana and Zambia. Since 2011, Patricia has served as The Nature Conservancy’s community conservation program officer based in Lusaka, Zambia. She works as an independent consultant on the KAZAVA project providing expertise for field and community dynamics for the Zambia region. She has expertise in rural community development, household survey designs and governance issues with a goal towards ​improved CBNRM policies and practices that offer enhanced community benefits from well-conserved communal lands.

Karen Bailey 

Karen Bailey is a systems researcher interested in understanding human-environment interactions and social-ecological systems. She recently completed my PhD in the School of Natural Resources and the Environment at the University of Florida. Karen has broad interests in sustainable livelihoods, wildlife conservation, global change, and human behavior. Her dissertation focused on climate adaptation and wellbeing in Eswatini (formerly Swaziland). Karen also has a strong commitment to diversifying STEM fields, environmental justice, and science communication
Michael Drake
​​Michael is a Ph.D. student in Environmental Studies where he is advised by Joel Hartter and Dan Doak.  He received his MS from North Carolina State University and a BA from the University of Pennsylvania.  Michael has a background in bot terrestrial ecology and human dimensions research and will merge these interests to study how human populations drive conservation in the modern age.  Michael is particularly interested in mammal populations and has previously worked with coyotes, pangolins, and neotropical primates. 
Ariel Weaver
Ariel Weaver is a Fulbright Student Researcher for the 2017 field season. She is currently a Master's student at the University of Louisville, where she studies Applied Geography and concentrates on remote sensing applications for human-environment interactions. Her research interests are focused on social-ecological systems, sustainable conservation and development, climate change, and the changing human footprint on the landscape. Her Fulbright research is concentrated on using remote sensing techniques to look at changes in human settlements and agricultural areas from 1990 to 2017 in the Zambezi Region of Namibia. 
Steele Olsen
​Steele is a graduate student seeking a M.S of Geoscience at the University of North Carolina at Wilmington. He is currently studying in the Socio-Environmental Analysis Lab under the direction of Dr. Narcisa Pricope. Steele obtained his B.S in Environmental Science from the University of North Carolina Wilmington in 2016, and has since held intern positions with The Nature Conservancy, the Cape Fear Council of Government, as well as a research assistant position with UNCW's College of Health and Human Services. His current work focuses on developing a methodology for extracting useful vegetation parameters from localized ultra-high resolution remotely sensed data collection using unmanned aerial vehicles (UAVs) in savannah ecosystems. Steele's ultimate goal is to understand how UAV collected imagery can be used to influence better decision making and accurate ecological monitoring within conservation programs, as well as develop a recreatable, efficient, and cost effective protocol for UAV based data collection.
Nick Kolarik
Nick is a graduate student working on his M.S. in Applied Geography at the University of Louisville.  Currently working under the direction of Dr. Andrea Gaughan and Dr. Forrest Stevens, Nick is interested in the methods and applications of using remotely sensed imagery at multiple scales to quantify land use/land cover change.  His ultimate research goal is to contribute expertise in working with remote sensing data across space and time for interdisciplinary projects that focus on human-environment dynamics, especially system components of land change, climate, and hydroclimatology. 
Amelia Bradshaw
Amelia is an undergraduate student at the University of North Carolina at Wilmington. She is pursing a B.S. in Environmental Science with a concentration in Conservation and a B.A. in Geography. Her research interests primarily lie in human-environment interactions, specifically examining the vulnerability of human populations, which is the focus of her undergraudate honors thesis.  Currently, Amelia has been helping process the UAS data collected during the 2017 KAZAVA field campaign.  She is working under the advisement of Dr. Narcisa Pricope with the future goal of pursing  graduate studies to investigate, monitor and predict anthropogenic sources of pollution in the environment, specifically air and water pollution. 
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​Kyle is a graduate student working on a M.S of Geoscience at the University of North Carolina at Wilmington. Kyle obtained his B.S in Environmental Science from James Madison University in 2017. Kyle is interested in leveraging various geospatial and modeling tools to examine questions related to human-environment dynamics. He is currently studying in the Socio-Environmental Analysis Lab under the direction of Dr. Narcisa Pricope.