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About Joel's Work

I am a human-environment geographer who conducts transdisciplinary research and teaching on political ecology, development geographies, the human dimensions of climate change and natural hazards. Specifically, my research investigates relationships between landscape change, natural resource governance, and societal inequalities with a focus on Indigenous and front-line communities in Latin America with special focus on the Gran Chaco and Amazon.

I am currently focused on three core research topics:
1) the flood-drought-fire nexus and its impacts on social-ecological systems in threatened forest lands;
2) relationships between rapid frontier development, impacts of climate change, and the outcomes of adaptation and mitigation initiatives;
3) the effects of adaptive Indigenous territorial stewardship practices on biocultural conservation.

Learn more about my research group the FRONTERAS Collective (www.fronterascollective.org) and the transdisciplinary science program that I co-Direct: Just Social-Ecological Transformations in Latin America (www.jset-la.org).

To date, I have had the opportunity to secure and manage $2.1+ million in competitive grants and fellowships to advance innovative research, including support from the National Science Foundation (NSF), Gordon and Betty Moore Foundation Andes-Amazon Initiative, the American Council of Learned Societies, and Fulbright. In January 2025, the Human-Environment and Geographic Sciences Program and Social, Behavioral, and Economic Sciences Directorate of NSF selected my CAREER proposal for funding–the “most prestigious award” for early career faculty from NSF. However, DOGE officers at NSF deemed my work on climate change and Indigenous well-being not aligned with current political interests and tanked the project.

I am currently an Assistant Professor in the Human Dimensions of Natural Resources Department at Colorado State University in Fort Collins, Colorado USA. Before joining CSU, I was an faculty member at the University of Florida Center for Latin American Studies and Tropical Conservation and Development Program (2018-2023).