WEBSITE Degrees
BS, Biological Sciences, Stanford University
About
Agriculture is a leading cause of land cover change worldwide. Yet patterns of agricultural expansion, and differential consequences of agricultural change for people and ecosystems across local-to-global scales, remain largely unknown. My research aims to understand the patterns and processes that characterize agricultural expansion, and to assess tradeoffs for various user groups. To address these objectives, I employ remote sensing tools and spatially-explicit land change modeling coupled with socio-ecological field data collection. I integrate standard measures of success such as agricultural yields with highly uncertain and/or rarely quantified outcomes such as carbon emissions and implications on agrarian landholdings. With better information regarding the full costs and benefits of competing land uses, I believe that policymakers can adapt incentives to generate more equitable and sustainable land use trajectories. For my dissertation, I am examining how rapid expansion of oil palm plantations in Indonesian Borneo affects land use, livelihoods, and ecosystem services at local-to-regional scales.
