Fifteen geographers from 11 states and the West Indies were named as the AAG’s first-ever cohort in the Elevate the Discipline program, which trains them to leverage the media and other public channels as voices for public policies, and advocates for change. In keeping with the 2023 theme “Climate and Society,” these participants represent the rich and diverse range of practice within the discipline, including hydroclimatology, political ecology, climate and health, disaster geography, geoinformatics, soil science, and more.
Anamaria Bukvic
Anamaria Bukvic
Anamaria Bukvic, Assistant Professor at Virginia Tech, is a geographer with a strong background in human gegraphy. She is known for her groundbreaking research on Coastal Adaptation, Resilience, and Human Mobility. Anamaria uses innovative qualitative and quantitative mixed-methods approaches to study complex emerging societal issues related to flooding in coastal urban and rural settings. Anamaria’s projects have been funded by the National Science Foundation and the State of Virginia to study the impacts of chronic and episodic flooding on coping capacity and relocation in coastal communities. She was a Fellow of the 2019 Early Career Innovators Program at the National Center for Atmospheric Research and co-organizer of the Rotating Resilience Roundtable semiannual workshops designed to facilitate collaboration among researchers and stakeholders on coastal resilience in Virginia. Anamaria is an Associate Director of the Center for Coastal Studies at Virginia Tech and also serves on the Climigration Network leadership team and chairs the Work Group on Research, Innovation, and Evaluation.
Katie Clifford
Katie Clifford
Dr. Katherine (Katie) Clifford is Lead Social Scientist at Western Water Assessment at the University of Colorado. She is a geographer with a strong background in environment-society geography. Known for her research illuminating the regulatory challenges and uneven consequences of climate hazards and impacts, her work focuses on how frontline communities are uniquely impacted by climate hazards, and her findings help diagnose policy loopholes and develop equitable and just adaptation strategies in partnership with communities.
Rajiv Ghimire
Rajiv Ghimire
Dr. Rajiv Ghimire is a Lecturer at the School for Environment and Sustainability at the University of Michigan. As an interdisciplinary scholar and a human environment geographer Dr. Ghimire’s research is mostly centered on climate change and energy, global development, and adaptation and resilience with a geographical focus in the U.S. and South Asia. His work on climate adaptation especially focuses on institutional and technological innovations with the case of flagship adaptation initiatives such as Local adaptation plans and climate mart agriculture. More recently, Dr. Ghimire’s work has been exploring whether flourishing carbon capture projects can mainstream equity and justice. His works on climate adaptation and mitigation focus on developing innovative strategies for dealing with the grand challenge of climate change with an emphasis on knowledge co-production and systems thinking.
Zhiying Li
Zhiying Li
Dr. Zhiying Li, Assistant Professor at Indiana University Bloomington, is a geographer with a strong background in Physical Geography. She is known for her research on hydroclimatology. Her work specifically focuses on how climate change and human intervention are altering the water cycle, including hydroclimatic extremes and water availability. She is recently working on assessing the ability of static drought monitoring in a nonstationary climate.
Adriana Martinez
Adriana Martinez
Dr. Adriana E. Martinez, Associate Professor at Southern Illinois University Edwardsville, is a geographer with a strong background in fluvial geomorphology. She is known for her groundbreaking research on the impacts of the U.S.-Mexico border fence. Her work focuses on the impacts of the fence on flooding and residents in the area. She also specializes in increasing representation in STEM disciplines and the geosciences.
Nkatha Mercy
Nkatha Mercy
Nkatha is a PhD candidate at the West Virginia University. Her research interests straddle political and development geography in so far as they speak to disaster risk reduction, management and adaptation to climate change. This in the context of UN global policies, including the SDGs and the Sendai Framework, and processes of participation for pastoralists in drylands categorized by the UN as Indigenous Peoples.
Pinki Mondal
Pinki Mondal
Dr. Pinki Mondal, Assistant Professor at the University of Delaware, is a geographer specializing in geospatial applications in environmental geography. She is known for her groundbreaking research on climatic impacts on multi-functional ecosystems. Her work on rapidly evolving heterogeneous landscapes in Asia and the U.S. specifically focuses on utilizing satellite/aerial remote sensing to identify short- and long-term changes in the face of climate change, with an emphasis on integrating policy recommendations and community engagement.
Rebecca Nixon
Rebecca Nixon
Dr. Rebecca (Becca) Nixon, Assistant Professor at the University of Delaware, is a geographer with a strong background in environmental social science and human geography. She is known for her research on the social dimensions of climate change and environmental decision-making. Her work specifically focuses on adaptation decision-making processes and outcomes across the individual, household, and community scales to support climate justice in rural and coastal areas, with an emphasis on interdisciplinary and community-based collaborations.
Shannon O'Lear
Shannon O'Lear
Dr. Shannon O’Lear, Professor of Geography and Director of the Environmental Studies Program at the University of Kansas, is a political geographer known for taking a critical approach to environmental issues. Her work on environmental geopolitics decodes political stories about the environment and how those stories, and agendas underlying them, have spatial impacts and implications. She integrates this critical approach and an interest in Open Access/Open Educational Resources into her research and teaching.
Mark Ortiz
Mark Ortiz
Dr. Mark Ortiz, Presidential Postdoctoral Fellow at Penn State University, is a geographer with a strong background in youth and political geographies. His research, outreach, and public-facing work focuses on transnational youth climate advocacy and climate politics. His current work on youth advocacy and climate politics specifically focuses on building collaborative research approaches which involve youth advocates, researchers, storytellers, and content creators in the design and implementation of research projects surrounding climate and environmental justice.
Ivan J. Ramirez
Ivan J. Ramirez
Dr. Ivan J. Ramírez, Clinical Assistant Professor at University of Colorado Denver, is a geographer working in health/medical geography and global environmental change. He has done groundbreaking research on climate, health, and disaster capacity building. His work examines how communities interact with climate variability and extremes, and how those interactions influence the health and social vulnerability of populations. Dr. Ramirez also focuses on climate justice and community engagement.
Farhana Sultana
Farhana Sultana
Dr. Farhana Sultana, Professor at Syracuse University’s Maxwell School of Citizenship and Public Affairs, is a geographer with a strong background in human geography and environmental geography. Her interdisciplinary research spans political ecology, climate justice, and water governance. She is known for her cutting-edge work on the multifaceted impacts of climate change, water scarcity, and environmental injustices on marginalized communities. Her research and advocacy highlight the complex factors involved in global policymaking, development planning, and lived realities in the Global South, with an attention on intersectional impacts and decolonization possibilities.
V. Kelly Turner
V. Kelly Turner
V. Kelly Turner, Associate Professor of Urban Planning and Geography at the University of California Los Angeles, is a geographer specializing in Human-Environment Geography. She is known for her research on urban sustainability and heat, specifically focusing on ways to implement evidence-based and stakeholder-engaged planning and policy strategies to cool people where they live and work, especially through built environment retrofits.
David Oscar Yawson
David Oscar Yawson
Dr David O. Yawson, Senior Lecturer at The University of the West Indies (Cave Hill Campus), is a geographer with a strong background in agricultural and environmental geography. He is known for his work on agri-environmental resource and food system sustainability. His work on resource and food system sustainability focuses on agronomic and soft approaches to efficient use of water, land, and nutrients in agro-environments and the circulation of these resources via food commodity trade. This work also involves the use of geospatial tools in agricultural and environmental monitoring in the context of climate change, food security, and human resilience.
Laiyin Zhu
Laiyin Zhu
Dr. Laiyin Zhu, Associate Professor at Western Michigan University, is a geographer with strong background in climatology and extreme weather. He is renowned for his groundbreaking research on tropical cyclones and their connection to climate change. His work primarily focuses on modeling the physical mechanisms of tropical cyclones and their intricate relationship with the changing climate. Additionally, he has a broad interest in various topics, including the impact of extreme weather events and strategies for mitigating climate change.