The Critical Environmental Geopolitics Research Group (with an emphasis on critical) is meant to be a shared space for graduate students interested in the intersections of space, politics, violence, health, and the environmental social sciences. Our group comprises undergraduate, Master’s, and Ph.D. students working around the world.
We discuss and conduct research that pays close attention to both the materiality of nature and the agency of people, groups, and institutions enrolled in ecological and health practices.
The lab group meets monthly to discuss term papers, thesis ideas, proposal and grant writing, and other issues intended to benefit all students.
Faculty
Current Postdocs
2025: Dr. Melvin Obadha (CGHE/SEAS Postdoc)
2025: Dr. Marlotte de Jong (Currently NCID/SEAS Postdoc)
Former Postdocs Supervised
2024 Dr. Sarah Caroll (Current at Smithsonian Institute)
2022 Dr. Wenjing Xu (Currently at University of Massachusetts, Amherst)
2020 Dr. John Mullen (Sustainability and Development)
2020 Dr. Philile Mbatha (Currently at University of Cape Town)
Current Students
Ph.D. Candidates
Former PhD Students
PhD 2025: Dr. Ember McCoy (Current Postdoc at Social Science Research Institute at Penn State University )
Dissertation: “There’s a disconnect between what your numbers say and what we live:” Understanding persisting environmental injustice in U.S. air pollution governance
PhD 2025: Dr. Marlotte de Jong (currently postdoc at SEAS, University of Michigan)
Dissertation Title: Lived Dynamics of Insecurity: Fragility, Embodiment, and Precarity in Kilifi County, Kenya
Current Ph.D. Committee Advising
2026 Eunsoo Hyun, Taubman College of Architecture and Urban Planning (A.P. Pimentel Walker, Chair)
Current Masters of Science (Thesis/Practicum)
2026: Andrew Clapper
2026: Ariza Nanji
2026: Cooper Sykes
Former Ph.D. Committee Advising
2026 Shahram Abbas
2026 K. Malulani Castro
2024 Kristen Connor (Anthropology & History)
2017 Katherine Browne (Now at Stockholm Environment Institute)
2018 Hayden Hedman (Now at CDC)
2015 Carolina Simao Roe-Raymond (Now at Princeton University)
2014 Joshua Cousins (Now at SUNY-ESF)
2011 Baruani Mshale (Now at Twaweza East Africa)
Former Masters of Science (Thesis)
2023: Meghna Patnaik
2023: Jessica Silber-Byrne
2022 Evan Klasky: Milking Welfare: The Inclusive Thanatopolitics of the Digital Dairy Farm
2021 Roshan Krishnan: “The gasoline of the future:” points of continuity, energy materiality, and corporate marketing of electric vehicles among automakers and utilities
2017 Marlotte de Jong: Constructing the Poacher: Narratives of Blame in Ivory Poaching
2017 Saachi Kuwayama: Protesting on Behalf: Constructing Legitimacy in Water Movements
2015 Claire Poelking: Gender and Pastoralism in an age of shifting political economies of labor
2015 Amanda Kaminsky: China in Africa and the New Safari
2012 Cara Steger: Citizen Science and Natural Resource Monitoring in African Protected Areas
2012 Erin Victor (committee member; Johannes Foufopoulos, Advisor)
2011 David O’Connor (committee member; Johannes Foufopoulos, Advisor): Grazing ecologies of giraffes and camels in Northern Kenya: Possibilities for Competition?
2011 Wan-Chih Cheng (committee member; Johannes Foufopoulos, Advisor): Effects of small ruminant grazing on ecosystem services in Greece
> 30 Masters of Science (Non-Thesis)
Critical Environmental Geopolitics Research Group 
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