Dr Gregory Thaler joins OSGA
This Michaelmas Term, we are pleased to welcome Dr Gregory Thaler to OSGA as Associate Professor of Environmental Geography and Latin American Studies in a joint appointment with the School of Geography and the Environment.
Dr Thaler’s academic interest in Latin America began when he was in his junior year at Yale University and considering where to spend time studying abroad. He explains, “I’m originally from Maine, the most northeastern state in the US, with a cold climate and long winters. I also had a number of friends from Latin America and already spoke Spanish, so I decided to study Portuguese and go to Brazil.” He went on to spend six months at the Pontifical Catholic University of Rio de Janeiro, with his interest in Latin America developing from there to include a year in Ecuador on a Fulbright Scholarship. This was the first time he visited the Amazon, further developing the research interests in forest conservation that he has pursued ever since.
“I approach this work from a deeply interdisciplinary perspective, drawing especially on geography, anthropology, environmental sociology, ecological history, and conservation science.
Dr Thaler went on to a position with UNESCO’s Man and the Biosphere Programme in Paris before receiving a PhD in Government from Cornell University in 2017. Since then, his research has focused on the political ecology and political economy of development, global environmental governance and agrarian politics. He says, “I approach this work from a deeply interdisciplinary perspective, drawing especially on geography, anthropology, environmental sociology, ecological history, and conservation science. I also have a special interest in comparative, ethnographic, and participatory methodologies, and regional focuses in Latin America and Southeast Asia.”
As co-director of the Brazil Natural Resource Governance Initiative (BNRGI), Dr Thaler works with a team of colleagues at the Federal University of Pará, in Belém, Brazil, and at the University of Georgia in the US, with a current focus on questions of climate resilience in small farmer agroforestry in the Brazilian Amazon.
At OSGA, Dr Thaler will be convening the Politics of Brazil module for the Latin American Studies programme in Hilary Term as well as teaching a new module on the Environmental Geography of Latin America and contributing to the Research Methods course. With regard to life in Oxford, he is enjoying the exciting international community here and appreciates the walkability and bikeability of the city and accessibility of green space – all great contributors to quality of life. We hope Dr Thaler will very much enjoy his time in Oxford.
