Paul Robbins

Professor, Geography & Regional Development

Ph.D, 1996, School of Geography, Clark University

Phone: (520) 626-7062
FAX: (520) 621-2889
E-mail: robbins@email.arizona.edu

437A Harvill Building, Box #2
Tucson, AZ 85721
USA

Curriculum Vitae

Personal home page

Research

My research centers on the relationships between individuals (homeowners, hunters, professional foresters), environmental actors (lawns, elk, mesquite trees), and the institutions that connect them. My students and I seek to explain human environmental practices and knowledges, the influence non-humans have on human behavior and organization, and the implications these interactions hold for ecosystem health, local community, and social justice. Past projects have examined chemical use in the suburban United States, elk management in Montana, forest product collection in New England, and wolf conservation in India. Students working with me have explored the impact of agrarian transition on women in Bulgaria; the effects of land use change on water quality In the Great Lakes; the influence of gender dynamics on Ecuadorian ecotourism industries; the politics of groundwater management in Rajasthan India; the politics of science in managing water quality in Ohio; the linked struggles over urban growth and sewage overflows in Columbus, and the impact of plantation forestry on rural South African communities. My own current central concern is the common mosquito....

Project Involvement

• 2006. "Social Complexity and the Management of the Commons," with Dave Bennett, Dave McGinnins, and Catherine Kling. National Science Foundation.
• 2006. "Geographies of Insects and Institutions: Mosquito Governance in the US Southwest," with Andrew Comrie, John Paul Jones III, and Elizabeth Willott. National Science Foundation.
• 2004. "Assessing Rates of Participation in Nontimber Forest Product Harvesting in Northern New England," United States Forest Service.
• 2004. "Exurban Land Use Change, Watershed Management, and Surface Water Quality," with Philip Hisnay, National Science Foundation.
• 2004. "Land-Use Politics, Disturbance, and Biodiversity in the Indian Aravalli," with Thomas Waite and Kendra McSweeney. National Science Foundation.
• 2002. "Complexity Across Boundaries - Coupled Human and Natural Systems in the Yellowstone Northern Elk Winter Range," with Dave McGinnis and David Bennett, National Science Foundation.
• 2000. "Assessing and Explaining Consumer Landscape Practices: Towards an Ecology of the City," National Science Foundation.Air Quality Trends in the Southwest